Victoria hot seats LIVE results: Hamer slashes Ryan’s Kooyong lead to less than 400 votes; Bandt on track to lose Melbourne seat; Wilson says Goldstein win proves teals ‘not an unstoppable force’

Independent MP Monique Ryan’s lead in the seat of Kooyong has shrunk again this afternoon.

An updated count featuring a fresh batch of postal votes was completed not long ago, and Ryan is now just 366 votes ahead of Liberal Amelia Hamer, down from 622 a few hours ago.

That has narrowed the two-candidate-preferred result by 0.1 percentage points too: it now sits at 50.2 per cent Ryan to 49.8 per cent Hamer. We’re not far off a potential tipping point in the race.

While celebrating his victory in Goldstein this morning, Liberal candidate Tim Wilson commented on Hamer’s chances in Kooyong: “The trend lines are very encouraging, but it’s up to the voters to decide where that ultimately happens … but we’re very optimistic about where it’s heading.”

Hamer posted on social media shortly after: “Whichever way it goes, everyone who was part of the campaign should be so proud of what we achieved.”

While we wait to see if Hamer joins Wilson on the opposition benches, I’ve taken a look at how the new boundaries of Kooyong – redrawn since the 2022 election – might have affected the contest this time.

The electoral commission’s redistribution process abolished the neighbouring seat of Higgins, folding parts of it into Kooyong. These areas were always expected to be a wildcard for Ryan’s re-election bid.

An additional 26,000 voters were added to Kooyong from Toorak, Malvern, Armadale and parts of Prahran.

As mentioned in the blog previously, this redistribution was a catalyst for a short-lived push to recruit former treasurer and Kooyong MP Josh Frydenberg to recontest the seat – based on the belief that these wealthier areas might help swing the seat back to the Liberals.

Of course, Hamer was pre-selected in the end. But how did the redistribution shake out for both lead candidates in the end?

We’ve pulled the finalised two-candidate-preferred results for the 11 booths from these new areas and graphed them below:

It’s a mixed picture – but overall, Hamer performed well in the new territory, especially in Toorak, while Ryan held ground in the younger, more progressive pockets of Prahran. Ryan came out ahead in five of the 11 booths, though four were very tight:

• Armadale: 51.23 per cent
• Malvern Central: 52.23 per cent
• Malvern South: 50.19 per cent
• Prahran North East: 66.16 per cent
• Toorak Central: 50.73 per cent

Hamer led in the remaining six:

• Armadale Central: 52.41 per cent
• Armadale North: 54.33 per cent
• Malvern: 54.13 per cent
• Malvern pre-polling centre: 58.39 per cent
• Toorak: 61.95 per cent
• Toorak West: 57.67 per cent

Greens leader Adam Bandt has lost the seat of Melbourne in a shock defeat that leaves the party in disarray after a series of extraordinary setbacks at the election.

Labor claimed victory for its candidate, charity chief Sarah Witty, in the tight contest on Wednesday after gaining more than 53 per cent of the vote so far.

Greens leader Adam Bandt on Monday.Credit: Penny Stephens

Bandt gained roughly 47 per cent of the two-party preferred vote after suffering a significant swing against him across the electorate, which includes suburbs ranging from Carlton to South Yarra and Docklands to Richmond, as well as the city centre.

Greens observers said there are as many as 15,000 absentee and declaration votes still to be counted, which meant they were not conceding the seat.

Read more here.

Independent MP Monique Ryan’s lead in the seat of Kooyong has shrunk again this afternoon.

An updated count featuring a fresh batch of postal votes was completed not long ago, and Ryan is now just 366 votes ahead of Liberal Amelia Hamer, down from 622 a few hours ago.

That has narrowed the two-candidate-preferred result by 0.1 percentage points too: it now sits at 50.2 per cent Ryan to 49.8 per cent Hamer. We’re not far off a potential tipping point in the race.

While celebrating his victory in Goldstein this morning, Liberal candidate Tim Wilson commented on Hamer’s chances in Kooyong: “The trend lines are very encouraging, but it’s up to the voters to decide where that ultimately happens … but we’re very optimistic about where it’s heading.”

Hamer posted on social media shortly after: “Whichever way it goes, everyone who was part of the campaign should be so proud of what we achieved.”

While we wait to see if Hamer joins Wilson on the opposition benches, I’ve taken a look at how the new boundaries of Kooyong – redrawn since the 2022 election – might have affected the contest this time.

The electoral commission’s redistribution process abolished the neighbouring seat of Higgins, folding parts of it into Kooyong. These areas were always expected to be a wildcard for Ryan’s re-election bid.

An additional 26,000 voters were added to Kooyong from Toorak, Malvern, Armadale and parts of Prahran.

As mentioned in the blog previously, this redistribution was a catalyst for a short-lived push to recruit former treasurer and Kooyong MP Josh Frydenberg to recontest the seat – based on the belief that these wealthier areas might help swing the seat back to the Liberals.

Of course, Hamer was pre-selected in the end. But how did the redistribution shake out for both lead candidates in the end?

We’ve pulled the finalised two-candidate-preferred results for the 11 booths from these new areas and graphed them below:

It’s a mixed picture – but overall, Hamer performed well in the new territory, especially in Toorak, while Ryan held ground in the younger, more progressive pockets of Prahran. Ryan came out ahead in five of the 11 booths, though four were very tight:

• Armadale: 51.23 per cent
• Malvern Central: 52.23 per cent
• Malvern South: 50.19 per cent
• Prahran North East: 66.16 per cent
• Toorak Central: 50.73 per cent

Hamer led in the remaining six:

• Armadale Central: 52.41 per cent
• Armadale North: 54.33 per cent
• Malvern: 54.13 per cent
• Malvern pre-polling centre: 58.39 per cent
• Toorak: 61.95 per cent
• Toorak West: 57.67 per cent

Tim Wilson fought back tears as he claimed victory in Goldstein at an emotional press conference next to Brighton’s main Church Street shopping strip this morning.

“I’m very proud,” he started saying, before he had to pause to compose himself.

“Deep breath, deep breath,” one of Wilson’s many blue-T-shirt-clad supporters called out.

“I’m genuinely very proud to say that we are pleased to accept that we have won the seat of Goldstein back,” he said to loud cheers.

Wilson said he had over 1000 volunteers as well as donors and supporters who formed a “grassroots movement” in Goldstein.

“We did not have massive cheques written to us by entities based in Sydney who tried to treat the community like it was an acquisition in a trust fund,” Wilson said in a dig at Climate 200, which was a major donor to teal independent Zoe Daniel’s campaign.

After the press conference, I asked him what he thought his win meant for the teal movement.

“The teals are not an unstoppable force. No matter how large their chequebook, it can be beaten by a strong Liberal heart and a courageous Liberal heart,” he said.

Supporters congratulated Tim Wilson today as he claimed Goldstein again.Credit: Paul Jeffers

“It obviously sends a very strong message to them, because there was a hubris that they thought that they could just sort of get in and entrench themselves.”

Wilson said his win put the teals on notice that they could not take their positions for granted.

“There’s a way forward for us [the Liberal Party], but it requires us showing that sense of core belief, that courage and that conviction in what we believe in and what we stand for,” he said.

I asked him what he thought of members of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church campaigning for the Liberal Party across the country, Wilson said that was not the case in Goldstein.

An emotional Wilson thanked supporters after claiming victory in Goldstein.Credit: Paul Jeffers

“Obviously people got volunteers from where they did, but ours was a community-based campaign of residents who very much wanted to make sure they saw change, and we have delivered that change, and that’s all I’m going to comment on,” he said.

I also asked Wilson about Jason Falinski, who has publicly backed him as a potential party leader. The former Liberal MP is head of the Australians for Prosperity lobby group, which ran many of the anti-Daniel attack ads in Goldstein, and is a good friend of Wilson’s.

“I’m very privileged to have people who believe in me,” Wilson said. “Obviously, I’ve got not just supporters who believe in me, a community believes in me, and there are people around the country who believe, believe in this campaign, and we carry their trust.”

After he spoke, Wilson was swarmed by well-wishers who wanted to shake his hand, take a selfie with him or have a quiet word to him.

The count continues in Goldstein, but Wilson’s lead has stretched to 1193 votes on a two-candidate-preferred basis.

“It’s obviously deeply emotional for me, because it’s one thing to have had the privilege before, but to have it a second time,” he said.

As votes continue to be counted, Labor has consolidated its lead in Wills, making yesterday’s predicted outcome – the ALP retaining the seat – all but certain.

Neither Labor’s Peter Khalil nor the Greens’ Samantha Ratnam would be interviewed about the result this morning.

Labor’s Peter Khalil looks likely to retain the seat of Wills.Credit: Gus McCubbing

With 78 per cent of the vote counted by this morning, the Greens appear increasingly unlikely to close Labor’s 4000-vote lead.

Absentee ballots, which typically favour the Greens, are yet to be counted, along with provisional and declaration pre-poll votes. A Greens win remains mathematically possible – but only just.

If it is over for Ratnam, a former state party leader and a formidable campaigner, it marks the end of a bid she launched more than a year ago, resigning from the Victorian parliament to contest Wills.

Greens candidate Samantha Ratnam on the campaign trail.Credit: Joe Armao

Her campaign mobilised 700 volunteers who knocked on more than 70,000 doors, made 20,000 phone calls, and placed 1100 signs on fences. While Labor surged nationally, she pulled off a 7 per cent swing to the Greens in Wills.

Wills spans progressive suburbs like Brunswick and Coburg, and once traditionally Labor-leaning areas including Pascoe Vale, Fawkner, Oak Park and Glenroy. But as we posted yesterday, all of that was shaken up this election.

And a boundary redistribution before this election added some of Australia’s most Greens-friendly booths – in North Fitzroy and North Carlton – to Wills for the first time.

But those booths, it turns out, did not remain as strongly Green as expected.

“The booths that were in Wills at the last election, there was a swing to the Greens in that area. But in the areas that were in the seat of Melbourne at the last election, there was a swing to Labor,” ABC election analyst Antony Green said.

“The overwhelming majority of swings in the booths in this seat are to the Greens. But all of the booths where the swing was to Labor are in that area transferred out of the seat of Melbourne.”

“Princes Hill, for instance, it had a big swing to Labor.”

Counting continues. We’ll update you the moment either side claims the seat or concedes.

Unless the final votes bring a surprise, Labor has survived the Greens’ strongest challenge yet in Wills – though perhaps not its last.

The seats of Bruce, Wills and Goldstein have all been called. But it’s groundhog day in Kooyong, where another batch of postal votes has cut Monique Ryan’s lead yet again – and a final result is probably days away.

Another batch of around 2000 votes was counted this morning, favouring Hamer with 59.6 per cent of the vote.

Counting continues: Independent Monique Ryan and Liberal Amelia Hamer are still hoping to claim Kooyong.Credit: The Age

This edges Hamer ever closer to Ryan: the two-candidate-preferred tally now sits at 50.3 per cent to 49.7 per cent, with just 622 votes separating them — down from around 1000 last night.

Postal votes will continue to be counted in batches of about 2000. There are 6567 postals in the current “to-count” pile — but that pile is growing, as more postal votes arrive in the mail. There are still 5000 postal votes yet to reach the AEC (if all the issued envelopes are returned).

In addition to postals, there are three other categories of votes that make up a substantial share of the outstanding total — and none of them have been counted yet. They include:

• Absent votes: 4916 were cast for Kooyong, but only 537 (about 10 per cent) have made it back so far. These are votes from Kooyong residents who voted outside the electorate on election day — and it takes time for them to arrive from across the country. The AEC will wait until all absent votes have arrived before beginning to count them.
• Declaration pre-poll votes: 4137 were cast, with only 507 (12 per cent) received so far. These are votes cast outside Kooyong during the pre-poll period that require an extra check on voter enrolment — often because the voter is a silent elector, meaning their address is not on the public roll for privacy reasons. The AEC will not count these votes until all declaration votes are in.
• Provisional votes: A small pile of 401 provisional votes is also yet to be counted. These are used when there is doubt about a person’s eligibility — for example, if their name wasn’t on the roll, they didn’t have ID (in some states), or their name had already been marked off elsewhere. These votes are sealed and only counted after enrolment details are confirmed, which takes extra time.

If you’re interested in digging around in these numbers you can do so via the AEC’s Tallyroom for Kooyong page.

Victorian shadow treasurer James Newbury, whose state seat of Brighton falls within Goldstein, said Liberal colleague Wilson had campaigned strongly for a year.

“I think that Tim and the local Liberal Party ran a wonderful campaign in our community – a very, very strong campaign,” Newbury said.

Tim Wilson has claimed victory in Goldstein.Credit: Paul Jeffers

“Tim started a year out from the election ... He was out on the ground talking to people with massive community support, and he did a really strong job. ..

“And at the end of the day, the community expect strong local representation, they don’t want to see you just on election day,” Newbury said.

“That’s what Victorians and Australians now expect from their local representatives, and that’s, frankly, what every representative should be doing.”

Read more in our Victoria’s hot seats blog here.

Tim Wilson has reiterated his support for nuclear power hours after a party room colleague broke ranks to urge the Liberals to ditch the controversial policy.

Wilson said he believed in nuclear power “not as an end, but as a beginning”.

Supporters congratulated Tim Wilson today as he claimed Goldstein again.Credit: Paul Jeffers

“Nuclear power is part of building the future industrial base of our country,” Wilson said.

“If we don’t do that, then we are saying either we’re going back to coal, or we as a nation are going to de-industrialise. That is not a future I’m prepared to accept. ”

In an interview with this masthead, Liberal senator Maria Kovacic earlier shared her preference to scrap the nuclear plan in favour of renewable energy investment.

She said she thought the Australian people had rejected Coalition’s energy policy at the polls on Saturday.

Kovacic’s comments are the first public rejection of the Coalition’s nuclear plan by a member of the federal party room.

Tim Wilson has claimed victory in the Melbourne seat of Goldstein, toppling one-term teal incumbent Zoe Daniel who defeated him in 2022.

Daniel claimed the seat on election night, but a late flow of postal votes put the Liberal candidate, who held Goldstein from 2016 to 2022, in pole position.

Tim Wilson has claimed victory in Goldstein.Credit: Paul Jeffers

“We have won,” Wilson said. “We have done something truly incredible … we had to defy political gravity to get here.”

While celebrating an “incredible” victory, Wilson conceded there was a “lot of work ahead” for a downtrodden Liberal Party, but shared his optimism for the party’s future.

“We very much built [our campaign] from the bottom up, and I think there are a lot of lessons for the recovering Liberal Party about how it wants to take on the future of the country,” Wilson said.

“Three years ago we were written off here. We went back to the ground. We listened, we heard the messages from the community. We were honest with ourselves enough to learn and grow.

“We looked at what it is we needed to build and to appeal to people’s aspiration for the future of this country, we are an example of what could be done.”

Liberal candidate for Goldstein Tim Wilson held a press conference in Melbourne. Watch below.

Expected new member for Goldstein Tim Wilson has left the door open to leading the opposition’s arguments against Labor on tax, invoking his high-profile and contentious campaign against Bill Shorten’s franking credits policy when he was last in parliament.

In his first remarks since The Age projected he had beaten teal MP Zoe Daniel, Wilson said he maintained his determination to fight Labor on economic management, as moderates in the party push for him to be installed as shadow assistant treasurer.

Tim Wilson said it was a critical milestone for the Liberal Party to prove teals could be beaten.Credit: Wayne Taylor

Asked if he wanted that role, Wilson said: “Well, we’ll see on all of those things.”

“Last time I was there I fought on the front lines about the pathway the country should take, and I obviously have a keen interest in economics. And none of those things are going to change.”

Wilson said he had long been a supporter of nuclear energy as a pathway to achieving the target of net zero emissions by 2050, and that had not changed, as moderate senator Maria Kovacic called for the policy to be dumped.

The former minister has secured a 3.6 per cent swing towards him on current counting, and is 0.3 per cent ahead of Daniel on a two-party preferred measure.

Wilson said it was a critical milestone for the Liberal Party to prove teals could be beaten.

“We were talking about defying political gravity stuff,” he said. “Do not think this was lost on me. When you look back, you think ‘you’d be mad to run, you’d be mad’.”