Victoria hot seats LIVE results: AEC vote count updates for Goldstein, Kooyong, Wills and all key Melbourne electorates after Labor secures huge federal election victory

While not strictly one of our Hot Seats, the contest in Calwell is shaping as one of Victoria’s most fascinating.

Tally Room election analyst Ben Raue says counting there may take another two weeks, as Labor’s primary vote in the north-west fringe Melbourne seat falls.

The Labor candidate in the seat, Basem Abdo, currently has about 30 per cent of the primary vote, representing a 14.2 per cent swing against the party.

While he leads that count, Raue said the AEC may need to re-calculate the leading two candidates as support for independents soars.

“In Calwell, the two-candidate preferred count between Labor and Liberal is not very interesting and it’s not what’s relevant,” Raue said. “What’s relevant here is you’ve got two independents, one is on 12 per cent, and the Liberals on 16 and Labor on 31.”

Raue said the AEC may need to split the two-party preferred count three ways, or even four ways, in Calwell to see who comes out on top.

“I’ve never experienced, I’ve never seen this before. Literally, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a race like this, where the third and the fourth candidates look like they could win. And I don’t know which of them it is,” he said.

Independent candidates Carly Moore (a former Labor local mayor) and Joseph Youhana currently have 12.1 per cent and 11.9 per cent of the votes, as postal votes continue to flow in.

The AEC has said it will have to do a total recount on Tuesday, which could drastically change the game.

Raue said multiple calculations could be completed with preferences, which could mean the final result in Calwell could take up to two weeks.

“Each of these is not just a simple question. This is moving tens of thousands of ballot papers around the table, and it’s a big exercise to do work,” he said. “Part of the complexity is there are heaps of candidates running.”

Two other Victorian seats to watch are Flinders and Bendigo and Raue said we can expect more information on those later today.

If you’re obsessively refreshing the tally room feed today – you’re not alone. But the bad news is the count is slowing down.

I just got off the phone with Evan Ekin-Smyth, a spokesman for the Australian Electoral Commission, who gave a clearer picture of what’s happening behind the scenes.

There were 100,000 AEC staffers working at polling places and on the initial count on Saturday.

But that number drops significantly after election day as, from here, it’s less of a wave of votes and more of a trickle, especially when it comes to postal votes.

When do postal votes arrive?

Voters who applied for a postal vote have 13 days after election day to get their ballot to the AEC this year, by Friday, May 16.

“They absolutely had to have completed their vote by the close of polls on election day, 6pm on election day,” Ekin-Smyth said.

“But they didn’t have to put it in the mailbox by then. So they could have completed it at 5.59pm on election day and they could be coming out this morning to find a post box. It’s quite generous – we have to receive it by 13 days after election day.”

Ekin-Smyth said the vast majority of postal votes would arrive well before the deadline and most seats should be called before then. But in really tight contests (Goldstein, I’m looking at you), the wait could stretch the full two weeks.

There’s also a logistical lag: overseas ballots from 111 countries, votes cast interstate at more than 600 centres, and the laborious process of sorting, verifying and allocating those ballots correctly.

“If they come from London, for example, they’re for 150 different divisions,” Ekin-Smyth said.

“We’ve got to stick them in all the different pigeonholes for the right division and then send them off. Transport isn’t magic, right?

“And even if we did have 100,000 people working again, they’d just be sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting for the mail.”

So what’s happening in our hot seats today?

• Kooyong: A few more postal votes are expected to be counted today – at 11am there were 10,526 envelopes in the queue waiting to be counted.
• Goldstein: Also due for some additional postal counting today. There are 3289 votes (comprising postal from interstate, and silent electors, who prefer not to have their names on the electoral roll) processed and ready to be counted.
• Wills: Don’t expect much movement today. AEC teams are focused on preliminary scrutiny in Wills – essentially, the admin task of marking off voters from the roll and prepping votes for later counting. Expect more movement in the tally for Wills tomorrow.
• Bruce: Done and dusted with Labor comfortably home.

So yes, we’re all in for a wait. Candidates, the public and yours truly. There’s no rest for the wicked, they say.

The mood has shifted dramatically in Kooyong since Saturday night, when Dr Monique Ryan and her supporters were celebrating what looked like a confident win.

The nearly 30,000 postal votes have served a dose of political uncertainty, and now, on Monday morning, the race is far from over.

Speaking on ABC Radio Melbourne this morning, Ryan sounded far less confident than she had 36 hours earlier.

Monique Ryan speaking on Sunday morning after election night to her volunteers at campaign headquarters.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

“Not at all,” she replied when host Raf Epstein asked if she was still sure of victory.

“I think it’s 50-50 in Kooyong. Things were looking good on the night and, you know, in Antony Green we trusted,” she said, referring to the ABC’s respected election analyst who called the seat for Ryan on the night, as did The Age. The ABC and our mastheads have since downgraded their calls.

“But postal votes have been very much pro the conservative side. So I think at this point, Kooyongis still very much up in the air.”

Asked directly whether she could lose, she said: “It’s possible. Absolutely.”

Meanwhile, her Liberal opponent Amelia Hamer — who has remained silent publicly since election night — appears to believe momentum is now with her.

I’ve just seen an email sent by Hamer to party volunteers late on Sunday night. The subject line: “We now need just 943 votes to win the seat of Kooyong.”

“Last night was not the result we had hoped for the Coalition,” the email reads. “We had an average 3% swing against us across the country. But thanks to all your hard work, we managed to fight the national swing.

“It is now clear there will be a swing towards us in Kooyong. There are only a small handful of seats nationwide where this is the case. Currently the swing to us in Kooyong is +1.5% and we have 49% of the vote. That is a direct result of your efforts over the past year.”

“There are still 22,000 votes to be counted, and we need just 943 extra votes to win.”

“Most of the uncounted votes are postal votes. They are coming in very strongly in our favour. If these postal votes continue on their current TPP trajectory of 62–38, we can win this seat. That is not blind hope — that’s the raw numbers.”

Amelia Hamer casting her vote on Saturday at Balwyn Primary School.Credit: Rachael Dexter

Hamer also apologised for missing any supporters at her election night event: “I missed you at the Tower last night while we waited for pre-poll to be counted,” she wrote. (As reported, Hamer did not appear until about 11pm.)

She thanked volunteers for “all your blood, sweat and tears” and said the campaign had done “everything we possibly could have in the face of extremely challenging conditions.”

On ABC radio this morning, Ryan described the Liberal campaign against her as “pretty vicious”.

“I have to say it’s great to see community independents succeeding interstate, and I was so happy to see colleagues doing really well there,” she said. “But I think that both Zoe [Daniel] and I have faced really pretty vicious battles in our electorates in Melbourne.

“We were up against not just the Liberals. We had dozens of conscripts, particularly from the [Exclusive] Brethren, into our communities. We had a number of other right-wing groups — Repeal the Teal, Better Australia, Advance, Australians for Prosperity. (For a rundown on those groups and who is behind them, check out my colleague Cara Waters’ excellent explanation here.)

“The Liberals teamed up with the coal lobby and fossil fuel lobbies, and they really came for us — really hard,” said Ryan.

Ryan questioned whether the Liberal Party’s focus on Goldstein and Kooyong had been the right strategic move for the conservative party.

“One of the things that will be interesting in the wash-up is for the Liberal Party to assess whether that’s where they should have put all their time and effort,” she said.

“People from Deakin and Menzies and Chisholm might think that effort could have been better placed elsewhere.”

At this point, Ryan said that neither she nor Daniel was feeling “entirely comfortable” and she was bracing for a long week ahead.

Kooyong MP Monique Ryan was all smiles this morning after likely securing a second term in one of the most closely watched races in the country.

As of 9pm Sunday, 75 per cent of the vote as been counted, with Ryan ahead of Liberal Amelia Hamer after preferences 51 per cent to 49 per cent.

“We had a good night,” she said with a grin, reflecting on the teal election party that took over the Auburn Hotel in Hawthorn.

But her attention quickly turned to what lies ahead.

With the Coalition “eviscerated,” Ryan believes the expanded crossbench will function as a de facto opposition in Parliament.

“I think it’s more important than ever that the crossbench act to hold the government to account on things that our communities want us to see them act on,” she said.

“We want a government that will act effectively and quickly on climate action and on their net zero transition... The Albanese government will have no excuse not to take on the big issues, and the crossbench will hold them to account on that.”

The Age barrelled through a host of topics in light of the historic election outcome:

No call yet from Hamer

Ryan said, as of lunchtime, she still hadn’t heard from her Liberal opponent, Amelia Hamer, who made a delayed appearance at her own party late last night and has not publicly conceded.

We’ve reached out to Hamer today but not heard back, and her advisor says she won’t speak while counting continues.

“There are still a lot of votes to be counted, including a lot of postal votes that have not yet been counted, and the result has not yet been confirmed,” Ryan said. “So I think it’s entirely reasonable that I haven’t heard from her yet.”

A “brutal” campaign

Ryan described the campaign as “brutal,” singling out the volume of negative advertising directed at her. But she noted a shift in tone during the final stretch between her team and the Liberal party volunteers on the ground.

“We actually started to work more effectively and collegially with the Liberal Party volunteers at pre-poll. None of us felt comfortable with the tone — people didn’t like it. It didn’t sit well with us or with our community.”

She sees this as evidence that Kooyong voters are rejecting the “politics of division.”

Strong support in Liberal heartland

Even in the newer parts of the electorate — including former Higgins territory like Toorak and Armadale — Ryan says her message resonated.

“It’s clear we were able to do pretty well. People still care about climate action, the cost of living crisis, and housing. They want tax reform. They want an economic strategy that’s inclusive and addresses intergenerational inequality.”

Working across the aisle

Ryan says her approach in the next term will again be pragmatic and collaborative, including with unlikely allies.

“I actually had a great deal of fun in the 47th Parliament working with people across the House — Bob Katter, even Barnaby [Joyce] on Assange,” she said. “I’ll work with anyone, pragmatically and sensibly, on the issues that matter to my community.”

On Dutton’s Defeat

Asked about Peter Dutton’s shock loss in Dickson, Ryan said she felt sorry for “everyone who lost their seat”.

She said Dutton’s loss reminded her of her former opponent Josh Frydenberg who lost the seat of Kooyong in 2022 when he was serving treasurer: “It’s probably really hard — we saw this in Kooyong last time — to have a really senior role in a political party and be a good local member. People are saying they want their representatives to be local and community-based.”

She said the Liberal campaign overall “has been profoundly rejected by the country”.

“They didn’t come to the election with meaningful policies on climate, housing, health, disability, aged care or childcare. People want a vision.”

Cost of living and climate were intertwined

While the cost of living dominated the national narrative, Ryan says climate change (which was her biggest policy platform in 2022) remains front of mind in Kooyong — and the two issues are inextricably linked.

“People talked about electricity, gas, insurance, groceries — all affected by climate change. I do think climate action is still front of mind, even if people aren’t using those exact words.”

Rebuilding relationships and sense of safety in Kooyong

In her second term, Ryan says she’ll focus on rebuilding cohesion in the community.“There are social issues in this community, safety is a concern.”

But she also called out senior Liberal figures for targeting Chinese Australians during the campaign – after a video emerged showing two people in Ryan campaign T-shirts handing out the teal MP’s how-to-vote cards and saying they were directed to vote for Ryan by an organisation which has been accused of working with an agency which advances the interests of the Chinese Community Party.

“Every time Chinese Australians got involved in politics, we saw people like Jane Hume and James Paterson punch down on them. It was unfair and deeply unhelpful.”

And about that 21st upstairs…

And finally, for those wondering if Ryan’s crowd and George’s 21st birthday upstairs at the Auburn Hotel ended up overlapping last night, the answer is: probably not.

“Not that I know of! But knowing Kooyong, half the people at the party probably knew George and his parents,” Ryan giggled. “But I apologise if there was any disruption [to George’s party].”

Liberal candidate Tim Wilson is “incredibly optimistic” of winning Goldstein as postal votes heavily favouring the former MP have rolled in, slashing his election-night deficit.

Wilson believes he can snatch the seat back from teal independent Zoe Daniel, who thought she had retained Goldstein on election night.

“We have bucked a massive trend, and I think it’s really important to understand this,” Wilson said in a video posted to social media late on Sunday afternoon.

“Basically, most of the nation went that way, and Goldstein went that way,” he said pointing, in opposing directions.

Wilson said in Victoria there was a statewide swing against the Liberals of about 2 per cent, but in Goldstein there was a primary vote swing to the Liberals of 3.8 per cent or nearly 4 per cent.

“In effect, we have bucked the trend by nearly 6 per cent and that has come down to all of the people who have been part of this campaign, who’ve come along, have participated wilfully, willingly and bought energy and enthusiasm.”

Daniel made a victory speech on Saturday night when the vote count had her ahead, but since then postal votes have closed the margin.

“In Goldstein the largest booth is postal votes,” Wilson said. “There were 27,000 postal-vote applications, and we’re watching them roll in.”

On Sunday morning, Daniel enjoyed a lead of 1800 votes, at the time of Wilson recording his video it had dropped to 700 votes and at 7pm it was down to 95 votes.

“Every single batch of votes counted, it continues to collapse,” Wilson said.

He said postal votes in Goldstein usually track in the Liberal Party’s favour by a ratio of about two-to-one.

“That’s the reason we remain incredibly optimistic, but we are not seeking to comment on the result until we see the final results,” Wilson said.

Wilson declined a request for an interview but posed for photographs at Brighton Baths with his husband, Ryan Bolger, whom he thanked for his support.

“I’m battle weary, I’m tired and I’m elated it’s over,” he said.

Wilson also acknowledged the catastrophic result for the Liberal Party across Australia.

Liberal candidate for Goldstein Tim Wilson and his husband Ryan Bolger.Credit: PENNY STEPHENS

“Last night was a very challenging night, if you’re a proud Liberal like I am, for the Liberal Party,” he said.

Wilson said he wanted to honour former opposition leader Peter Dutton for his service, but said: “It’s one of those times where the Liberal Party is going to have a look at itself.”

“Now’s not a time to turn on each other, now is a time to turn to each other to support each other,” he said.

Wilson said the Liberal Party was founded as the “front line” against political intersectional interests and vested interests.

“The results clearly show that is not over, that there is still a lot of room for optimism and that we still have a lot of justification for hope, but we are just going to have to be patient,” he said.

Daniel also declined an interview request today and issued a brief statement.

“The result in Goldstein is obviously close and it will be some days before the result is confirmed,” she said.

“I again thank the voters of Goldstein for their support as well as the many volunteers who worked tirelessly on my campaign.”

There was a hungover delirium inside Monique Ryan’s campaign office in Glenferrie Road, Malvern, this morning, where more than 100 teal-clad volunteers – bleary-eyed from dancing into the wee hours at the Auburn Hotel – gathered for a morning-after regroup.

Some brought cakes and slice, some brought their kelpies.

This was the army behind Ryan’s win in Kooyong: more than 55,000 doors knocked, 2300 corflutes placed on fences and 1000 volunteers out on election day alone.

Monique Ryan and supporters at her campaign headquarters on Sunday.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

Campaign manager Conal Feehely called out one volunteer, Tony, who spent all of last night scrutinising results at the central counting booth.

At midday today, there were still 10,000 postal votes to count and Feehely said there were “mathematical possibilities” Ryan could lose her hold.

Ryan herself added: “The prediction so far is that we’ll be OK ... but it’s not in the bag, and I don’t take anything for granted.”

The woman of the hour took the mic to address the room, reflecting on the campaign, the result and what the community’s vote signalled about the future of Australian politics.

In a speech that ranged from gratitude to grim honesty, Ryan said the nastiness of ground-game politics seen in Kooyong had played out nationwide – but had been rejected by voters.

Here is an edited excerpt from her remarks:

I think we’ve woken up this morning to a country that is fundamentally different personally, I feel like the country has rejected the politics of division and has said it wants us to do things differently.

I don’t know exactly how things are going to go. People keep asking me, ‘What’s going to happen now? How’s it going to be?’

We have a government with an increased majority. We have an opposition that’s been eviscerated.

There are still many seats in the mix, and we don’t yet know what the final shape of the parliament will be. But what we do know – what you’ve all helped make clear – is that we don’t want politics as it used to be. We want people-powered politics. We want it done differently.

There’s been a real tendency to flood the zone in parts of Australia – and we’ve seen that in Kooyong. Those of us who’ve been doorknocking or on pre-poll and polling booths in the last few weeks have come up against torrents of negativity.

Every household in this electorate has been letterboxed repeatedly with negative advertisements. We don’t want it to be like that. What we want is for our community to rebuild. And I think most of us want politics to be more respectful and, hopefully, more conciliatory – to reach bipartisanship on the things that really matter.

So people are asking me, ‘If you’re still there, and they’ve got a bigger majority – what are you going to do?’ We’re going to hold them to account. That’s what we’ll do.

We know what Australians want. They want certainty about their economic future. They want real action on climate change. They want to know the government cares about them – and will deliver adequate health care, mental health care, dental care, disability care, aged care and child care. And that’s what the crossbench will fight for in this term of parliament.”

Ryan hugged her volunteers, including Davina Lipmann. from action group Grandmothers for Refugees.

“I’m incredibly relieved, tearfully relieved,” Lipmann told The Age.

Ryan hugs Davina Lipmann from action group Grandmothers for Refugees.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

Lipmann said of Ryan: “She’s worked so hard. She’s delightful, sophisticated, mature. She knows what she’s doing, and she’s taken on so many issues that were new for her – she didn’t know them before. She’s a great listener, and she’s compassionate.”

Lipmann hopes Ryan can deliver the influence she spoke about on the Albanese government for the issue she cares about most.

“The refugees who came by boat who are still living very constrained lives,” she said. “Hopefully this new government will be able to reverse the barbarity and cruelty that’s happened before.”

Independent teal MP Zoe Daniel says a result could be days away in Goldstein, despite her having claimed victory at her election party last night.

After midday, with just over 74 per cent of ballots counted, Daniel was leading with 51 per cent of the two-party preferred vote, ahead of Liberal candidate Tim Wilson on 49 per cent.

Liberal candidate for Goldstein Tim Wilson and husband Ryan Bolger. Credit: Penny Stephens

She was not available for interview on Sunday but issued a brief statement at midday.

“The result in Goldstein is obviously close and it will be some days before the result is confirmed,” she said.

“I again thank the voters of Goldstein for their support as well as the many volunteers who worked tirelessly on my campaign.”

Wilson has also declined all interview requests today.

“I’m just going to let the votes fight, act and work for me,” he said in a text message.

Last night Wilson said he thought he might get up on postal votes, which were trending two-to-one in his favour.

“It’ll be tight,” he said. “The whole nation went in one direction. We went in the other direction. I’m pretty proud of that. Succour if I fail, but I genuinely think I’ll get there.”

Last night Daniel thought she had won after waiting until almost 11pm to claim victory.

“We just wanted to be sort of solid in the result before we spoke,” she told me after her victory speech.

“My team are very good on data so they spend a lot of time just crunching the numbers.”

Labor and the Greens were both still hopeful of picking up Wills as counting continued at an Australian Electoral Commission site in West Footscray on Sunday.

Neither Labor’s Peter Khalil nor the Greens’ Samantha Ratnam would offer a view on who was ahead, although there was a sense from Labor that it was more likely to do better on postal votes now being counted.

By Sunday afternoon, with 70 per cent of the vote counted, Labor was ahead by 0.68 per cent.

Both Ratnam and Khalil were at Vicki Cleary Day at the Coburg football ground on Sunday.

The event is organised by Phil Cleary, former independent MP for Wills, whose sister Vicki was killed in 1987 by her ex-partner.

Greens candidate for Wills Samantha Ratnam at the Coburg football ground on Sunday morning.Credit: Clay Lucas

“It’s dedicated to all of the women we have lost to men’s violence and the women running the gauntlet of men’s violence,” Cleary said on Sunday morning.

Families of women killed by men spoke at the event, followed by a Coburg-Carlton VFL match. The first bounce was scheduled for 1pm.

Labor MP for Wills Peter Khalil at the football ground.Credit: Clay Lucas

“There are still plenty of votes to count,” Khalil told The Age, while Ratnam said she was feeling hopeful as scrutineering continued but that it would take some time before a final result was known.

The Liberal vote in Wills dropped by about 4 per cent. Socialist Alliance candidate and Merri-bek councillor Sue Bolton was pleased to post a 5.5 per cent swing in her favour.

“I haven’t looked at the booth-by-booth results yet, but I think it’s two things: Gaza … and the capitalist dream – that if you work hard and study hard, you will get the good job and the good house – is over,” she said on Sunday morning. “People are looking for more radical alternatives than the major parties offer.”

Bolton said she wasn’t sure who would win Wills, but thought Khalil might “squeak back in”.

“It would be a positive if the seat switches from Labor to the Greens,” she added.

Aside from Bolton’s Socialist Alliance, all parties in Wills urged voters to preference Labor ahead of the Greens on their how-to-vote cards.

It’s the morning after the election and Goldstein still hangs in the balance. The dance floor was heaving when I left Zoe Daniel’s victory party just before midnight.

The teal independent MP claimed victory in a jubilant speech at the Elwood Bowls Club.

“We did it!” she told the crowd of hundreds of teal T-shirt-clad supporters. “In Goldstein, hope wins.”

But Liberal candidate Tim Wilson is not so certain. He has not conceded. As counting gets under way for a second day, the result is still tight, with Daniel just in front.

Just over 74 per cent of the vote was counted by 10am, when Daniel led with 51 per cent of the two-party-preferred vote, ahead of Wilson on 49 per cent.

Wilson thinks he may get up on postal votes, which he said were trending two-to-one in his favour.

“Daniel is welcome to claim whatever she wants – it is the voters that will decide the result,” he said last night.

“It’ll be tight. The whole nation went in one direction. We went in the other direction. I’m pretty proud of that. Succour if I fail, but I genuinely think I’ll get there.”

Monique Ryan has all but claimed victory in the seat of Kooyong again, confirming the once-blue ribbon seat for the community independent movement for another three years.

Hundreds of teal-clad volunteers packed into the beer garden at the Auburn Hotel. At 11.15pm, the crowd parted as Tina Turner’s River Deep – Mountain High rang out.

Ryan emerged with her family – husband Peter and children Annabell and Patrick – and climbed a teal crepe-paper-covered podium.

Monique Ryan with her family at the Auburn Hotel in Hawthorn.Credit: Gus McCubbing

Together, they lifted a sign high to an erupting crowd.

“Kooyong, we did it!” the sign read.

“What an amazing, amazing three years. I cannot thank every single one of you enough,” Ryan said.

“We’re still waiting for some data to come in … but it seems pretty clear that despite the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, this band of brothers has overcome the Brethren,” she said – a dark-humoured reference to reports of Exclusive Brethren volunteers campaigning for the Liberal Party in marginal seats, including Kooyong.

“As I did in 2022, can I say that I can’t believe the power of this community. I can’t believe what we’ve achieved together.”

Reflecting on her first term as an independent MP, Ryan acknowledged the challenges: building a team and electorate office from scratch, operating constantly in the public eye, and being held to a high standard.

Monique Ryan enjoying her after-party on Saturday night.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

“Everyone makes mistakes in life, and I and my team have done that at times,” she said. “But what we’ve discovered is that with generosity and faith – and with the help of people from the community – you can get past those things.

“And we’ve been able to, in three years, put together a body of work, which has shown the community of Kooyong that it’s worth having independent representation.”

She then turned to the people behind her campaign – a long, handwritten list of volunteers’ names she rattled off with affection.

Ryan and family on stage.Credit: Rachael Dexter

Ryan also acknowledged her political opponents, thanking Liberal candidate Amelia Hamer, Labor’s Clive Crosby and Greens candidate Jackie Crosby.

“It’s not easy to be a political candidate … They’re all good people, quite young people — and I feel maternal, which they probably wouldn’t appreciate – but that’s OK,” she laughed.

She also described the more toxic mood of this campaign, compared to her breakout win in 2022.

“This has been tough,” she said. “2022 was joyous and fun. This has been really hard … there are lots of reasons for that.

“I think as a country, we’re a different country from where we were three years ago. We have some challenges. We have some bridges to rebuild and some things to mend. But I think we can do that.

“We’ve lost some of the joy that we had. We’ve lost some of the cohesion we’ve always enjoyed as a country – one of the wonderful things about living here. But with your help, as part of the 48th parliament, I believe we can bring it back.”

She ended the speech with “let’s have a party” and Tina Turner’s song blasted out again.