When political events slip into the past it is often the case that historians see their results differently from the way in which partisans saw them at the time. Take, for example, the defeats of the Republic referendum in 1999 and the Voice referendum in 2023. At the time the Republic was seen as defeated by the model for the proposed president and the Voice was defeated also by its constitutional model. (It should have been legislated only.) Yet, over time I believe historians will say this: like all referendum questions which go down both proposals were defeated by the typical Australian way of saying: “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” That leads to a NO vote, the result that has occurred at 82% of federal referendums.
By-election results can also wind up being interpreted differently by historians from the way partisans saw them at the time. So, what I propose to do is consider the six Australian by-elections of 2026 and discuss their historical significance.
In chronological order they have been: Nightcliff for the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly on 7 March, Nepean for the Victorian Legislative Assembly on 2 May, Farrer for the federal House of Representatives on 9 May, Stafford for the Queensland Legislative Assembly on 16 May, Secret Harbour for the WA Legislative Assembly on 29 August and Mulka for the NT Legislative Assembly on 12 September. Five of the six were caused by resignations, the exception being Stafford, discussed below.
There seems to be only one part of Australia today where Labor is performing well. It is in the least significant jurisdiction in the country, the Northern Territory. Anyway, Labor has gained both Nightcliff and Mulka from other parties/independents, Nightcliff being a Darwin seat and Mulka being an east Arnhem rural seat based on Nhulunbuy. Having won only four of the 25 seats at the August 2024 general election, Labor now has six seats. On the other hand, the small numbers of voters should be noted. There were 5,940 voters in Nightcliff and 6,863 in Mulka. Four of Labor’s six NT seats are majority Indigenous. They are Arafura (83%), Gwoja (75%), Arnhem (69%) and Mulka (62%).
Of the remaining four by-election results it seems to me that only Farrer and Nepean are significant pointers to the future. I dismiss Secret Harbour (36,407 electors) because I do not believe that Andrew Hastie will be defeated in Canning at the May 2028 federal general election. By the time the next Western Australian state election rolls around (in March 2029) the current Hansonite fad will surely have passed.
There were 124,320 electors enrolled to vote in the Farrer by-election which means that nearly half of those voting in all these by-elections were Farrer electors. That makes it clearly the most important. Its result is likely to be viewed by historians as the most predictive. Not only may it be seen to foreshadow a bunch of Coalition seats falling to One Nation, but the state seat of Albury could also fall. Yet my guess is that it will stay with the sitting Liberal MP, Justin Clancy, who has a similar role among the NSW Opposition as Hastie has federally. Both Liberal parties have a leader from the lower house and a deputy from the upper house and each of Hastie and Clancy is the party’s deputy leader in the lower house.
As I reported in “Three by-elections give wins to different parties” (posted on 26 May), Nepean was a brilliant win for the Victorian Liberals. I explained it thus in my article: “Nepean was last won by Labor in November 2018 when the winner, Chris Brayne, secured 50.9% of the two-party preferred vote. In November 2022 he was defeated by Liberal, Sam Groth who secured a swing of 7.2% so won with 56.3%. After the cynical and selfish resignation of Groth, the new Liberal member, Anthony Marsh, has now won with 63.3% (in competition with a leftish independent) so he has achieved a further swing of an even 7%. The total swing, therefore, has been 14.2% since 2018”.
The reason why I considered Nepean to be a very good Liberal win was that it went against the normal trend of what happens when a member resigns. Normally the party loses the seat to another party, as happened in Farrer, Secret Harbour, Nightcliff and Mulka. However, in this case the Liberal Party not only retained Nepean. It scored a landslide win. This result, therefore, confirms what I have said and written all year. At the late November Victorian state election there will be a victory for the Coalition, which will win an absolute majority of seats in the Victorian Legislative Assembly.
Finally, there was the unusual case of the by-election for Stafford (Queensland). Labor held the seat but with a small swing to the Liberal Party. Had that Labor member, Jimmy Sullivan, resigned selfishly, Labor would have lost the seat. So, why did Labor hold on? Simple, really. The member, Jimmy Sullivan, died. In that unusual circumstance, the voters were not hostile to the party which had lost its member through death. It was time to give the party another chance.
