Higgins & Bradfield by-elections

The Liberals have won comfortably in both the Melbourne-based Higgins and Sydney-based Bradfield by-elections, getting over 50% of the primary vote.

The Labor Party didn’t run in either electorate, so it was the Green Party that was the major opposition. In Higgins (Melbourne) the Greens picked the anti-growth, anti-development, anti-capitalist, anti-internet, anti-sex campaigner crazy Clive Hamilton… who managed to pick up a respectable 35%. I hope that a lot of that is a protest, or simply an anti-Liberal vote, because it’s scary to think that 35% of voters want us to be poorer.

Of the minor parties, the best performances came from the Sex Party (3.4%, 3.5%) and the Democratic Labour Party (2.1%, 3.9%). The Democrats (remember them?) got 2.4% in Higgins, One Nation did poorly (0.3%, 0.6%) and surprisingly Family First didn’t run. In Bradfield the Christian Democrats got 3.4% of the vote spit between 9 candidates, including the donkey vote.

Interestingly, there were three climate change specific parties. The climate skeptics got 1.7% and 1.8%, which was quite good considering they didn’t get their party registered in time and so had to run as independents. The climate change alarmists got 1.1% (Bradfield), and the nuclear energy mob got 1% (Bradfield).

The Liberal Democrats got 0.4% 0.5% (Higgins) and 0.7% 0.8% (Bradfield). It doesn’t look like much, but it is an improvement on the 2007 federal election. For instance, in 2007 the LDP got 0.1% in Wentworth (Sydney), 0.1% in Bennelong (Sydney), and 0.1% in La Trobe (Melbourne). At this rate of improvement, they’ll be in power in 10 years.