Seesaw: Labor back in front in Fisher
Labor is back in front in the knife-edge battle to win the seat of Fisher – but it’s now clear that a result will not be known until Saturday.
Labor’s Nat Cook fell behind Liberal candidate Heidi Harris yesterday by 17 votes after the pre-poll ballots went heavily in the Liberals’ favour.
However, a count of 192 postal votes this morning catapulted Cook to a narrow 21-vote lead.
Strategists from both parties are increasingly confused by the twisting and turning battle, which started on the weekend with Cook holding a strong 600-plus lead on a two-party preferred basis.
That lead was whittled away by the count of postal votes and then totally wiped out by the pre-poll votes.
That trend had been expected to continue today, but the primary votes counted today were split almost evenly between Labor, Liberal and independent Dan Woodyatt.
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Labor’s advantage today was that about three quarters of Woodyatt’s preferences flowed to Cook.
The Electoral Commission will not count postal votes again until Friday, with Commissioner Kay Mousley telling InDaily that she expects very few postal votes to trickle in before then.
The mail-box will be checked for a final time on Saturday, before the commission completes the final preference distribution.
Preferences are going to be crucial, with very few votes left to count.
Mousley said only 22 votes were received in the mail by the commission today – and she’s not holding out hope for many more coming in over the next few days.
“It will be very small numbers,” Mousley said. “We reckon we might not get another 100. Then we will have to make sure they have cast their vote before polling day.”
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She said it was now clear that a final result will not be known until Saturday, when all preferences are allocated including from all candidates, including a raft of independent and minor party candidates.
Woodyatt agrees with this message – and is keeping a close eye on independent Dan Golding, who was the next best performing candidate after him, with 878 primary votes.
“He’s the great unknown,” Woodyatt told InDaily. “It’s very difficult to ascertain who his voters are.”
Senior Liberal Rob Lucas said the result was impossible to predict and a recount was likely next week.
He said Woodyatt would need to claw back 700 votes to leap-frog Cook and get himself into contention to win the seat.
“This is a big ask, but there are just under 3000 minor and independent votes,” Lucas said. “It will be close, because a lot of independent (preferences) are going to other independents ahead of the major parties, as you would expect.”
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