10.25pm HUGHES: Craig Kelly summing up the night, “The polls have been 50:50 since the start of the election and that’s what we are seeing tonight. It’s unlikely we’ll know the result tonight. The Medi-scare campaign obviously influenced people’s votes. This is disappointing because the idea that Medicare would be sold is a blatant untruth and this is how elections are determined – by blatant untruths.”
10.15pm HUGHES: Craig Kelly with die-hard supporters celebrating a glorious victory at Nino’s Restaurant, Engadine.
10.02pm HUGHES: Latest result for Hughes sees Craig Kelly at 59..5 per cent and Diedree Steinwall at 40.5, two party preferred.
9.39pm COOK: Scott Morrison has retained Cook with a small swing against him of approximately one per cent.”Scott is grateful to the electorate for returning him member for Cook,” a spokeswoman said.
8.50pm HUGHES: Craig Kelly says the latest numbers are 60:40 to the Coalition on a two party preferred basis. “We are expecting that to improve once the pre-poll and postal votes are in,” he said. “There’s a small swing against us of about 1.9 per cent which is much smaller than the national average running against us of 3.6 per cent. It’s a tiny swing and a much better result than nationally. Our margin remains at 10 per cent.”
8.25pm COOK: ALP candidate for Cook David Atkins has got a one per cent swing to Labor in the safe Liberal seat. “Campaigning in a safe Liberal seat you ask yourself why do we do this. We fought a very good campaign for Medicare, Gonski, climate change and helping people achieve affordable housing by changes to negative gearing. We fought for fairness and equality in the nation and in Cook and Hughes and we fought this well.”
8.20pm HUGHES: ALP campaign manager for Hughes Peter Scaysbrook tells Diedree Steinwall supporters to hang onto their campaign T-shirts “because in eight weeks time we are going to do it all again in the council elections.”
8.15pm HUGHES: Diedree Steinwall tells supporters she is proud to be ALP candidate. “We had good policies on education, Gonski funding, apprenticeships and early childhood funding. All through the campaign Labor was the leader and all the Liberals did was play catch up. Finally Malcolm Turnbull had to say that he would not tough Medicare. This was due to us.the policies will stay regardless of whether we win or not.”
8pm: Scott Morrison tells ABC that Labor is not gaining enough ground in Victoria and Queensland to make the numbers.
7.55pm HUGHES: Hughes is currently tracking at a five per cent to the ALP, double the national average of 2.5 per cent.
7.42pm HUGHES: Looking like a five per cent swing to Labor in Hughes.
7.35pm HUGHES: Craig Kelly is heading to Nino’s Italian Restaurant at Engadine to join supporters.
7.20pm COOK: Scott Morrison staff report a positive reception from people across the electorate include at new booths across the Georges River. Some voters were perplexed about the boundary changes but said they were happy to have the treasurer as their member. some asked whether he would support the Dragons but he had nailed his colours to the wall for the Sharks.
7.12pm HUGHES: ALP candidate for Hughes Diedree Steinwall has arrived at Gymea Tradies to watch the count with supporters.
7pm COOK: Photo of Scott Morrison voting earlier today.
6.35pm HUGHES: Craig Kelly’s staff report “very positive feedback” from most booths across the electorate today.
6.15pm HUGHES: Polling booth staff are slowly making their way into Tradies Gymea as counting gets underway.
6pm: Good evening and welcome to our election live blog for the seats of Barton and Banks.(Prelude/preview story to set the scene – good thing to remember is that Blogs can be less formal than normal reporting.)
