As arguably Australia’s best known and most accurate amateur psephologist, I’ve been amazed by the number of people asking for my prediction on the outcome of the Dunkley federal by-election in south-eastern Melbourne today.

You’d think someone might have been interested.

Still, here goes. Drum roll and the envelope please. The winner of today’s ballot will be…

No, Wait on. Let me spell out my reasonings first.

The traditional by-election swing against a sitting government might indeed be on – even perhaps in earnest here – but as our Dunkley folk trudge down to their local polling booth it won’t be because a sitting member has resigned mid-term in disgrace or who has simply pulled the pin to spend more time with their mistress. The death from cancer of the sitting Labor member has been a terribly sad affair.

But the outcome will still be a big test for both Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton so this amateur psephologist has to answer the question: what is the burning issue for Dunkley voters today? It’s supposedly the cost-of-living crisis, and when you look at the Dunkley demography, no-one’s suffering more than them with mortgage stress and rising rental costs adding to their supermarket and petrol station woes.

So, both major parties have been honing in on that issue? Well, no. Albanese and Co. have been, laying out what the Labor government has attempted to do these past 20 months or so to lessen their day-to-day cost of living pains and their very real mortgage repayment/rental pains.

Dutton and his mob have taken a totally different tact. It’s border security and the LNP’s ongoing claim that Labor has not kept Australians safe since being blind-sided by the High Court ruling that long-term detention of refugees was unlawful.

It’s very informative that the only time the LNP has broken even in Newspoll was after Dutton and his shadow ministers screeched loud and loud (why did Michaelia Cash’s vision come immediately to mind just then?) that Labor fucked up monumentally. The line that Labor had only one job to do – to keep Australians safe and they stuffed it up – clearly remains a powerful one, albeit perhaps ephemeral in nature given Labor quickly got their lead back in the next Newspoll.

Dutton’s LNP would have only released the one refugee at the centre of the High Court action! And they wouldn’t have waited until the court released all of its findings before rushing through legislation that allowed for all these dreadful criminals to be taken out back and shot. Well, as close as possible to that.

Both LNP arguments were – and remain – largely nonsense of course. And knowing he’s never going to be pinged by a cloying and compliant and biased mainstream media, he has ramped up this nonsense on the Dunkley hustings. He basically declared yesterday that if PM he will ignore High Court rulings.

Backing him to the hilt has been a racist, fear-mongering campaign by Advance, or Advance Australia as it was known when it was helping to crush the Voice referendum. The SMH puts their spend at $300,000, a very substantial amount for a by-election.

Have another look at their advertising. There are 151 federal electorates and 149 refugees – not all of them rapists, paedophiles and murderers – were released. Victoria has 39 federal electorates; Advance claims 40 are in Victoria.

It took a while but the government got through some tough legislation and we’d all hope the worse of these people are well and truly under control. Well, except for the LNP, of course. So the chances of just one rapist, paedophile or murderer reeking their evil ways on Dunkley voters is pretty damn low, sensible, sane, logical people would have to think.

And then we had Sussan Ley’s X post that has decent people all over Australia shaking their heads about the racist and scare-mongering cesspit Ley seems more than happy to now be wallowing in. Oh, what a fall from grace after so many years in the big House.

She and Dutton have not blinked an eye or shown any remorse whatsoever now that it’s been disclosed that the coppers fucked up; that the released man among those 149 was wrongly arrested and had nothing to do with alleged sexual assaults in Victoria.

The truth has never mattered much to Dutton. This amateur psephologist reckons he’s probably the most unworthy person ever to be so close to the prime ministership of this country.

He is ruthless and dangerous and I reckon he’d fuck a male dog in the main street of Frankston in the Dunkley electorate this very morning if he thought it would give his Liberal candidate the final vote needed to claim victory tonight.

So there we have it. Albanese talking about the cost of living crisis. Dutton and Co. largely ignoring it, probably a very wise idea seeing they’ve opposed every action the Labor government has taken since the 2022 election to help alleviate people’s suffering. Except for the revamped Stage 3 tax cuts, which they are vowing to bring back if elected next year.

So, here’s the dilemma for arguably Australia’s best known and most accurate amateur psephologist.

Today is not a test of the IQ of Dunkley voters. But it is a test of their characters.

So a drum roll please as I open the envelope and announce that the winner of today’s byelection will be…

Sorry. One final reflection. Are Australian voters so easily misled and frightened by nonsense or is there just a chance, to give an old amateur psephologist some faith in Oz – that they can see what’s happening on the national political landscape over recent times?

Right. Here we go. And the winner tonight is…

Just spare me one more moment of weighing up the odds. Do I swing with all those Sky News Australia political experts who can see the end of Albanese as a result of today’s vote, or do I listen to the bookies who are predicting a reasonably safe Labor hold the last time I looked. I haven’t followed what the Herald Sun has been writing over recent weeks but if they’ve been virulently anti-Labor as usual that should help Labor’s cause.

My heart wants a good result for Labor; my faith in the Australian electorate is, like my brain at the moment, much more bruised than that.

My prediction then: a sizeable swing to the Liberals close enough at the end of counting to have them looking good for eventually grabbing the seat.

No, wait! I can’t do that. Not to my country. I’d rather toss my shingle back in the bin than predict that!

At the end of counting tonight, Labor 54.32 Liberal 45.68 2PP.

Don Gordon-Brown

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