Latest news with #Kapterian
7NEWS
2 days ago
- General
- 7NEWS
Federal election: Teal indpendent Nicole Boele wins Bradfield by 27 votes
Independent Nicolette Boele has claimed the last remaining seat of the federal election after winning a closely fought recount for the Sydney electorate of Bradfield. The recount saw the teal independent finish just 27 votes ahead of Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian. Ms Kapterian led by eight votes after the first count of the seat was carried out, which triggered an automatic recount by the Australian Electoral Commission as the result was under 100 votes. Ms Boele then regained a narrow lead during the recount, holding on to claim victory. The independent won the seat on Sydney's north shore on her second attempt, winning what was one of the Liberal Party's safest seats in parliament. After some media outlets declared the seat for Ms Kapterian during the initial count, she was allowed to take part in a Liberal party room vote for a new leader in May. The Liberal candidate was assigned a portfolio in Opposition Leader Sussan Ley's shadow cabinet, contingent on the final outcome in Bradfield. The margin in Bradfield following the recount is one of the closest at a federal election in history. It is not clear whether the Liberals will consider a legal challenge to the election result in the Court of Disputed Returns. Ms Boele's victory means there will be 13 MPs on the crossbench in the lower house, while the coalition will have 43 seats against Labor with 94 seats in the new parliament.
West Australian
2 days ago
- General
- West Australian
Final seat in federal election decided on just 27 votes
Independent Nicolette Boele has claimed the last remaining seat of the federal election after winning a closely fought recount for the Sydney electorate of Bradfield. The recount saw the teal independent finish just 27 votes ahead of Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian. Ms Kapterian led by eight votes after the first count of the seat was carried out, which triggered an automatic recount by the Australian Electoral Commission as the result was under 100 votes. Ms Boele then regained a narrow lead during the recount, holding on to claim victory. The independent won the seat on Sydney's north shore on her second attempt, winning what was one of the Liberal Party's safest seats in parliament. After some media outlets declared the seat for Ms Kapterian during the initial count, she was allowed to take part in a Liberal party room vote for a new leader in May. The Liberal candidate was assigned a portfolio in Opposition Leader Sussan Ley's shadow cabinet, contingent on the final outcome in Bradfield. The margin in Bradfield following the recount is one of the closest at a federal election in history. It is not clear whether the Liberals will consider a legal challenge to the election result in the Court of Disputed Returns. Ms Boele's victory means there will be 13 MPs on the crossbench in the lower house, while the coalition will have 43 seats against Labor with 94 seats in the new parliament.
Perth Now
2 days ago
- General
- Perth Now
Final seat in federal election decided on just 27 votes
Independent Nicolette Boele has claimed the last remaining seat of the federal election after winning a closely fought recount for the Sydney electorate of Bradfield. The recount saw the teal independent finish just 27 votes ahead of Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian. Ms Kapterian led by eight votes after the first count of the seat was carried out, which triggered an automatic recount by the Australian Electoral Commission as the result was under 100 votes. Ms Boele then regained a narrow lead during the recount, holding on to claim victory. The independent won the seat on Sydney's north shore on her second attempt, winning what was one of the Liberal Party's safest seats in parliament. After some media outlets declared the seat for Ms Kapterian during the initial count, she was allowed to take part in a Liberal party room vote for a new leader in May. The Liberal candidate was assigned a portfolio in Opposition Leader Sussan Ley's shadow cabinet, contingent on the final outcome in Bradfield. The margin in Bradfield following the recount is one of the closest at a federal election in history. It is not clear whether the Liberals will consider a legal challenge to the election result in the Court of Disputed Returns. Ms Boele's victory means there will be 13 MPs on the crossbench in the lower house, while the coalition will have 43 seats against Labor with 94 seats in the new parliament.
Perth Now
3 days ago
- Politics
- Perth Now
Insane detail one month after election
One month after Australians cast their ballots at the federal election, the Liberal Party could be in for yet another blow to its ranks as Nicolette Boele extends in the nailbiter Bradfield recount. The Climate 200-backed independent candidate was ahead of Liberal Gisele Kapterian by just 28 votes in the Sydney seat on Tuesday morning. Independent candidate Nicolette Boele is leading in the nailbiter Bradfield recount. NewsWire / Damian Shaw Credit: News Corp Australia Ms Boele was initially declared Bradfield's winner but an administration error was uncovered and cut her lead. NewsWire / Damian Shaw Credit: News Corp Australia With the recount at 85 per cent complete, a win for Ms Kapterian is becoming less likely, but is not impossible. Ms Boele was initially declared the winner of the seat but an administration error was uncovered and dramatically cut her lead. Ms Kapterian then led by eight votes, triggering a total recount late last month. The tight count did not stop her being welcomed into the Liberal party room and even partaking in the leadership vote that saw Sussan Ley elected party leader. Losing Bradfield, which the Liberals have held since the Sydney electorate's creation, would further slim the party's numbers. The Australian Electoral Commision was expecting to declare a final result either on Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday. Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian will have a hard time overcoming Ms Boele's lead. Newswire / Gaye Gerard Credit: News Corp Australia Ms Kapterian has already been welcomed to the Liberal party room and took part in the leadership vote. NewsWire / Jeremy Piper Credit: News Corp Australia Meanwhile, Ms Boele on Monday thanked volunteers for cooking for her scrutineers, praising the community spirit. 'While our scrutineers are hard at work following every vote, a team of volunteers have been showing up each day at the shed with hot lunches – home-cooked, thoughtful, and generous,' she posted on social media. 'No fuss, no spotlight, just people quietly taking care of each other. 'This is what community looks like. And it's been the heartbeat of this campaign from day one. 'No matter what happens, it is such a joy to be part of this community.'
Sydney Morning Herald
4 days ago
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
Could there be a second election in the nail-biter seat of Bradfield?
Australian elections often throw up ultra-tight contests. But this year's battle for the seat of Bradfield on Sydney's north shore has been a roller coaster ride from the start. More than four weeks after election day, only a few votes separated Liberal hopeful Gisele Kapterian and teal independent Nicolette Boele. A recount is ongoing, but even that may not end in a candidate emerging victorious. There is a growing consensus that Bradfield could be headed back to the polls for a byelection. How did we get here? On election night it appeared Boele, who almost seized Bradfield in 2022, had won the seat on her second attempt, although she stopped short of claiming victory. Late that night, Boele led by almost 700 votes and many news outlets, including the ABC, called the electorate for her. As counting progressed, Boele's lead evaporated. A week after polling day, it seemed Kapterian had built an insurmountable advantage; several media organisations called the seat for the Liberals on May 12. But then Kapterian's buffer was whittled away and the lead changed again. When the initial count concluded, Kapterian was up by just eight votes and the Australian Electoral Commission ordered a recount. (It is AEC policy to do this if the final margin in a seat is fewer than 100 votes.) After more than a week of recounting, the result is still up in the air. At 2.30pm on Monday, live results published on the AEC's website showed Boele ahead by 20 votes, although the commission says this online tally 'is just a point in time figure and shouldn't be taken as instructive about the final result'. The full recount is expected to finish 'late this week'. What happens if the recount ends in a tie? Acting electoral commissioner Jeff Pope has said that in the event of a tie in Bradfield, the AEC would refer the result to the Court of Disputed Returns, which could order a byelection. Whatever happens in the count, Kapterian or Boele or any voter enrolled in Bradfield could petition the Court of Disputed Returns to overturn the result. Electoral analyst Ben Raue, who publishes the Tally Room website, believes a legal challenge to the result in Bradfield is 'pretty likely at this point' given the tiny margin. Raue believes a new election to decide Bradfield would be justified should the two-candidate preferred gap between Kapterian and Boele remain as close as it was in the initial count. 'I think there is a point where you get to where an election is so close that you can't actually be sure who has won,' he said. Electoral analyst and editor of the Poll Bludger website, William Bowe says trends in the recount so far suggest Boele will end up with a narrow lead once the recount is finished. He estimates the recount has cut a total of 82 votes from Kapterian's tally, after preferences, compared with 62 taken from Boele's total by late on Saturday. This has been due to recounted votes having been deemed to be informal. Loading But Bowe also expects the courts will be called on to adjudicate given the wafer-thin margin. 'I wouldn't blame either candidate for challenging it,' he said. 'Why wouldn't you roll the dice again?' Until recently, Bradfield had been considered a blue ribbon Liberal stronghold; Bowe says that makes a challenge from the party likely should Kapterian fall short. 'The Liberal Party will not want to lose that seat because they'll be worried they'd never get it back again,' he said. Bowe believes 'there's a very big chance that the margin will be so small that the court will say there has to be a fresh election'. What is the Court of Disputed Returns? The High Court sits as the Court of Disputed Returns, which has the power, under the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, to rule on the validity of federal elections. According to constitutional law expert Professor Anne Twomey, the court 'has very limited powers in relation to elections'. It can declare that candidates who were returned as elected were not elected. It can declare that other candidates were duly elected. The court can also declare an election to be absolutely void. A petition is a formal legal document asking the court to investigate the election, conduct inquiries and potentially overturn the result. It must be lodged within 40 days of the writs being returned. In the case of this election, the writs must be returned by July 9. This technically means if a candidate is declared the winner by the AEC, they could take their seat in federal parliament while the court considers the petition, although it would be a bold and unlikely move. (That said, Kapterian has already voted in the Liberal Party leadership ballot and Liberal leader Sussan Ley has given her a shadow ministry position.) Twomey says the petition must be able to point to evidence of irregularities in the election, such as the electoral commissioner wrongly ruling votes formal or informal, or proof that people voted twice. Bowe says it is common for a handful of voters to cast two ballots in each federal electorate. Has the court ordered a byelection in other tight races? The closest election victory in history was in the 1919 race for the Victorian seat of Ballarat (then spelt Ballaarat), in which Nationalist candidate Edwin Kerby finished just one vote ahead of Labor's Charles McGrath. McGrath challenged the result over electoral irregularities in the Court of Disputed Returns, which ordered a byelection. Loading McGrath won the rematch with a swing of 6.1 per cent. The court has also declared other election battles void, including Western Australia's half-Senate election in 2013, when on the initial counts, the final two seats would have gone to the Palmer United Party and Labor but on the recount, they went to the Australian Sports Party and the Greens. In a major twist, it was discovered that about 1370 ballots had gone missing, so the recount could not be properly completed. The electoral commission chief petitioned the Court of Disputed Returns to declare the election void. What would a byelection in Bradfield look like? If the battle for Bradfield ends with the election being declared void, voters in the seat will need to go back to the ballot box for a byelection. That byelection does not need to replicate the initial poll, which means it could be a two-horse race (Kapterian v Boele) if other candidates or parties do not want to run again. It is likely that Labor, which finished third in Bradfield with 22,777 votes, would not run again.
