Latest news with #NicoletteBoele
The Guardian
5 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Decoding a voter's poor handwriting is subjective – let's enlist AI to help with the Bradfield recount
Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian has appealed her narrow loss to Nicolette Boele in Bradfield to the court of disputed returns. According to Professor Anne Twomey, no questions of law are raised in Kapterian's challenge. Rather, the court is being asked to determine more mundane questions. Is that 1 actually a 7; is that 6 an 8? and so on. Cases like this present an almost absurd disjuncture between the banality of the evidentiary questions – is a 1 a 7? – and the weight of the consequences: who shall represent over 100,000 citizens in parliament? Australian elections are global exemplars of fairness. All adult citizens are required to be enrolled and to turn out to vote. Ballots can't be hacked in Australia: they are tangible things, physical pieces of paper, with handwritten markings. Scrutineers from both sides carefully observe the count. The entire electoral process is administered by a politically neutral agency, the Australian Electoral Commission. The prospect of an Australian election being determined by competing subjective assessments about poor handwriting is jarring, at odds with the rigorous procedural fairness so valued and so manifest in Australian electoral law and practice. AEC officials no doubt do their best, and must make thousands of these judgments in the course of closely scrutinised counts like the one in Bradfield. Indeed over the course of a career, many AEC officials must become some of the most experienced handwritten-digit distinguishers in the world. Nonetheless, challenges to their initial judgments can be made under section 281 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act, reserving disputed ballots for determination by a more senior AEC official. Further challenges about the formality of these ballots can form the basis of a petition to the court of disputed returns. The last time the courts considered questions about ballot formality was in 2007 from the seat of McEwen. The resulting federal court case produced one of the more unusual judgments one will find in Australian law reports. Mitchell v Bailey (No 2) contains a lengthy tabular schedule, listing the disposition of 643 reserved ballots and – in 153 instances – reasons for Justice Richard Tracey's assessments about ballot formality differing from those of the AEC. Examples include comments such as 'Notations reasonably resemble numbers. In particular, three of them can be recognised as figures 7, 6, 5.' Why? How? Presumably, they just did to Tracey, just as they did not to AEC officials. No criticism of the late justice is intended; the point is to highlight just how subjective and hence seemingly unfair these assessments – and election outcomes – can appear. Tracey's observations and principles were adopted in their ballot formality guidelines. Given the rather exhaustive guidance provided by Mitchell v Bailey, what's left to dispute? Highly subjective judgment calls about handwriting is all that is left to fight over, something akin to Australia's version of the United States's unedifying hanging chad episode in the 2000 presidential election. Can we do better? Could an election really be decided this way? That one person's 7 is another person's 1? Here's a modest proposal. For decades we've been training computers to recognise handwritten digits, principally for making mail processing and delivery more efficient. Massive datasets of real, handwritten digits have become one of the touchstones of machine learning, test beds for refining algorithms and global competition among researchers. The best algorithms have 99.82% accuracy in recognising digits. And the AEC itself uses digital scanning to process Senate ballot papers. The outputs of digit recognition algorithms are probabilities, summing to 1 over the 10 possible digits, collapsing to a probability of almost exactly 1.0 on one candidate digit in most cases, but more spread out when processing poor, ambiguous handwriting. Algorithmically derived, rigorously validated on massive datasets spanning hundreds of thousands of handwritten digits, these probabilities could be a useful alternative – or at least a guide – in helping a judge determine whether a 1 is a 7, whether a 2 is an 8, and so on, and ultimately as to whether a ballot is formal or not. One simple decision rule might be to classify an ambiguous mark as that digit recognised with probability above 0.5, consistent with courts' reliance on the 'balance of probabilities' as a decision rule in many legal settings. Humans remain very much 'in the loop' in this process. The algorithms only assist in the hard cases: the ballots subject to dispute. Further, while digit recognition algorithms process single digits, ballot formality turns on whether a unique, valid enumeration of preferences or sequences of digits can be discerned, an assessment that considers not just individuals marks but the ballot as a whole. Surely this guidance could not only help the court in a practical sense (parsing hundreds of reserved ballots) but offer reassurance to the parties – and the voters of Bradfield – that the election is being finally decided rationally and with a degree of objectivity, consistent with the fairness integral to Australian elections. Simon Jackman is an honorary professor at the University of Sydney, specialising in elections, public opinion and data science
ABC News
16-07-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian petitions High Court over 150 ballots
The defeated Liberal candidate for the federal electorate of Bradfield has raised doubts about more than 150 ballots, in a petition asking the High Court to overturn the result. The first full distribution of preferences in the seat on Sydney's north shore had Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian ahead by eight votes, but a recount saw independent Nicolette Boele declared the winner by 26 votes. After almost six weeks, Ms Kapterian announced on Monday she would take the result to the High Court, sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns. "We are requesting a targeted final examination of a small number of 'line ball' ballots," Ms Kapterian said in a statement posted to social media. She has now lodged a petition, asking the court to overturn the result and declare her the winner. The petition claims the electoral officer wrongly rejected at least 56 ballots which favoured Ms Kapterian. This includes 22 ballots where the officer concluded certain numbers were not distinguishable from other numbers, and 34 ballots where numbers were deemed illegible. Ms Kapterian argues, taking the ballot papers as a whole, it was clear "that the voter intended to indicate a first preference for 1 candidate and an order of preference for all remaining candidates". Ms Kapterian has further identified at least 93 ballots favouring Ms Boele which she claims were wrongly admitted, despite similar issues. She argues a further two ballots favouring Ms Boele were admitted despite "having upon it a mark or writing … by which the voter could be identified." In her social media post, Ms Kapterian said in launching a legal challenge, she was not questioning the integrity of the electoral system. "This process has only served to reaffirm my faith in Australia's democratic institution," she said. The new parliament is due to sit for the first time next week, and Ms Boele has said she is preparing to deliver her first speech the week after. In her own social media statement, she said she would seek donations to fund her legal costs. "We can't rely on volunteers in the High Court, we need good lawyers and that is expensive," Ms Boele said. It is not yet known when the Court of Disputed Returns might sit to hear the case.
The Advertiser
15-07-2025
- Politics
- The Advertiser
This systemic problem in our federal elections is not being adequately addressed, and it's growing
After every election, Parliament's powerful electoral matters committee reviews that election. This time, it must be a top priority to deal with the rising number of votes that are struck out as informal. People absolutely have the right to choose "none of the above" when they step into the polling booth, but there are just as many, if not more, who are attempting - and failing - to exercise their precious democratic right. We need to do far more to make sure the rules are simple, consistent and clear. That responsibility rests with everyone from schools, to the media, citizenship preparation courses, the political parties and the Australian Electoral Commission. Why is nobody upset that an extraordinary 18,274 voters had their ballots excluded from the May election count in just one electorate - the south-western Sydney seat of Werriwa? It was the highest number and greatest percentage of informal votes in any of the 150 electorates contested at the federal election. Yet there is no outrage that 17.26 per cent of the voters in a marginal seat were not heard. It was double the rate from the previous election and the number of ballot papers rejected was far greater than the eventual winning margin of 11,870 for Labor's Anne Stanley. In some individual polling places in Werriwa more than one-in-four votes were struck out. In Ashcroft it was 28 per cent. Werriwa was the worst, but it was by no means the exception. In a staggering 20 seats, the informal vote was larger than the winning margin. Nationwide, almost 920,000 votes were excluded from the count. In the nail-bitingly tight seat of Bradfield in Sydney's north, won by Nicolette Boele by 26 votes, there were 6656 informal votes. In the Victorian seat of Goldstein, where Liberal Tim Wilson wrestled the seat from teal independent Zoe Daniel, the informal vote was 18 times higher than the winning margin of 175 votes. Even in the ACT seat of Bean, where Labor's David Smith got a massive scare from independent candidate Jessie Price and prevailed by only 700 votes, more than three times as many votes, 2670, were ruled informal. And in the south-western Sydney seat of Fowler, which was hotly contested between Independent Dai Le and Labor's Tu Le, the informal vote rose by 3.4 per cent with 15,079 ballots struck out in a seat where the margin was 4974 votes. More people voted informally than for the Liberal candidate. In 11 seats, more than one-in-10 votes were ruled informal, and across the nation, it was 5.6 per cent of all votes cast, which is the highest since 2013. And that doesn't include the 1.7 million people who were enrolled and didn't turn up to vote on the day, early or at all. Based on past trends, and it will vary for every electorate, about 40 per cent of people choose "none of the above". About half of this cohort deliberately left their ballot paper blank. The other half marked the ballot paper in some way, such as writing slogans, adding candidate names such as Donald Duck or Donald Trump or drawing genitals. There's always someone who writes their own name on the ballot paper. But that leaves a large group who tried to vote properly yet are not being heard, and are still most likely unaware their vote is not being counted. The Electoral Commission instructs staff to assume the voter intended to cast a formal ballot, and it will allow votes where numbers are crossed out or over-written as long as the "intent" of the voter is clear. In the election, there were some suspiciously high informal voting rates in hospitals and aged care homes, while in one small northern NSW booth, electoral officials inexplicably gave people the wrong advice. These are exceptions that can be fixed, but there is a systemic problem that is not being adequately addressed. It is no accident that NSW has 19 of the top 20 electorates for informal votes in the House of Representatives. In a NSW state election, you can simply put the number 1 next to the candidate you want and not mark any other boxes. In a federal election, you must number every box without repeating or missing a number. Former Nationals leader Michael McCormack, who holds the seat of Riverina, which had 13,443 informal votes, says it is "madness" that federal, state and local government voting systems are different. And he is not the only one calling for a rethink. Regardless of whether we have a compulsory or optional system to number every box on the ballot paper, this is a situation that must no longer be tolerated. Many high-profile independent candidates also unwittingly contributed to the problem by handing out how-to-vote cards that had the number 1 next to their name and the other boxes left blank. Electorates with a high proportion of citizens born overseas have high levels of informal voting. The Electoral Commission knows this and says it "ran a significant communications campaign" translated into more than 30 languages and had information at every polling venue. The informal vote in most of these areas is rising, so it's not working. And too many votes are knocked out because voters simply make a mistake in sequentially numbering each box by either repeating a number or missing one. There's a whole other debate about people reaching the age of 18 who have poor literacy and numeracy that leaves them unable to complete a ballot paper. If this growing problem is not tackled, we're on a trajectory to have one million informal votes at the next election, with the majority of those cast by people who intended to have their voice heard. Surely, we can do better to make sure every vote counts. After every election, Parliament's powerful electoral matters committee reviews that election. This time, it must be a top priority to deal with the rising number of votes that are struck out as informal. People absolutely have the right to choose "none of the above" when they step into the polling booth, but there are just as many, if not more, who are attempting - and failing - to exercise their precious democratic right. We need to do far more to make sure the rules are simple, consistent and clear. That responsibility rests with everyone from schools, to the media, citizenship preparation courses, the political parties and the Australian Electoral Commission. Why is nobody upset that an extraordinary 18,274 voters had their ballots excluded from the May election count in just one electorate - the south-western Sydney seat of Werriwa? It was the highest number and greatest percentage of informal votes in any of the 150 electorates contested at the federal election. Yet there is no outrage that 17.26 per cent of the voters in a marginal seat were not heard. It was double the rate from the previous election and the number of ballot papers rejected was far greater than the eventual winning margin of 11,870 for Labor's Anne Stanley. In some individual polling places in Werriwa more than one-in-four votes were struck out. In Ashcroft it was 28 per cent. Werriwa was the worst, but it was by no means the exception. In a staggering 20 seats, the informal vote was larger than the winning margin. Nationwide, almost 920,000 votes were excluded from the count. In the nail-bitingly tight seat of Bradfield in Sydney's north, won by Nicolette Boele by 26 votes, there were 6656 informal votes. In the Victorian seat of Goldstein, where Liberal Tim Wilson wrestled the seat from teal independent Zoe Daniel, the informal vote was 18 times higher than the winning margin of 175 votes. Even in the ACT seat of Bean, where Labor's David Smith got a massive scare from independent candidate Jessie Price and prevailed by only 700 votes, more than three times as many votes, 2670, were ruled informal. And in the south-western Sydney seat of Fowler, which was hotly contested between Independent Dai Le and Labor's Tu Le, the informal vote rose by 3.4 per cent with 15,079 ballots struck out in a seat where the margin was 4974 votes. More people voted informally than for the Liberal candidate. In 11 seats, more than one-in-10 votes were ruled informal, and across the nation, it was 5.6 per cent of all votes cast, which is the highest since 2013. And that doesn't include the 1.7 million people who were enrolled and didn't turn up to vote on the day, early or at all. Based on past trends, and it will vary for every electorate, about 40 per cent of people choose "none of the above". About half of this cohort deliberately left their ballot paper blank. The other half marked the ballot paper in some way, such as writing slogans, adding candidate names such as Donald Duck or Donald Trump or drawing genitals. There's always someone who writes their own name on the ballot paper. But that leaves a large group who tried to vote properly yet are not being heard, and are still most likely unaware their vote is not being counted. The Electoral Commission instructs staff to assume the voter intended to cast a formal ballot, and it will allow votes where numbers are crossed out or over-written as long as the "intent" of the voter is clear. In the election, there were some suspiciously high informal voting rates in hospitals and aged care homes, while in one small northern NSW booth, electoral officials inexplicably gave people the wrong advice. These are exceptions that can be fixed, but there is a systemic problem that is not being adequately addressed. It is no accident that NSW has 19 of the top 20 electorates for informal votes in the House of Representatives. In a NSW state election, you can simply put the number 1 next to the candidate you want and not mark any other boxes. In a federal election, you must number every box without repeating or missing a number. Former Nationals leader Michael McCormack, who holds the seat of Riverina, which had 13,443 informal votes, says it is "madness" that federal, state and local government voting systems are different. And he is not the only one calling for a rethink. Regardless of whether we have a compulsory or optional system to number every box on the ballot paper, this is a situation that must no longer be tolerated. Many high-profile independent candidates also unwittingly contributed to the problem by handing out how-to-vote cards that had the number 1 next to their name and the other boxes left blank. Electorates with a high proportion of citizens born overseas have high levels of informal voting. The Electoral Commission knows this and says it "ran a significant communications campaign" translated into more than 30 languages and had information at every polling venue. The informal vote in most of these areas is rising, so it's not working. And too many votes are knocked out because voters simply make a mistake in sequentially numbering each box by either repeating a number or missing one. There's a whole other debate about people reaching the age of 18 who have poor literacy and numeracy that leaves them unable to complete a ballot paper. If this growing problem is not tackled, we're on a trajectory to have one million informal votes at the next election, with the majority of those cast by people who intended to have their voice heard. Surely, we can do better to make sure every vote counts. After every election, Parliament's powerful electoral matters committee reviews that election. This time, it must be a top priority to deal with the rising number of votes that are struck out as informal. People absolutely have the right to choose "none of the above" when they step into the polling booth, but there are just as many, if not more, who are attempting - and failing - to exercise their precious democratic right. We need to do far more to make sure the rules are simple, consistent and clear. That responsibility rests with everyone from schools, to the media, citizenship preparation courses, the political parties and the Australian Electoral Commission. Why is nobody upset that an extraordinary 18,274 voters had their ballots excluded from the May election count in just one electorate - the south-western Sydney seat of Werriwa? It was the highest number and greatest percentage of informal votes in any of the 150 electorates contested at the federal election. Yet there is no outrage that 17.26 per cent of the voters in a marginal seat were not heard. It was double the rate from the previous election and the number of ballot papers rejected was far greater than the eventual winning margin of 11,870 for Labor's Anne Stanley. In some individual polling places in Werriwa more than one-in-four votes were struck out. In Ashcroft it was 28 per cent. Werriwa was the worst, but it was by no means the exception. In a staggering 20 seats, the informal vote was larger than the winning margin. Nationwide, almost 920,000 votes were excluded from the count. In the nail-bitingly tight seat of Bradfield in Sydney's north, won by Nicolette Boele by 26 votes, there were 6656 informal votes. In the Victorian seat of Goldstein, where Liberal Tim Wilson wrestled the seat from teal independent Zoe Daniel, the informal vote was 18 times higher than the winning margin of 175 votes. Even in the ACT seat of Bean, where Labor's David Smith got a massive scare from independent candidate Jessie Price and prevailed by only 700 votes, more than three times as many votes, 2670, were ruled informal. And in the south-western Sydney seat of Fowler, which was hotly contested between Independent Dai Le and Labor's Tu Le, the informal vote rose by 3.4 per cent with 15,079 ballots struck out in a seat where the margin was 4974 votes. More people voted informally than for the Liberal candidate. In 11 seats, more than one-in-10 votes were ruled informal, and across the nation, it was 5.6 per cent of all votes cast, which is the highest since 2013. And that doesn't include the 1.7 million people who were enrolled and didn't turn up to vote on the day, early or at all. Based on past trends, and it will vary for every electorate, about 40 per cent of people choose "none of the above". About half of this cohort deliberately left their ballot paper blank. The other half marked the ballot paper in some way, such as writing slogans, adding candidate names such as Donald Duck or Donald Trump or drawing genitals. There's always someone who writes their own name on the ballot paper. But that leaves a large group who tried to vote properly yet are not being heard, and are still most likely unaware their vote is not being counted. The Electoral Commission instructs staff to assume the voter intended to cast a formal ballot, and it will allow votes where numbers are crossed out or over-written as long as the "intent" of the voter is clear. In the election, there were some suspiciously high informal voting rates in hospitals and aged care homes, while in one small northern NSW booth, electoral officials inexplicably gave people the wrong advice. These are exceptions that can be fixed, but there is a systemic problem that is not being adequately addressed. It is no accident that NSW has 19 of the top 20 electorates for informal votes in the House of Representatives. In a NSW state election, you can simply put the number 1 next to the candidate you want and not mark any other boxes. In a federal election, you must number every box without repeating or missing a number. Former Nationals leader Michael McCormack, who holds the seat of Riverina, which had 13,443 informal votes, says it is "madness" that federal, state and local government voting systems are different. And he is not the only one calling for a rethink. Regardless of whether we have a compulsory or optional system to number every box on the ballot paper, this is a situation that must no longer be tolerated. Many high-profile independent candidates also unwittingly contributed to the problem by handing out how-to-vote cards that had the number 1 next to their name and the other boxes left blank. Electorates with a high proportion of citizens born overseas have high levels of informal voting. The Electoral Commission knows this and says it "ran a significant communications campaign" translated into more than 30 languages and had information at every polling venue. The informal vote in most of these areas is rising, so it's not working. And too many votes are knocked out because voters simply make a mistake in sequentially numbering each box by either repeating a number or missing one. There's a whole other debate about people reaching the age of 18 who have poor literacy and numeracy that leaves them unable to complete a ballot paper. If this growing problem is not tackled, we're on a trajectory to have one million informal votes at the next election, with the majority of those cast by people who intended to have their voice heard. Surely, we can do better to make sure every vote counts. After every election, Parliament's powerful electoral matters committee reviews that election. This time, it must be a top priority to deal with the rising number of votes that are struck out as informal. People absolutely have the right to choose "none of the above" when they step into the polling booth, but there are just as many, if not more, who are attempting - and failing - to exercise their precious democratic right. We need to do far more to make sure the rules are simple, consistent and clear. That responsibility rests with everyone from schools, to the media, citizenship preparation courses, the political parties and the Australian Electoral Commission. Why is nobody upset that an extraordinary 18,274 voters had their ballots excluded from the May election count in just one electorate - the south-western Sydney seat of Werriwa? It was the highest number and greatest percentage of informal votes in any of the 150 electorates contested at the federal election. Yet there is no outrage that 17.26 per cent of the voters in a marginal seat were not heard. It was double the rate from the previous election and the number of ballot papers rejected was far greater than the eventual winning margin of 11,870 for Labor's Anne Stanley. In some individual polling places in Werriwa more than one-in-four votes were struck out. In Ashcroft it was 28 per cent. Werriwa was the worst, but it was by no means the exception. In a staggering 20 seats, the informal vote was larger than the winning margin. Nationwide, almost 920,000 votes were excluded from the count. In the nail-bitingly tight seat of Bradfield in Sydney's north, won by Nicolette Boele by 26 votes, there were 6656 informal votes. In the Victorian seat of Goldstein, where Liberal Tim Wilson wrestled the seat from teal independent Zoe Daniel, the informal vote was 18 times higher than the winning margin of 175 votes. Even in the ACT seat of Bean, where Labor's David Smith got a massive scare from independent candidate Jessie Price and prevailed by only 700 votes, more than three times as many votes, 2670, were ruled informal. And in the south-western Sydney seat of Fowler, which was hotly contested between Independent Dai Le and Labor's Tu Le, the informal vote rose by 3.4 per cent with 15,079 ballots struck out in a seat where the margin was 4974 votes. More people voted informally than for the Liberal candidate. In 11 seats, more than one-in-10 votes were ruled informal, and across the nation, it was 5.6 per cent of all votes cast, which is the highest since 2013. And that doesn't include the 1.7 million people who were enrolled and didn't turn up to vote on the day, early or at all. Based on past trends, and it will vary for every electorate, about 40 per cent of people choose "none of the above". About half of this cohort deliberately left their ballot paper blank. The other half marked the ballot paper in some way, such as writing slogans, adding candidate names such as Donald Duck or Donald Trump or drawing genitals. There's always someone who writes their own name on the ballot paper. But that leaves a large group who tried to vote properly yet are not being heard, and are still most likely unaware their vote is not being counted. The Electoral Commission instructs staff to assume the voter intended to cast a formal ballot, and it will allow votes where numbers are crossed out or over-written as long as the "intent" of the voter is clear. In the election, there were some suspiciously high informal voting rates in hospitals and aged care homes, while in one small northern NSW booth, electoral officials inexplicably gave people the wrong advice. These are exceptions that can be fixed, but there is a systemic problem that is not being adequately addressed. It is no accident that NSW has 19 of the top 20 electorates for informal votes in the House of Representatives. In a NSW state election, you can simply put the number 1 next to the candidate you want and not mark any other boxes. In a federal election, you must number every box without repeating or missing a number. Former Nationals leader Michael McCormack, who holds the seat of Riverina, which had 13,443 informal votes, says it is "madness" that federal, state and local government voting systems are different. And he is not the only one calling for a rethink. Regardless of whether we have a compulsory or optional system to number every box on the ballot paper, this is a situation that must no longer be tolerated. Many high-profile independent candidates also unwittingly contributed to the problem by handing out how-to-vote cards that had the number 1 next to their name and the other boxes left blank. Electorates with a high proportion of citizens born overseas have high levels of informal voting. The Electoral Commission knows this and says it "ran a significant communications campaign" translated into more than 30 languages and had information at every polling venue. The informal vote in most of these areas is rising, so it's not working. And too many votes are knocked out because voters simply make a mistake in sequentially numbering each box by either repeating a number or missing one. There's a whole other debate about people reaching the age of 18 who have poor literacy and numeracy that leaves them unable to complete a ballot paper. If this growing problem is not tackled, we're on a trajectory to have one million informal votes at the next election, with the majority of those cast by people who intended to have their voice heard. Surely, we can do better to make sure every vote counts.
The Guardian
14-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Morning Mail: Chalmers' plea to opposition, Victoria banner stoush, Trump's arms for Ukraine
Morning everyone. Jim Chalmers has used an interview with Guardian Australia to urge the opposition to take a constructive attitude into next month's big productivity as he tries to find ways to fix the issue that has dogged Australia's economy. In other news, a study showing the extent of low pay endured by young workers sheds some light on the treasurer's pet problem; Victorian politics is engulfed by a battle over a rally banner; Trump announces a big arms deal for Ukraine; and a recipe to reclaim the unloved brussels sprout. Bradfield bid | The New South Wales Liberal party will challenge votes counted in independent Nicolette Boele's wafer-thin win in the Sydney seat of Bradfield, asking a judge to recount some of the ballots that led to her 26 vote margin. Chalmers offensive | Jim Chalmers has warned the opposition will have no credibility with voters or key economic decision makers if it plays politics at next month's productivity summit and has called on the Coalition to work with Labor to boost growth and prosperity. He explains more in conversation with Tom McIlroy in our Australian politics podcast. Pay pain | More than one-third of young workers are exploited by their employers, according to a new study, with many paid less than the minimum wage, forbidden to take entitled breaks, compelled to pay for work-related items, or given food and products instead of money. Rally row | The Victorian opposition leader, Brad Battin, and firefighters union boss, Peter Marshall, have sparked backlash after attending a rally in Melbourne's west where the slogan 'ditch the bitch' – apparently aimed at the state premier, Jacinta Allan – was emblazoned on a fire truck. Stone charge | A man from Sydney has appeared in a court in Scotland charged with 'malicious mischief' following reports a glass case containing the famous historical artefact, the Stone of Scone, was broken in Perth. Ukraine deal | Donald Trump has agreed with Nato allies to supply a large amount of arms to Ukraine, including Patriot missiles, and warned Russia that it will face severe sanctions if Moscow does not make peace within 50 days. At home, Trump faces rare discontent from his Maga base over his administration's claim that it did not have a list of Jeffery Epstein's alleged clients. Israel feud | A feud has broken between the Israeli government and the military over the cost and impact of a planned camp for Palestinians in southern Gaza as politicians attacked former prime minister Ehud Olmert for warning that the project would create a 'concentration camp' if it goes ahead. Letby miscarriage | A senior coroner's officer who first reviewed the deaths of babies at at the Countess of Chester hospital now believes Lucy Letby – who convicted of murdering seven babies – has suffered a miscarriage of justice. Summary execution | A man in Pennsylvania has been given life in prison for shooting his father, who worked for the federal government, decapitating him and brandishing the severed head in an online video that called for the execution of other civil servants. Web of intrigue | German customs officials have seized roughly 1,500 young tarantulas found inside plastic containers that were hidden in chocolate sponge cake boxes shipped to an airport. The controversy over Jillian Segal's antisemitism plan Political reporter Josh Butler and education reporter Caitlin Cassidy speak to Reged Ahmad about why the proposed antisemitism plan has some people worried. Sorry your browser does not support audio - but you can download here and listen $ As Jim Chalmers prepares for his big economic summit, we have invited three academics to write about why Australia has struggled to improve productivity and ease the cost of living pressures on ordinary people. They argue that the reasons are complex, ranging from the impact of the GFC to political failures by all parties – but all warn that neoliberalism 'lite' is not the answer. Alice Zaslavsky looks at the history of our relationship with brussels sprouts and makes the arguable case for us to eat more of the brassica. Having said that, her suggestion of teaming them with apple and smoked pork belly sounds pretty tasty. Sign up to Morning Mail Our Australian morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Cricket | England won the third Test against India by 22 runs as a dramatic, nail-biting final day at Lord's saw the visitors fall just short after recovering from a seemingly hopeless 112-8 at lunch chasing 193 to win. Rugby union | Wallabies back Joseph-Aukuso Sua'ali'i has resisted the temptation to throw fuel on the fire ahead of a possible spicy rematch with British and Irish Lions centre Sione Tuipulotu in Saturday's opening Test in Brisbane. Cycling | An epic Bastille Day stage of the Tour de France ended with an Englishman winning in the Auvergne, an Irishman in the yellow jersey and a French hope falling by the wayside. The Telegraph hears from a 'leading China expert' who claims that the Beijing government has tried 'to weaponise' the Chinese Australian diaspora to the benefit of the Labor party. Dog owners in South Australia are worried the state's algal bloom is making their pets sick, the Advertiser reports. An opinion piece in the Herald Sun asks whether the Liberal party should copy the tactics used by Nigel Farage's Reform UK party to stem its slide. The son of Eileen Bond paid tribute to her 'colourful personality' at a funeral service in Perth yesterday, WAtoday reports. Reserve Bank | The RBA will release a consultation paper on retailer card payments costs and surcharging. Universities | A 'people's inquiry' into campus free speech on Palestine will hold public hearings in Sydney. Sydney | The former Greens candidate Hannah Thomas will appear at Bankstown local court over a protest in which she sustained a serious injury. If you would like to receive this Morning Mail update to your email inbox every weekday, sign up here, or finish your day with our Afternoon Update newsletter. You can follow the latest in US politics by signing up for This Week in Trumpland. And finally, here are the Guardian's crosswords to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword
ABC News
14-07-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
Liberal Party to launch legal action after losing Sydney seat of Bradfield at federal election
The NSW Liberal Party will challenge the federal election result in the Sydney seat of Bradfield after losing it to teal independent Nicolette Boel. In a statement on Monday night, Liberal Giselle Kapterian said the decision to go to the "umpire" was about ensuring the final outcome reflected the "true wishes of the voters". "While the second count resulted in a 26 vote lead for Ms Boele. Today's decision is taken to ensure the intentions of the voters of Bradfield are accurately reflected in the final count." She added that this step would "provide collective confidence" and "remove any remaining doubts created by the two conflicting counts". However, she also pointed out the move was not about casting doubt over the electoral system. "To be clear, there is no question regarding the integrity of our electoral system. "In fact, this process has only served to reaffirm my faith in Australia's democratic institution. "I am grateful for the AEC's [Australian Electoral Commission] tireless work in delivering the two very close counts." Ms Boele was declared the winner on June 4, more than a month after voters went to the polls. The challenge will be taken to the Court of Disputed Returns. The Chief Justice of the High Court would nominate a High Court or Federal Court judge to sit as the Court of Disputed Returns. After weeks of uncertainty, Ms Boele beat Ms Kapterian by just 26 votes, with each woman leading in the electorate at different points. Ms Kapterian released a statement a short time after her opponent declared victory and promised to "carefully review the two counts", leaving the door open for a legal challenge. The historically blue-ribbon seat was initially called for Ms Kapterian on May 12 by the ABC's chief election analyst Antony Green, when she was ahead by about 200 votes. But as the count continued, the number of votes between the pair shrank, and a week later Ms Boele took the lead as the provisional winner. Ms Boele remained ahead by 40 votes after the unofficial distribution of preferences, however as the counting entered its final stages, Ms Kapterien pulled ahead once more by eight ballots. Under the Australian Electoral Commission's policy, a recount was ordered, as is the case in all contests won by fewer than 100 votes. In an interview with ABC's Afternoon Briefing in June, Ms Kapterian said she was not rushing into a legal contest. "It's the two different outcomes that we're having look at now, taking a moment to breathe, taking advice … to really understand where the numbers lie and what might lie ahead," Ms Kapterian said.
