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Division of Batman (Vic) in theHouse of Representatives | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Registered | 111,857 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Turnout | 81.40% 8.28 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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A by-election for theAustralian House of Representatives seat ofBatman inMelbourne,Victoria, took place on 17 March 2018. The by-election was called as a result of the resignation on 1 February 2018 of the incumbentbackbenchAustralian Labor Party (ALP)Member of Parliament (MP)David Feeney, who resigned amid the2017–18 Australian parliamentary eligibility crisis.
At the2016 Australian federal election, theAustralian Greens came within one percent of winning thetwo-candidate preferred vote (TCP). The 2018 campaign was primarily a contest between the Labor candidate formerAustralian Council of Trade Unions presidentGed Kearney and theGreens candidate social workerAlex Bhathal, who had run for the seat five times. TheLiberal Party of Australia (LPA; Liberals) declined to field a candidate. The campaign heavily focussed on the proposedAdani Carmichael coal mine and other environmental issues, refugee policy, and Labor's proposed reforms todividend imputation.
Kearney won the seat with a 3.35% swing toward Labor (TCP), for a total of 54.38% of the after-preferences vote. This was the last election held for the division of Batman: the electorate was abolished in 2019 and replaced with theDivision of Cooper, which Kearney won at the2019,2022, and2025 Australian federal elections.
On 6 December 2017, amidst the ongoingcitizenship crisis affecting several MPs, theAustralian Labor Party (ALP)Member of Parliament (MP)David Feeney announced he was unable to produce documentation confirming he had renounced hiscitizenship of the United Kingdom.[1][2] Feeney voluntarily referred himself to theHigh Court of Australia, considering his likely breach ofSection 44 of the Constitution of Australia.[2] By 19 January 2018, Feeney still could not produce any documents from British or Irish authorities saying he had undertaken to renounce his citizenship and entitlements.[3] The High Court granted Feeney's legal team an extension to 1 February to allow them to continue searching for the relevant documents.[3] At a press conference on 1 February, Feeney announced he would resign from the seat and from politics, effective immediately, choosing not to stand as a candidate at the by-election.[4] The by-election was set for 17 March 2018, the same day as theSouth Australian state election.[5]
Batman had been a solidly Labor seat for the majority of its history. Since its creation in 1906, non-Labor members had represented the electorate for under ten years (1906–1910, 1931–1934, and 1966–1969).[6] TheGreens significantly increased their vote share before 2017, including a 9.6% gain in the2016 federal election that placed them first in the primary vote, and their candidateAlex Bhathal lost to Feeney by two points after preference distribution on thetwo-candidate-preferred vote (TCP). Bhathal had contested the seat in 2001, 2004, 2010, 2013 and 2016.[7] The growth of the Greens' vote has been attributed to house-price rises and demographic change.[8] The Greens' vote was particularly strong south of Bell Street,Reservoir, which formed the so-called "hipster-proof fence" or "quinoa curtain".[8]
TheAustralian Electoral Commission confirmed 111,857 people were enrolled to vote in the by-election.[9][10] TheLiberal Party declined to field a candidate; Liberal presidentMichael Kroger publicly stated the party should have run a candidate if they found evidence ofantisemitism in the Greens.[11]
The Greens heavily focussed on the environment and specifically the proposedAdani Carmichael coal mine in the campaign. Labor leaderBill Shorten and Kearney both expressed their doubts about the project but did not completely rule it out.[12][13] In December 2017, Shorten contacted the president of theAustralian Conservation Foundation (ACF) Geoff Cousins to seek advice about how Labor could change its policy on Adani withoutsovereign risk. Cousins took Shorten on a tour of theGreat Barrier Reef and an aerial tour of the area where the mine would be built. Following Shorten's comments in February 2018 inTownsville, when he said the mine was "just another project", Cousins contacted Shorten to say he would publicly disclose the tours he had given Shorten. In an interview on theAustralian Broadcasting Corporation's (ABC) programme7.30, Shorten discussed the tours and stated he was personally opposed to the mine and would seek to change the party's position on the project.[14]
The ACF distributed material stating only the Greens would "stop Adani's mine from going ahead", and the activist groupGetUp! stated they would not assist Labor in campaigning due to its position on the coal mine.[15][16] Other issues that featured in the campaigning were Labor's proposed reforms todividend imputation (franking credits); Kearney and Shorten held a town-hall debate about the policy.[17] The Greens also heavily campaigned onasylum seeker andrefugee policy, which they perceived as a weakness for Labor.[18]
Divisions within the Greens' campaign assisted Kearney.[19] During the by-election campaign, an internal complaint of bullying by Bhathal was leaked to the media and members of the Greens'Darebin branch requested Bhathal's expulsion from the party following her support forLidia Thorpe in the2017 Northcote state by-election.[20][21] Four Greens councillors were involved in the campaign to have Bhathal removed as the candidate.[22] The ABC reported Greens members stated they would prefer Bhathal to lose despite being in the same party.[23]
Kearney's campaign received the personal endorsement of the former Prime MinisterJulia Gillard, who wrote a letter that was distributed to 36,000 houses within the electorate.[24] Kearney's candidacy was also endorsed byEMILY's List Australia, a Labor-aligned organisation that advocates for representation of women in Parliament.[25]
On 6 March, a candidates' forum was held to discussclimate change policy. The candidates Kearney, Bhathal, Whitehead, Smith and McDonald were invited to take part, but the remaining candidates were not invited. In protest at not being invited, Lieshout picketed the event with her mouth taped shut.[26] On 14 March, Kearney's campaign issued an apology for printing campaign material in Greek under the heading "Macedonian".[27] On polling day, reports of seniors receiving telephone calls instructing them not to vote were made; in response, Labor campaigners rang seniors in the electorate to urge them to vote.[28] On the day of the by-election, an environmental protester dressed as a fish accosted Kearney and Shorten at a polling booth.[29]
Key dates in relation to the by-election were:[30]
| Party | Candidate | Background | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rise Up | Yvonne Gentle | National Secretary of Rise Up Australia and the party's federal candidate forDunkley in2013 andFlinders in2016.[32] | |
| Labor | Ged Kearney | On 2 February 2018, the Labor leaderBill Shorten formally announcedGed Kearney, president of theAustralian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), was Labor's candidate at the by-election.[33] Kearney had been pre-selected for the state seat ofBrunswick at the2018 state election but resigned from the candidacy to contest Batman.[34] | |
| Greens | Alex Bhathal | Greens leaderRichard Di Natale confirmed toGuardian Australia on 2 February 2018Alex Bhathal had been chosen as the Greens' candidate.[35] Bhathal, a former social worker who sat onDarebin Ethnic Communities Council, was the Greens' candidate for the seat five times previously.[36] | |
| Conservatives | Kevin Bailey | On 20 February 2018, the Australian Conservatives directorLyle Shelton announced Kevin Bailey, a businessman and formerSAS soldier, would be the party's candidate at the by-election.[37] | |
| People's | Tegan Burns | The party described Burns as "highly passionate about youth and the criminal justice system".[38] | |
| Liberty Alliance | Debbie Robinson | The president of the Australian Liberty Alliance and the party's lead candidate for theSenate inWestern Australia in 2016.[32] | |
| Independent | Teresa van Lieshout | Van Lieshout, aperennial candidate for eight state and federal elections – most recently theCanning by-election in 2015 – is a self-published author on social, theological, and political issues, and the founder of the unregistered Voter Rights Party.[32] | |
| Adrian Whitehead | An environmentalist and the founder of the unregistered Save the Planet Party. He previously contestedCorangamite at the2013 federal election.[32] | ||
| Sustainable Australia | Mark McDonald | AnInformation technology (IT) engineer living inPreston.[32] | |
| Animal Justice | Miranda Smith | Smith previously contested the seat ofMelbourne at the2016 federal election.[32] | |
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labor | Ged Kearney | 36,840 | 43.14 | +7.87 | |
| Greens | Alex Bhathal | 33,725 | 39.49 | +3.26 | |
| Conservatives | Kevin Bailey | 5,471 | 6.41 | +6.41 | |
| Animal Justice | Miranda Smith | 2,528 | 2.96 | +1.29 | |
| Rise Up Australia | Yvonne Gentle | 2,217 | 2.60 | +2.60 | |
| Independent | Teresa van Lieshout | 1,245 | 1.46 | +1.46 | |
| Liberty Alliance | Debbie Robinson | 1,186 | 1.39 | +1.39 | |
| Sustainable Australia | Mark McDonald | 951 | 1.11 | +1.11 | |
| Adrian Whitehead | 745 | 0.87 | +0.87 | ||
| People's Party | Tegan Burns | 496 | 0.58 | +0.58 | |
| Total formal votes | 85,404 | 93.79 | +1.57 | ||
| Informal votes | 5,650 | 6.21 | −1.57 | ||
| Turnout | 91,054 | 81.40 | −8.28 | ||
| Two-candidate-preferred result | |||||
| Labor | Ged Kearney | 46,446 | 54.38 | +3.35 | |
| Greens | Alex Bhathal | 38,958 | 45.62 | −3.35 | |
| Laborhold | Swing | +3.35 | |||
| Date | Firm | Sample | Primary vote | TPP vote | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ALP | GRN | OTH | ALP | GRN | |||||
| 2018 by-election | 43.1% | 39.5% | 17.4% | 54.4% | 45.6% | ||||
| 18–20 Feb 2018 | Lonergan Research[39] | 693 | 40% | 39% | 16% | 53% | 47% | ||
| 2016 election | 35.3% | 36.2% | 28.5% | 51.0% | 49.0% | ||||
Kearney's election made her the first woman to represent Batman in the seat's 112-year history and made federal Labor's caucus 48% female.[40] The opposition leaderBill Shorten described Kearney as the "Hero of Batman" for her victory.[40] Following the 2018 by-election, theAustralian Electoral Commission abolished Batman and created theDivision of Cooper, which had similar boundaries.[41] Kearney contested Cooper at the2019 and the2022 federal elections, winning both times. Kearney's majority increased in 2019 to 64.65–35.35 (TCP) against the Greens' candidateDavid Risstrom and was reduced in 2022 to 58.67–41.33 (TCP) against the Greens' candidateCeleste Liddle.[42][43] Labor formeda government following the2022 federal election and Prime MinisterAnthony Albanese appointed Kearney asAssistant Minister for Health and Aged Care.[44][45][46] Liddle's partner Tara Burnett was pre-selected as the Greens candidate for Cooper at the2025 Australian federal election, and was also defeated by Kearney.[47]
On the night of the by-election, both Bhathal and the Greens' leaderRichard Di Natale stated Labor's use of "big money" had significantly contributed to Kearney's victory.[48] Di Natale also stated Labor's win was also helped by preference arrangements with conservative parties.[48] The day after the by-election, Di Natale stated the campaign had been damaged by internal leaking and that traditional Greens voters had been "turned off by the leaking and sabotage from a few individuals with a destructive agenda".[49][50] Divisions within the Greens that had hampered their campaign in the by-election persisted following the defeat. At the2018 Victorian state election, Labor'sKat Theophanous unexpectedly won theelectoral district of Northcote from the Greens'Lidia Thorpe. Internal analysis of the campaign noted some Greens members refused to campaign for Thorpe due to infighting stemming from the Batman by-election.[51] At the2022 Victorian state election, Theophanous retained Northcote for Labor with a 1.5% swing to the Greens.[52]
During the by-election campaign, Bhathal stated if she lost Batman, she would contest the seat at the next federal election, but she announced in August 2018 she was withdrawing from the candidacy due to "sabotage" of her by-election campaign.[53][54] In the same month, an internal Greens review dismissed the bullying allegations against Bhathal that were leaked during the campaign and apologised to her.[55] In February 2019, Bhathal resigned from the Greens, citing "relentless organisational bullying".[56] A documentary entitledThe Candidate was made about Bhathal's campaign.[57] The screening of the film in July 2019 was sabotaged; the venue's fire alarm was set off as soon as the film started.[58] In 2024, Bhathal became a candidate for West Ward at the Darebin City Council election, which was held on 26 October 2024.[59] She ran againstDarebin Mayor Sussane Newton, one of the four Greens councillors who tried to remove Bhathal as the candidate for Batman in 2018.[22] Neither Bhathal nor Newton were elected at this election.[60]
The Liberal party signalled a lack of interest in the results; the Prime MinisterMalcolm Turnbull and the TreasurerScott Morrison dismissed any implications for Labor's broader electoral success.[61]
In December 2018, the proposed Adani Carmichael coal mine was scaled down from 60 million tons of coal per year to 10 million tons of coal per year.[62] The project began construction in 2019 and the mine announced its first export shipment in December 2021.[63][64] Protests and legal challenges against the mine continued throughout the construction.[65]
An episode ofTonightly with Tom Ballard that aired during the campaign caused controversy by referring to the electorate's namesakeJohn Batman and Australian Conservatives' candidate Kevin Bailey as "cunts". Both the Communications MinisterMitch Fifield and the Education MinisterSimon Birmingham called for the ABC to dismiss someone over the remarks.[66] In August 2018, the ABC found the remarks did not breach its standards.[67]
Alex Bhathal, who Greens leader Richard Di Natale confirmed on Friday would recontest the seat, was 1.03%, or just 1,853 votes, shy of Labor in 2016.
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