Werribee, Prahran byelections neck and neck

On a two-party preferred basis, Di Camillo was ahead with 54 per cent, based on early distributions.

The flow of preferences is expected to determine the outcome in Prahran.

Greens MP Katherine Copsey said it looked like the result in Prahran would be a close call. “It might come down to preferences,” she told Greens supporters at the party’s function, before congratulating the party on being “people powered”.

The byelection in Werribee, a nominally safe seat held two years ago by former treasurer Tim Pallas with a margin of nearly 11 per cent, was fought on the central issues of transport infrastructure, cost of living and crime, at a time when support for the Allan government has crashed to an historic low.

Speaking before counting began, Battin said erasing Labor’s margin in Werribee was a “massive, massive ask” for Liberal candidate Murphy and regardless of the result, his party would continue to work to break Labor’s stranglehold on Melbourne’s western suburbs.

“All of these seats throughout the west, you’ve been neglected for too long and we’ll be here for you,” he said. There are 11 state electorates covering Melbourne’s west. All are held by Labor.

Allan made her final pitch to Werribee voters at a Wyndham Vale primary school with Labor’s candidate Lister, a local teacher. She acknowledged that families were “doing it really, really tough” and promised to do more to ease pressure on household budgets.

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“I am particularly focused on those working families, those working people, who need a Labor government championing for them, working hard for them, fighting for them,” she said.

Allan was expected to address the party after 9pm at the Werribee Centrals Cricket Club, where state and federal MPs and party volunteers watched anxiously to learn the size of an expected electoral backlash against Labor.

At the polling booths, voters echoed the key concerns that had framed the campaign. “Living standards are getting worse,” said Kamaljit Kaur, who cast her vote at the Iramoo Primary School in Wyndham Vale, a growth suburb on the western edge of the city’s urban growth boundary. “Crime is also getting worse – out of control.”

In Prahran, where the byelection was prompted by the resignation of Greens MP Sam Hibbins after he had an affair with a staffer, the Liberal’s Westaway said there was a “real feeling of change”.

The Greens have held the seat for 10 years and entered the byelection campaign with a 12 per cent margin.

Labor chose not to field a candidate in Prahran but former Labor MP turned independent Lupton has campaigned aggressively against the Greens, which he describes as an “extremist party” that has fostered antisemitism.

His presence in the race and decision to preference the Liberals has boosted the chances of the inner-Melbourne seat changing hands. It also complicated the vote count, with a complex flow of preferences expected to decide the result.

Liberal Party supporters gathered at the Prahran Hotel on High Street, Windsor, were hopeful but realistic of Westaway’s chances of flipping the seat.

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Westaway, a 55-year-old mother of three, was until recently a senior member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. She campaigned on Saturday next to John Pesutto, the Liberal leader ousted late last year in a party room coup after the Federal Court found he defamed one of his own MPs, Moira Deeming.

Greens candidate and environmental engineer Di Camillo, 26, was fighting to hold on for the minor party. Greens volunteers followed the count at the Local Taphouse, nervously awaiting results.

Tensions had been high at Prahan polling places amid an anti-Greens campaign backed by right-wing lobby group Advance. Independent Buzz Billman pulled his volunteers off booths on Saturday, alleging aggressive behaviour from them. Advance rejected this and said the only bad behaviour was from the Greens.

The Victorian Electoral Commission confirmed one formal complaint had been made in Prahran.

The electoral commission separately received a complaint from the Greens, alleging Advance may have used federal donations to campaign against the Greens in the state byelection. Advance disputes this.

The VEC separately sought an injunction against Advance in the Supreme Court over political signs repeatedly placed within 100 metres of early polling booths. The action was discontinued when Advance provided an undertaking it would remind its volunteers against it, but Advance claimed the action was heavy-handed and “a politically motivated attack”.

Saturday’s byelections were the first change for voters to have their say after the Liberal Party’s change of leaders. Labor strategists, who were anticipating a big swing against them in Werribee, will analyse the results with an eye to next November’s state election and, more immediately, this year’s federal poll.