FULL Roundup of the Nepean by-election - the good, bad, and ugly. Topher Project Ep 408

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[00:00:00]The media and online pundits have already picked their narrative. One Nation failed at the Nepean by-election.

[00:00:07]Faceless social media accounts like The Gerk amplified the message. It was apparently a fizzer. It was an absolute disaster according to another faceless online account because One Nation didn't even make the two-party preferred final tally. I'll explain why that is later on in this video. And just in case you missed it, here's another faceless account who is at pains to drive the point home.

[00:00:32]According to Dad minus one, whoever that is, the Nepean by-election was supposed to prove that One Nation were the new force in town. And also according to Dad minus one, it proved the opposite.

[00:00:45]But notice how all these accounts are the ones deciding where the bar was, that One Nation had to get elected or else they'd failed. And then of course they're saying that One Nation failed to reach the bar that they set. They're setting the standard by which they are judging One Nation's success or failure.

[00:01:02]And surprise, surprise, they're setting it where they can make it look like One Nation failed. So let's instead look at the facts, shall we? The most recent Victorian state poll that I could find put puts One Nation support statewide at 24.5% about 18% higher than their support at the last federal election, which let's not forget was just 1 year ago. 24.5%, that's the bar. One Nation were never really in the running to win in Nepean and serious commentators, people like me, never claimed that they were in the running to win. It's a safe liberal seat and at a time when voters are rejecting labor, you'd expect the Liberal Party to hold that seat, which they did. That's not a failure in anyone's language except for the delusional left. But fate can be funny sometimes. 24.5%, well that's the actual benchmark. And guess what One Nation's primary vote was in Nepean.

[00:01:55]If you guessed 24.5% on the current numbers with the vote 80% counted, you'd be out by only 0.1 of 1% because they're on 24.6%.

[00:02:06]And they'll likely end up close to or even perhaps above that number once it's all counted because the postal votes and the early votes, which are the ones that are still being counted, they will likely favor One Nation just due to the demographics. Older people are more likely to vote early and are also more likely to have voted for One Nation. So despite the sneering from One Nation's haters, they performed exactly where the polling said they would. Now in the case of Nepean, that results in an easy win for the Liberal Party because as I've said before and I'll be saying all over again, it's a safe liberal seat.

[00:02:41]There is a move away from the Labor Party right now. And sure, that has certainly helped One Nation to increase their vote by 18% in the last 12 months since the last federal election, but it also means that the Liberal Party should have cruised to an easy win in a seat like Nepean, which they did.

[00:02:59]Everything in Nepean worked out exactly as expected, but somehow that's been turned into proof of One Nation's failure. Faceless pages like these trade on the ignorance of their own followers.

[00:03:10]They count on their readers not really knowing much about anything and they just monetize their clicks and their comments.

[00:03:17]They feed red meat to their ignorant base and they don't really help anyone.

[00:03:22]Some of them might even be fully funded disinformation pages, but don't always jump to that assumption automatically because I'll guarantee you that at least some of these pages are actually run by real people who actually believe what they're saying, but they're not here to influence anything or to make the world better or to help people understand. They're just here to gather sycophants to their page who agree with them already and then they keep them fed on a regular diet of tasty lies and deceptions, which of course their audience gobbles up enthusiastically, making money for the people behind those pages in the process.

[00:03:56]In contrast, here at The Toff Project, I put my name and my face to my work and my focus is on helping busy people like you to actually understand what's going on. Sadly, even elected MPs like Liberal Senator James Paterson, well, they're more interested in playing politics rather than speaking plainly. We'll get to his misinformation-loaded video where he claims that One Nation had underperformed in just a moment. But unlike James Paterson, I don't get a taxpayer-funded paycheck and unlike at least some of the faceless pages on social media, I don't take any money at all from any political parties, no lobby groups, industry groups. I don't even have any sponsors or advertisers at this point in time. I'm 100% financially independent, which means I'm free to say what I believe.

[00:04:42]And whilst I'm not always right, you can always be sure that I believe what I say. Now you can help me to keep The Toff Project going and growing in 2026 by buying me a coffee via the link in the description. And while you're there, take a moment to check out my best-selling books about government, power, human rights, and civil disobedience. Now this one I wrote in the aftermath of the human rights-violating lockdowns in Victoria during the COVID era. This is my first best-selling book, Good People Break Bad Laws. Then there's my second book, Good Christians Break Bad Laws. It's all about the theology of civil disobedience and it explains why I believe that Christians and churches should be among the very first to stand up against government gone rogue. Then there's the DVD of my multi-award-winning documentary Battleground Melbourne. You can watch this completely for free if you go to my website and click on the documentary tab. You don't have to sign up, you don't have to pay nothing. It's just there for you to watch free of charge. I had the honor of directing this documentary, but I don't believe that it belongs to me. It belongs to the amazing people of Victoria who stood together against Daniel Andrews, against his militarized and aggressive Victoria Police, against a weaponized justice system, and they stood up for what was right when the government was very, very wrong. Head to the documentary tab at toff4vic.com so you can watch that for free. But if you'd like to support my work and have a DVD to put on your shelf, then you can get that via the shop. You'll also find my t-shirts and hoodies in a range of different designs including Good People Break Bad Laws, which is my original. The new eye-catching history design, which is a warning about history repeating itself.

[00:06:17]Comes in a t-shirt or a beautiful premium hoodie that is fabulous. The fabric is really nice, the hood is fully lined. It'll be your new favorite hoodie, that's a promise from me to you.

[00:06:27]I'm really proud of this hoodie and given that we're less than a month away from winter, I'd suggest you get yourself one of these hoodies while we still have them in your size. There's other designs too.

[00:06:37]Some are eye-catching, some are more subtle, but they're all designed to start conversations. Then there's the Think Free cap, there's my sticker packs, and also my Getting Your Head in the Game Masterclass for those who'd like to be able to face the challenges of life head-on. And finally, if you join my email list, you'll be in the running for my $2,000 giveaway, which includes $500 in gift cards for fuel and food to help the winner with the cost of living. And everything you buy helps me to keep The Toff Project going and growing in 2026 so I can bring you hundreds more videos like this one even though I'm not getting government money like this guy is. Federal Senator for Victoria James Paterson couldn't resist having a crack at One Nation.

[00:07:19]Apparently, he's riding high on the thrill of simply holding a safe liberal seat. And with a reduced margin, by the way, we'll get to that. Apparently, that was all that was needed for him to declare that One Nation had underperformed. Have a listen, if you can stomach it. I I think the story so far is that One Nation have underperformed. I think they'll be really disappointed with this result so far. But in the end, I think voters looked very closely. They had a look under the hood and they really weren't sure that One Nation was the right choice for us, for them, for community down here in Nepean or for Victoria.

[00:07:55]That's a pretty bold take when you're talking about a party that went from zero. One Nation did not run a candidate in Nepean at the last Victorian state election up to nearly 25% of the vote in a single leap. And let's not lose sight of the fact that current polling puts the Victorian Liberal Party on 24% statewide, slightly below what One Nation just achieved in the seat of Nepean, which at risk of repeating myself, that's a safe liberal seat.

[00:08:24]So I have a feeling that Senator Patterson's words, which probably sounded very clever to him at the time he said them, I think they might come back to bite him in November. But it was Jess Wilson, the Victorian Liberal leader, who was to her credit a little more honest, admitting that despite holding the seat, her party needs to focus on their primary vote and not just winning with the help of One Nation preferences. We will get to the preferences issue in a moment and I'll explain why the One Nation Party were not in the two-party preferred count even though they were second in the primary vote. I'll get to all of that.

[00:08:56]And I promise you it's not electoral fraud, the VEC, it actually makes sense.

[00:09:01]And I believe this election was 100% above board. But before we get to that, why is Wilson focusing on the primary vote? Why would she care given that they just won their seat with preferences?

[00:09:13]Well, there's two reasons. If the Victorian Liberals are dependent on One Nation preferences to win seats, that means that they'll have to do a preference deal with them for the upcoming November state election.

[00:09:24]And that would require the very arrogant Victorian Liberal Party to swallow their pride.

[00:09:30]Something they don't really want to do.

[00:09:32]But actually, the Nepean by-election is proof that they are going to need One Nation in November. I'll get to the details on that in a moment. But the second reason Jess Wilson wants to focus on primary votes is because they went backwards on primary votes in Nepean by a lot. At the 2022 state election, the Liberal Party secured 48% of first preference votes in Nepean.

[00:09:55]This time, 38%. Now why does that matter? I mean, they still won, right?

[00:10:00]Well, turns out it matters because political parties are businesses first and foremost. They have income and expenses like any other business, and losing first preference votes means losing money. What many Australians may not know is that our various electoral commissions around the country really do put the fun into funding, handing out taxpayer money to electoral candidates who either get more than 4% of their vote or are successfully elected in any case. Now, that last clause really only applies to the upper house in Victoria.

[00:10:31]For the lower house, you're you're not getting elected unless you already have a lot more than 4% of the first preference vote. And of course, the lower house is what was up for grabs in Nepean, and that's what we're focusing on in this video. So, in Victoria, eligible lower house candidates receive $7.46 in public funding, assuming they meet the minimum thresholds, which of course, the Liberal Party always do. Now, in practical terms, that means that if the Liberal Party lose just 200,000 first preference votes statewide in November, that'll cost them nearly $1.5 million in revenue.

[00:11:07]Now, do you see why the Liberal leader Jess Wilson is focused on the primary vote?

[00:11:11]The Liberal Party are already in some financial difficulties in Victoria thanks to the disaster they created for themselves with the John Pesutto defamation debacle against Liberal Party MP Moira Deeming. John Pesutto was found to have defamed Moira and was forced to the brink of bankruptcy.

[00:11:29]If he'd become bankrupt, well, then he would have been barred from being an MP, which would have triggered an unwanted by-election in the seat of Hawthorn.

[00:11:37]So, the Liberal Party bailed out John Pesutto so that he could avoid bankruptcy and they could avoid the by-election.

[00:11:43]>> [snorts] >> But they had to pass the hat around to their big-money donors to try and fund the one and a half million-dollar bailout, and that decision has put them in a bit of a spot of bother, given that they now have to find the money for a state election that is just around the corner.

[00:11:59]Keep in mind that current polling puts the Liberal Party on 24% statewide, which is a far cry from the 35% they secured in the 2018 state election, where they enjoyed the support of nearly 1.24 million first preference votes. Which means that at today's VEC payout rates of $7.46 per vote, that number of votes today would translate to more than $9 million in taxpayer-funded electoral funding. Boy, it's good to be king.

[00:12:30]But in 2022, the Liberal Party went backwards, losing about 166,000 first pref- preference votes, which again, at today's rates, that's a loss of about $1.24 million in electoral funding revenue. And this is where the reality of what just happened in the Nepean by-election starts to bite. Because the Labor Party, well, they're in trouble.

[00:12:52]Their support has collapsed from 37% in the 2022 election landslide to just 25 and a half percent now. And that means that the Liberal Party should be surging, but they're not.

[00:13:05]They also went backwards by 10% in a safe seat. Why? Well, we know why. One Nation are rising, and fast. That's not just a threat to the Liberal Party's electoral ambitions, it's a threat to their bottom line as well.

[00:13:21]The Liberal Party foolishly spent $1.5 million to save John Pesutto's ego and avoid a by-election in Hawthorn. The party is now cash-strapped, and they had to go hat in hand to raise that money to fund that loan, and I don't think their big-money donors, especially any of them that funded that bailout, are going to be encouraged by what they've just witnessed in Nepean.

[00:13:43]Political parties fund their campaigns through electoral funding from previous campaigns and through donors, but also through loans, which are secured by the future electoral funding that they expect to get after any coming elections. And I think the Liberal Party are going to have trouble securing those loans. At least, they won't get loans as big as what they've secured in the past because their entire revenue model, which is based on first preference votes, that model is now being stolen out from underneath them.

[00:14:13]On current polling, they expect to lose another half a million dollars, maybe more, in electoral funding at this election compared to 2022, which means they'll be down a whopping $2 million compared to what they received in 2018.

[00:14:29]And that's on top of the fact that at least some of their donors will be seriously thinking about jumping ship and and throwing their support and their donations behind the One Nation Party instead.

[00:14:40]So, don't believe the nonsense being spouted by faceless social media accounts, nor by Liberal Party mouthpieces. They may put on a brave face in public, and of course, they're crowing about the fact that they won in Nepean, but behind the scenes, the power brokers and the bean counters will be sweating about what's coming their way in November. All right, let me finish with the issue of the two-party preferred count. Some people are questioning why the two-party preferred count was done between the Liberals and the so-called independent, who was in my opinion just a proxy for the Labor Party, that being the former ABC employee Tracy Hutcheson, even though Tracy was third and One Nation were second on the primary votes.

[00:15:21]Well, the reason is because Tracy Hutcheson picked up almost all of the preferences from Greens voters, which means that when there were only three parties left after the distribution of all of the preferences from all of the other smaller eliminated parties, Tracy Hutcheson was at that point ahead of One Nation. Only just, but as I've covered ad nauseam in my videos about preferential voting and how it works, what matters is who are the top two when there's three left. In this case, One Nation were third, so they were eliminated, and their preferences were distributed, and that's how we get to a final result in the Nepean by-election of Liberals winning on 63.5% after preferences, and Tracy Hutcheson on 36.5%.

[00:16:08]But let's come back to this image for a second. This was a Liberal stronghold seat, which means that One Nation never got any Liberal Party preferences at any point because the Liberal Party were in the running to win.

[00:16:20]So, of course, their preferences were never distributed.

[00:16:24]If this polling is even close to being correct statewide, and I will finish with a point about polling in a moment, but if this polling is even close to correct, then we are going to see a lot of seats where it will be Labor sitting in the number one spot, and the Liberal Party and the One Nation Party will be in the number two and number three spots. And that's where things get interesting. What matters in a situation like that is who's in third, and where are their preferences going to go?

[00:16:55]For example, if One Nation are in third, and most of their voters preferenced the Liberals, then in many seats, that would be enough to get the Liberal candidate over the line. That seat would be a Liberal Party win with One Nation preferences. But the reverse is also true if it's One Nation who are in the second spot, maybe even in the number one spot in some seats. But if it's the Liberals who are eliminated in third, then the question is, where do the Liberal Party preferences go? Labor or One Nation? If they go to Labor, Labor will win those seats. If they go to One Nation, well, there's a good chance that One Nation will win those seats. And so finally, we get to the very bottom of what the by-election in Nepean really means.

[00:17:37]If the Liberals have now lost 10% of their support base in such a safe Liberal seat, then what they now know beyond a shadow of doubt, thanks to this Nepean by-election, is that they are going to need preferences from the One Nation Party come November, or else they are toast. Without One Nation preferences, it will be another Labor landslide win, and the Liberals will be reduced to a rump, kind of like what we just saw in South Australia.

[00:18:07]Thing is, the Liberals can't get One Nation preferences, at least not consistently, not statewide, unless they're willing to return the favor, to guarantee that One Nation will be placed above Labor on the Liberal how-to-vote cards in the lower house. And that's what this by-election was really all about. Would it show that the Liberal Party could ride a wave of protest against the Labor Party and claim victory in Nepean in its own right?

[00:18:34]Now, if that were the case, that would mean that they could give One Nation the middle finger in November and not do a preference deal.

[00:18:41]But if they can't even win in Nepean on their own, and Nepean clearly shows us that they can't count on winning without One Nation, even in safe seats, if that's the case, well, now they have to do a deal. They won't like it.

[00:18:53]They'll talk tough, but in the end, political survival is at stake, and I believe that they will do what they must.

[00:19:00]From here, it's going to be messy. We can expect both the Victorian Liberals and also One Nation to do a whole lot of tough talking about not preferencing each other, or about running split tickets or other kinds of threats.

[00:19:13]This language is all about leverage.

[00:19:16]This is going to be about ensuring that neither party can take for granted the preferences from the other party. If the Liberals, arrogant as they are, if they believe that they're going to get all the One Nation preferences, no matter what they do, well, then they won't feel the need to reciprocate. They'll just take One Nation preferences for granted.

[00:19:34]So, One Nation need to make it clear that they can't be taken for granted, that One Nation would actually consider preferencing Labor in key seats, the ones where One Nation aren't really in the running in any case, where it really is between Labor and Liberal.

[00:19:49]Doesn't hurt One Nation's chances, but it hurts the Liberal Party.

[00:19:53]One Nation need to use their preferences in those battleground seats, and these are going to be typically inner urban seats where One Nation support tends to be lower. They need to use their preferences as leverage.

[00:20:06]The message has to be "Do a statewide deal with us, or else we will send preferences to Labor in the seats where it hurts you the most." That has to be their message, and they have to be willing to follow through with that threat unless the Liberals come to the party with a deal to swap preferences with One Nation to ensure that Labor do not get to form government again.

[00:20:30]The next few months are going to be messy, and the messaging, it's going to be confusing at times.

[00:20:35]I'm sure that this sort of strategic ambiguity, which One Nation must now maintain, that's going to cause some anxiety amongst voters who just want to see Labor gone at any cost, and they can't understand the negotiation that's going on in the background.

[00:20:50]But this is a necessary, if regrettable, part of politics. Preferences are leverage, and the Nepean by-election shows that One Nation have the leverage that they need.

[00:21:00]The Liberal Party will depend on One Nation preferences if they want to be successful in the November state election. So, One Nation must have the balls and the support from their voter base to use that leverage to maximum effect.

[00:21:16]Okay, let's finish on the polling. For a long time we were told that the rise of One Nation would not translate come election day, but South Australia showed clearly that the polls were pretty accurate. And come election day, Australian South Australians were more than happy to walk into a polling booth and do what they said they were going to do in the opinion polls. In South Australia, One Nation ended up with about 23% of the primary vote. The polls were spread from about 21% to about 28% at the most optimistic end. So, we can see that the actual result was within the range of the opinion polls. So, this idea that the polls can't be trusted, well, that's a lie. In Victoria, Nepean, One Nation are at 24.5% statewide in the opinion polls, and the result in Nepean was, well, with 80% counted, 24.6% bang on where you would expect based on the opinion polls.

[00:22:09]Where this gets interesting is this coming weekend in the federal seat of Farrer, where One Nation are currently projected to win with the help of Liberal and National preferences.

[00:22:20]If this weekend we see, for the third time, that the opinion polls are holding up in actual elections, then all doubts will then be erased. There will no longer be any reasonable doubt that Australia is in the middle of a political revolution the like of which has not been seen for 50 years.

[00:22:38]Because One Nation were not expected to win in South Australia. So, the fact that they didn't win government didn't prove anything. They polled where it was expected. Same thing happened again in Nepean. They weren't really in the running to win. The polls never said they were in the running to win.

[00:22:53]But yet again, the result was exactly where the opinion polls told us it should be.

[00:22:59]This time, in Farrer, well, if the voters, including me, by the way, I live in Farrer.

[00:23:04]If the voting public in Farrer vote where the opinion polls say that the public will in this election, well, this time, that will result in a win for One Nation.

[00:23:17]This is actually the first time that it could truly be said that not winning would be a fail, that not winning for One Nation would be a disappointment.

[00:23:27]This time it would actually be a fizzer if they didn't win.

[00:23:32]One Nation didn't fail in South Australia just because they didn't win government. That's a lie, a red herring.

[00:23:38]Nor did they fail in Nepean because they didn't win the seat. Another lie. They were never expected to win.

[00:23:44]But Farrer, this is different.

[00:23:48]This is the first real test. This is the first time that they've been in a position where they realistically, really, truly could actually win.

[00:23:59]And so, if they do win on Saturday, well, that's when you'll see the Liberal-Labor uniparty go into full meltdown. The Victorian Liberal Party will go into panic mode, and the games will really begin.

[00:24:12]All right, that's my wrap-up of the Nepean by-election. That's sort of where it fits in the wider political landscape, and that's the implications of what we saw unfold. Thank you for watching this far. My name is Topher Field, and this is what I do.

[00:24:25]If you appreciate what I do, if you now understand the world and Australian politics better than you did 20 minutes ago, then please help me to keep the Topher Project going by buying me a coffee via the link in the description.

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[00:25:05]Authorized by Topher Field, 317A Yerrana Road, Lamington.