At the close of counting on Saturday night in the Werribee byelection in Melbourne’s western suburbs, the two-party preferred swing against the Victorian Labor Party stood at 10.4 per cent. The 17 percentage points fall in the primary vote from the 2022 state election in a formerly safe heartland seat is a repudiation of Victorian Labor’s 10 years in power.

With a quarter of the vote still to count, the result is still too close to call. Labor appears likely to hang on and deny the Liberal Party its first win in Werribee since 1979. Nevertheless, the dramatic drop-off in support for the long-term Labor government in Victoria is “a king hit”, as Kos Samaras, director of ALP-aligned polling firm RedBridge, posted on social media.