OUR THOUGHTS ON THE BY-ELECTIONS

On the eve of Super-Saturday, many people in the political world have been speculating on the likely outcomes and what the implications of those outcomes will be for the major parties. The big question many political commentators are grappling with is whether or not the Prime Minister will be able to overturn political history to win a seat off the opposition at a by-election.

The last time a government achieved this feat was in 1920, when Mr Hugh Mahon lost his seat following him being expelled from the Parliament and recontesting the seat.

However, while generally the swing at by-elections is towards an opposition, there are a small number of cases where the government of the day has achieved a swing towards it, that if repeated tomorrow would be large enough to unseat Labor in either Longman or Braddon.

With the five seats being contested on the one day, it is fair to say that there has been limited attention on the seats of Perth and Freemantle in Western Australia, where Labor and the Greens are going head to head. It is widely expected that Labor will retain both seats and any deviation from this outcome would be a significant blow to Labor.

In South Australia, polling throughout the campaign has continually pointed to Ms Rebekha Sharkie of the Centre Alliance (formerly Nick Xenophon Team) holding onto power in Mayo. However, should Ms Georgina Downermanage to win the seat for the Liberal Party, this would be a major win for the Turnbull Government.

Overwhelmingly, most of the focus of the major parties has been on the seats of Braddon in Tasmania and Longman in Queensland, with the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition both visiting the electorates on a very regular basis.

What is clear is that the outcome of the Super-Saturday by-elections will have wide reaching implications for both major parties and their leaders.

We will be sending out our analysis of the outcomes on Monday.