2018 Batman by-election
Updated: Wikipedia source
A by-election for the Australian House of Representatives seat of Batman in Melbourne, Victoria, took place on 17 March 2018. The by-election was called as a result of the resignation on 1 February 2018 of the incumbent backbench Australian Labor Party (ALP) Member of Parliament (MP) David Feeney, who resigned amid the 2017–18 Australian parliamentary eligibility crisis. At the 2016 Australian federal election, the Australian Greens came within one percent of winning the two-candidate preferred vote (TCP). The 2018 campaign was primarily a contest between the Labor candidate former Australian Council of Trade Unions president Ged Kearney and the Greens candidate social worker Alex Bhathal, who had run for the seat five times. The Liberal Party of Australia (LPA; Liberals) declined to field a candidate. The campaign heavily focussed on the proposed Adani Carmichael coal mine and other environmental issues, refugee policy, and Labor's proposed reforms to dividend 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 the Division of Cooper, which Kearney won at the 2019, 2022, and 2025 Australian federal elections.