Clive Palmer wins Sunshine Coast seat of Fairfax by 36 votes, triggering recount

Updated

Businessman Clive Palmer has finished just 36 votes ahead in the race for the federal seat of Fairfax, a result which will trigger an automatic recount.

The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) will conduct a recount because the margin is less than 100 votes.

Mr Palmer finished ahead of his LNP rival Ted O'Brien when the last ballot papers were counted in Fairfax on Saturday.

Fairfax is the last undecided electorate in Australia and preferences will be distributed on Monday.

Mr Palmer is currently overseas on business and is not expected back in Australia until next week.

"Palmer United Party has recorded an enormous result nationally and particularly in Queensland," he said in a statement.

"We will be particularly turning our attention to Queensland and challenging the terrible performance of Campbell Newman and his government."

Mr Palmer had previously signalled possible legal action against the AEC and had called for a fresh election and for a review of the entire voting system.

In Saturday's statement he repeated his promise to push for reform.

"I will continue to fight to hold the AEC accountable as they've shown themselves to be greatly incompetent with no transparency," he said.

"We will be highlighting the many discrepancies we've uncovered in the Court of Disputed Returns.

"The ballots have no security and the AEC is a national disgrace that needs to be heavily scrutinised.

"A full review of Australia's voting system is required - our right to a transparent democracy demands it."

Re-examination of votes to start on Monday

Phil Diak from the Australian Electoral Commission said a process will begin on Monday to re-examine the preferences of the other six candidates.

"If the margin after that is less than 100 votes we'll go to a full recount," he told the ABC.

"We won't have the full distribution of preferences complete for a few days this week and we'll see if we need a recount (after that)."

Mr Diak said a full recount would be an exhaustive process.

"In effect that means going through every ballot again – all the informal votes, all the first preferences for the two leading candidates, every vote that was cast, that was formal or informal.

"It was also done in McEwen, for example, in 2007, after a very close result there."

Mr Diak said Mr Palmer is entitled to his opinions on the AEC's process, and that there will be methods to examine to the result.

"Mr Palmer, like any member of the community or any organisation ... could make submissions to the joint standing committee on electoral matters, which is another open process where a Federal Parliamentary standing committee goes into every election in detail."

The ABC's election analyst Antony Green says preferences were counted roughly on election night and Monday's recount will be a more thorough and formal one.

"If they've done it carefully (on election night) then there shouldn't be any difference," he said.

He said once that is done, the votes will effectively have been counted three times and any further disputes will be handled by a court ruling.

Early on Saturday, Mr Palmer's lead over Mr O'Brien had shrunk to just 22 votes after he started the day 111 votes ahead.

Returning officer David McKenzie said interest in a result from parties, candidates and the media had complicated counting.

"Just managing all those expectations and dealing with the processes involved, it's been a very challenging environment," he said.

The Sunshine Coast-based seat had been held by retiring LNP member Alex Somlyay.

Concerns over 'ex-military' officers counting votes

Mr Palmer told the ABC's PM program earlier this week that he had other concerns about the electoral process, particularly about ex-military officers involved in the process of counting votes.

"You've seen what's happened in Egypt with a coup over," he said.

"In a free democracy we don't want military personnel in control of our election process. We are civilians and it should be a civilian election.

"It's just too much of a coincidence you've got so many ex-military people acting as divisional directors in House of Representative seats."

The AEC said in a statement this week that there is a "proper, transparent and evidence based process" for dealing with complaints, the Court of Disputed Returns, where results can be examined.

"We remain confident of the integrity of the processes which have served the Australian electorate well for many decades," the statement said.

Topics: federal-elections, elections, government-and-politics, minor-parties, political-parties, maroochydore-4558

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