News / Federal Election
Khalil on the verge of victory in Wills
Final result should be known by Friday
Mark Phillips
UPDATED: Wednesday, May 7, 2025
LABOR MP Peter Khalil is on the verge of being returned in Wills for the fourth time with a seemingly impregnable lead of 4248 votes over Samantha Ratnam of the Greens.
Khalil has still not declared victory, despite most media outlets now calling the result in his favour.
On Wednesday, with 80.9% of votes counted, he grew his margin by almost 1000 votes to lead with 52.2% of the two-candidate preferred vote.
Ratnam is also yet to to concede defeat.
Khalil has continued to benefit from preferences from absentee Liberal candidate Jeff Kidney along with One Nation.
It is understood the Australian Electoral Commission has told candidates that the final result may not be known until Thursday or Friday.
Both candidates have been keeping a low profile.
A spokesperson for Khalil said on Tuesday that Labor was not declaring victory at this stage.
On social media on Tuesday, Ratnam held out hope that more votes could still come her way and narrow the gap.
“While some media outlets are projecting a Labor win in Wills, we understand there are over 10k votes that haven’t been counted that could make the result much closer,” she said.
“We are unlikely to know more until the end of the week.”
Election day was held in bright sunshine and after an early flurry of activity, most polling booths in Brunswick were quiet by mid-afternoon. But at Fitzroy High School, which was a Wills polling booth for the first time after electorate boundaries were redrawn last year, a long queue meant it took some people an hour to cast their vote.
Ratnam voted early at her local booth at Brunswick East Primary School, where she was joined by Greens leader Adam Bandt in a sign of the party’s confidence about winning the seat for the first time.
She visited several other booths in the electorate during the day.
Khalil – who cast a pre-poll vote – began election day in Fawkner, working his way south as the day progressed.
After polls closed, they both headed off to their respective election night events. Ratnam joined the Greens’ national event at Docklands, while Khalil hosted his supporters and volunteers at the Brunswick Bowling Club where they watched in jubilation as the Albanese Government secured a surprise landslide victory.
Following last year’s redistribution, the nominal margin in Wills has been cut from 8.6% to 4.6%.
A record 35,946 votes were cast before election day, including 20,636 at the Brunswick pre-poll centre in Davies Street.
By the close of counting on Wednesday night, Khalil led the primary vote with 36.1%. Ratnam’s primary vote was 34.8%, while Kidney was on 12.9%.
Socialist Alliance candidate Sue Bolton, a Merri-bek councillor, has had a 5.3% swing her way to poll 8.1% of votes.
The primary vote swing to the Greens is now under 2%, while the swing against Khalil is only 0.3%. The Liberal vote is down 3.2%.
Ratnam has made a clean sweep of all 12 booths in Brunswick, winning 41.3% of first preference votes, including six booths where she secured more than 45%.
On a two-candidate basis, she had 55.7% of votes in Brunswick.
But outside of Brunswick (excluding postal votes), Labor still holds sway with 36.5% of first preferences, and 53.2% of the two-candidate vote.
Have your say: how did you vote on Saturday and why?
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