Australia news live: Queensland Labor ahead in Stafford byelection despite large swing

Key events

‘Many billions of savings’ from stripping welfare from non-citizens, Taylor says

Krishani Dhanji

The opposition leader, Angus Taylor, says billions could be saved from removing social welfare entitlements from non-citizens – including permanent residents – but refuses to say how much.

Speaking to Sky News this morning, Taylor says the costings will be released ahead of the next election.

There’s many billions of savings. There’s no doubt about that. We’ll put all our costings out, as is the convention, in the lead up to the election, but it’s many billions of savings in this. And this is all about making sure Australian taxpayers’ dollars are well spent, are focused on the benefits of Australians and making Australians better off.

There’s a few key costings and numbers that the opposition’s plan is missing. Taylor also still won’t confirm how much the Coalition would cut the net overseas migration target to, after announcing that he would tie immigration intake to new housing construction.

When probed on Thursday night after his budget reply, Taylor said that the number would be about 40% below current levels and under 200,000. The NOM for the last financial year 2024-25 was 306,000.

What we’re proposing here is each year the housing minister would say we’ve built this many houses, and so the immigration number, the net overseas migration number, can be X.

The opposition leader Angus Taylor was on Sky News this morning suggesting Labor’s plan to index tax thresholds might cost the budget as much as $250bn over a decade.

Jim Chalmers, responding to Taylor’s comments on ABC’s Insiders, said Taylor’s proposed budget approach was “irresponsible”.

Last time we cut income taxes, Angus Taylor voted against it and said he would repeal it.

Chalmers continued:

Angus Taylor would be adding a quarter of a trillion dollars to national debt. That would cost tens of billions of dollars in extra debt interest, because he’s got these uncosted, unfunded, tax announcements that he made in his Budget reply, which was all about trying to stave off One Nation.

Some federal politics for you coming up: we’re expecting to hear the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, speaking on ABC’s Insiders shortly – we’ll bring you that when it happens.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is in Melbourne today and doing a press conference at about the same time as his treasurer is speaking on the telly. We’ll let you know what comes out of that presser too.

LNP concedes Stafford byelection

The Queensland premier, David Crisafulli, has conceded the inner-northern Brisbane seat of Stafford to Labor after a tight byelection race.

While the final result was not declared on Saturday night and the outcome could come down to postal votes, Crisafulli acknowledged the Liberal National party candidate, Fiona Hammond, was unlikely to win, but claimed his party had received a substantial swing towards it:

I do think we’re going to fall agonisingly short, guys. I think we’re going to fall agonisingly short, but boy, oh boy, what an incredible campaign from an incredible, incredible candidate.

With almost 80% of ballots counted on Saturday evening, Labor’s Luke Richmond was ahead by 768 votes on late Saturday night. Labor was likely to retain the seat despite a 4.1% swing against them, chief ABC analyst Casey Briggs said on X:

Labor is likely to retain Stafford. There has been a 4.1 per cent swing against Labor with additional postal votes still to be counted. But for the LNP to win from here, those postal votes would need to break very strongly in its favour. That is very unlikely to happen.

Polls closed at 6pm, with more than 14,000 people casting ballots on the day. Almost 42% of people chose to vote early, 13,530 in person and 3,860 by post.

The byelection in the marginal electorate was called after the sudden death of former independent MP Jimmy Sullivan on 9 April. Sullivan was expelled from Labor in May 2025 over medical concerns.

The opposition leader, Steven Miles, told Labor’s packed election night party last night:

I am so thrilled to tell you that Luke Richmond is the new member for Stafford.

The byelection was widely seen as a test of former premier Miles’ leadership. He has led the party since taking over from Annastacia Palaszczuk in December 2023.

Asked if Labor would do better if it were led by someone else, Miles said on Saturday night that would be “a decision for the caucus, but I have the support of the caucus right now to be leader”.