When it comes to elections, bookies are perhaps an even better form guide than the plethora of public and private opinion polls that generate a blizzard of media coverage.

This applies to Saturday’s five by-elections as much as any other.

Let’s set aside the by-elections in Perth and Fremantle.  With the Liberals’ cowardly and lazy refusal to contest, the Labor candidates there could be caught in flagrante with a goat and still win.