Bateman

Margin: Liberal 23.2%
Region: South Metropolitan
Federal: Tangney

RESULTS AT 2013 ELECTION
HISTORICAL TWO-PARTY RESULTS
PREVIOUS ELECTION RESULTS MAP

Candidates in ballot paper order

DEAN NALDER Liberal (top) DON HUGGINS Australian Christians JONATHAN MASIH Micro Business Party MICHELLE MEYERS One Nation TOMAS FITZGERALD Labor (centre) ADRIAN ARNOLD Julie Matheson for WA ADIE WILMOT Greens (bottom)

Bounded to the north by the Swan River and to the east by the Canning River, Bateman is a safe Liberal that has been substantially redrawn in the redistribution, with far-reaching consequences. The seat was formerly oriented further to the south, encompassing Murdoch and its university campus and the eastern half of Kardinya, from which 5000 voters have been transferred to Willagee. This has been balanced by the gain of blue-ribbon territory north to the rivers, encompassing 14,000 voters in Applecross, Ardross and Mount Pleasant, formerly in abolished Alfred Cove. The seat retains Booragoon, Winthrop and Bateman from its old configuration, home to 11,000 voters. The result is a substantial lift in the already ample Liberal margin, from 17.8% to 23.2%.

The abolition of Alfred Cove and its division between Bateman and the new seat of Bicton further to the west, where the notional Liberal margin is a relatively modest 10.6%, unleashed a preselection turf war in which Alfred Cove MP Dean Nalder prevailed over Bateman MP Matt Taylor, leaving the latter to contest Bicton. The divide was broadly between the party's business establishment, which favoured Nalder, and the increasingly assertive religious conservative tendency associated with South Metropolitan MLC Nick Goiran, which backed Taylor. The party's state council took control of the preselection amid allegations of branch stacking, and voted in favour of Nalder 69 to 50.

Dean Nalder is a former executive for ANZ and Australia Post who won Alfred Cove in 2013 from Janet Woollard, who had held the naturally conservative seat as an independent since 2001. Woollard had a troubled final term after her narrow re-election in 2008, and Nalder heavily defeated her with 64.4% of the primary vote. He was elevated to cabinet in March 2014 as Finance and Transport Minister, but lost the former portfolio the following December over a conflict of interest issue. His transport responsibilities eventually brought him into conflict with Colin Barnett over the design of the Perth Freight Link, a matter of intense local interest to the Bicton and Bateman electorates. In September 2016 he resigned from cabinet and announced he would contest the leadership if a spill motion was carried in the party room, but it was defeated by 31 votes to 15.

Matt Taylor became the member for Bateman at the 2013 election in succession to Christian Porter, who in turn entered parliament at a February 2008 by-election in the seat of Murdoch, which was reconstituted as Bateman at the subsequent redistribution. Porter rose to become Attorney-General and then Treasurer during his tenure, before resigning in mid-2012 ahead of a move to the federal seat of Pearce the following year, and eventually to the Turnbull cabinet as Social Services Minister. Murdoch was created in 1996 in succession to abolished Applecross (the boundaries of which were almost identical to Bateman as currently constituted), which was in turn preceded by East Melville from 1962 to 1989. Each of the electorates was consistently safe for the Liberals.