It’s September 6

ABC Radio reports Alan Carpenter will go to Government House this afternoon to call a Western Australian state election for September 6. More to follow: yet-to-be-revised Buswell-era seat-by-seat election guide here. Hat tip to Zombie Mao.

UPDATE: Rather than do any actual work, I am republishing below the bulk of a post from a few weeks ago which was soon superseded by the Westpoll post. Elsewhere: “analysts” rate the snap election decision a blunder; Joe Spagnolo of the Sunday Times offers a non-exhaustive list of “seats to watch”; audio from ABC state political editor Peter Kennedy and Curtin University academic David Black; analysis from Tony Barrass of The Australian. The Liberals are off to a good start: John McGrath has quit the front bench, after being contentiously retained by Troy Buswell when the Corruption and Crime Commission found he had been involved in dubious dealings with Brian Burke.

When surveying the electoral landscape, one factor asserts itself with a force that makes all the sniffed chairs, snapped bras, lifted shirts and exposed Prince Alberts pale into insignifiance: the “one-vote one-value” redistribution (that at least is how it’s been marketed, but that’s a subject for another time). Going by the post-redistribution pendulum, you would never know that Labor was currently one seat away from minority government (at least when taking into account the three ex-Labor independents, which the pendulum doesn’t do). This is because the notional margins determined by Antony Green suggest Labor would have won 38 seats rather than 32 if the 2005 election had been held on the new boundaries. In the crude terms of uniform swings, the Liberals will need 51.4 per cent of the two-party preferred vote to be in contention for minority government (for a swing of 3.6 per cent), and as much as 2 per cent extra if they’re to go all the way.

Metropolitan
Country
ALP LNP IND Total ALP LNP Total
2005 Election 24 8 2 34 8 15 23
Redistribution 32 8 2 42 6 11 17

The creation of eight new seats in the metropolitan area was always going to be good news for Labor, which holds 70 per cent of its seats. Even so, it seems remarkable that all eight have found their way to the Labor column. The Liberals do have the marginal new seat of Scarborough, but elsewhere they lose Serpentine-Jarrahdale as part of an unhelpful carve-up of the outer suburbs. An appreciation of the situation can be gained by breaking the area into six pieces: two zones of Labor and one of Liberal heartland, and three where the election will be decided. These are outlined in the map below (indicated by the black lines: the blue ones are upper house region boundaries), with electorates colour-coded to indicate party margins (ranging in Labor’s case from lightest red for under 2.5 per cent to deep red for over 15 per cent).

Inland outskirts. The luck of the draw has turned two Labor and two Liberal seats into three Labor and one Liberal, but all could go either way. Liberal-held Serpentine-Jarrahdale has been divided among four notionally Labor seats, while Darling Range is mixed with abolished Kenwick in a manner that produces one highly marginal seat (Kalamunda) and one that is relatively safe for Labor (Forrestfield). The new seat of Darling Range owes more to Serpentine-Jarrahdale than the old Darling Range, emerging with a slight notional Labor margin.

Riverside and northern beaches. The all-blue strip along the western beaches now accounts for five Liberal seats instead of four, although Labor would win Scarborough in a good year. The riverside seats of Nedlands, Alfred Cove, South Perth and Bateman (formerly Murdoch) have all maintained their identity. Three of the nine seats in the riverside and northern beaches region are held by conservative independents.

Northern mortgage belt. Further north is the volatile mortgage belt, where the new coastal seat of Ocean Reef has muscled in among four existing electorates. All are Labor or notionally so (Kingsley has been left white on the map as it is a statistical dead heat), but most if not all are likely to shift with the next change of government – as the northern suburbs did in 1983, 1993 and 2001.

Eastern suburbs. The really good news for Labor is that there are now 15 seats in its inner suburban heartland from Girrawheen east to Midland and south to Armadale, including the new seats of Nollamara, West Swan, Cannington and Gosnells. The only cost for them is that safe-ish Yokine (margin of 8.2 per cent) has turned into marginal-ish Mount Lawley (5.8 per cent).

Southern coastal. This safe Labor strip is now accommodated by six seats instead of five, with Kwinana created from the south of Cockburn and the north of Peel (the remainder of which is now called Warnbro).

South-eastern. Southern River and Riverton are joined by Jandakot: all are Labor marginals, the margin in Southern River having been cut from 11.8 per cent to 5.1 per cent.

Then there are the cutbacks in the country, which owing to the “large district allowance” have impacted on conservative areas in the south-west (like I said, a subject for another time). The exception is the effective abolition of the vast Mining and Pastoral region seat of Murchison-Eyre (held by Labor-turned-independent John Bowler) and its replacement with Eyre, which more closely resembles the abolished Liberal-held seat of Roe as it includes Esperance and Ravensthorpe. This has involved the transfer of Esperance and Ravensthorpe from the Agricultural upper house region to Mining and Pastoral, cutting Agricultural’s enrolment from 93,886 to 82,479. Thus truncated, the Agricultural region now has four lower house seats in place of seven. As well as the disappearance of Roe, Liberal-held Moore has essentially absorbed Nationals-held Greenough, while the two Nationals seats of Merredin and Avon have merged into Central Wheatbelt.

The South West region has gone from 11 seats to eight, which can roughly be explained as Leschenault being absorbed by Murray (now Murray-Wellington), Capel being absorbed by Vasse and Collie-Wellington (now Collie-Preston), and Liberal-held Warren-Blackwood merging with Nationals-held Stirling to form Blackwood-Stirling. The remaining development to be noted is the expansion of Bunbury, Albany and Geraldton, each of which has shifted from one party column to the other. Bunbury is the largest of the three cities, such that the Liberal-held seat has been able to expand into Labor-voting southern suburbs which were previously accommodated by Capel. Albany and Geraldton on the other hand are Labor-held seats which have had to expand into surrounding conservative rural territory. However, this does not mean they are going to fall into the Liberals’ lap: Labor’s past lack of campaigning effort in the rural areas means they are stronger here than the margins suggest.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

278 comments on “It’s September 6”

Comments Page 1 of 6
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  1. Best ABC PM line ever:

    “Well, it has taken a while, but being labelled as a seat sniffer has proved to be sure political death.”

    I’m guessing Carpenter by 10 seats.

  5. [Like the NT election this is going to be a short campaign.]

    Yep, and Barnett hasn’t even decided on his Shadow Cabinet, meaning they’ll have no time to raise issues or polices.

    VERY smart move 🙂

  6. The Liberal Party ‘Endorsed Candidates’ page seems to be down at the moment as well. I would say it’s going to be undergoing some serious editing during the next 10 days.

  7. [Yep, and Barnett hasn’t even decided on his Shadow Cabinet, meaning they’ll have no time to raise issues or polices.

    VERY smart move]

    Might this not have the potential to backfire on Carpenter? It looks pretty opportunistic.

  9. Smart move by Carps.
    The Lib will not have time to organise themselves.
    – a nip in the bud for the Lib.
    and it will finish off Barnett once and for all.
    – no win means no full term in office and retirement.

  10. “Might this not have the potential to backfire on Carpenter? It looks pretty opportunistic.”
    Do you really think people vote against a government because they go a few months ahead of time? I guess it could happen if the alternative was something to vote for but I doubt it in this case.
    William, I see your point but isn’t 30 days the minimum requirement?

  11. [Smart move by Carps.
    The Lib will not have time to organise themselves.
    – a nip in the bud for the Lib.
    and it will finish off Barnett once and for all.
    – no win means no full term in office and retirement.]

    Totally agree, The ALP probably have the ads ready for airing tonight, plus during the Olympics there will be ALP ads in every break as according to a post in the old thread, the ALP had booked ads to run from August 1st 🙂

  13. WA Today story quoting Colin Barnett.

    [Liberal leader Colin Barnett, who regained the top Opposition job yesterday, told 6PR’s Simon Beaumont this morning that any decision to call an early election would be a “fraud”.

    He said the only reason Mr Carpenter might want to call an election early was to get it out of the way before the public release of a potentially explosive Corruption and Crime Commission report into the relationship of MPs and public servants with lobbyists Brian Burke and Julian Grill.]

    http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/premier-alan-carpenter-to-call-wa-state-election-20080807-3rib.html

  14. The first two weeks of the campaign will be silenced by the Olympics.

    The new-look Opposition will barely have a chance to be seen.

    Very smart move by carpenter.

    I’d be surprised if the move backfires, though the ALP would probably lose a few seats whenever the electionw as held. Though it’s not unprecedented, it’s extremely rare for any leader, anywhere, to call an early election and then lose it (Des Corcoran, this is your life!). If Labor’s polling was showing any real risk of losing the election, Carpenter wouldn’t call it now. He’d need more air-time to get his message heard and air a few new policies.

    With NT and WA now going to the polls, it looks likely that the amazing run of Labor election wins will continue.

    Will Barnett be inviting Brendan Nelson to campaign for him?

  15. Very good move by Carpenter, although I can’t help but wonder: Is he rueing not calling it last week?? If he did, the Libs would probably have been locked in with Buswell.

  16. [Very good move by Carpenter, although I can’t help but wonder: Is he rueing not calling it last week?? If he did, the Libs would probably have been locked in with Buswell.]

    But Buswell will be oin the front bench as shadow Treasurer – can you imagine all the puns about sniffing money etc ?

  19. [Pardon my ignorance, but after the redistributions, what are the state of the parties at the moment?]

    EXISTING (NOTIONAL):

    LOWER HOUSE
    ALP 29 (39)
    Lib 15 (15)
    NP 5 (3)
    Greens 0 (0)
    Ind 8 (2)

  21. So the Coalition needs to win at least 10 seats to win government (with the help of independents).

    In a House of only 59, I just don’t see that happening immediately after a leadership handover…

  22. [So the Coalition needs to win at least 10 seats to win government (with the help of independents). ]

    Actually it’s 15, but there is NO coalition this time.

  23. I should point out that only two of those eight independents were elected that way: the actual election result in 2005 was ALP 32, LIB 18, NAT 5, IND 2. Although that’s ancient history of course due to the redistribution.

  26. What Antonio said.

    This campaign is only going to be 12 days long, starting after the Closing Ceremony on the 24th.

    I don’t think the Opposition is going to get much air-time over the next 16 days.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if people don’t realise there is an election coming until about a week out (although this might not be unusual).

  28. [Here is the Liberal Party Candidates page.]

    And note they have no candidate for Morley – I wonder if they wil do a deal on Preferences with John D’Orazio ?

  29. Thanks William that’s why I say there are only 2 notional independents although I reckon Walker (Nedlands) and Bowler (Kalgoorlie) have a very good chance of re-election joining Constable (Churchlands) and Woollard (Alfred Cove) who should have no trouble

  30. “it’s extremely rare for any leader, anywhere, to call an early election and then lose it”

    Jeff Kennett, at least six months early, 1999.

  32. [It looks as though Carpenter didn’t warn his own head office]

    No doubt the website is ready to go live as soon as he visits the Governor 🙂

  34. [Jeff Kennett, at least six months early, 1999.]

    But there were extenuating circumstances, such as the collapse of the Pyramid Bank etc.

    No such issues here.

  35. So are all West Australians going to be ‘Glued’ to the Olympics????? I doubt it very much! I can think of 10-20% of the electorate who wont be influenced by Chinese propaganda!!!!!

  41. [This will be a Drover’s Dog election for Barnett. Like what Hawke pulled on Fraser.]

    Slight difference, Hawke had no baggage, Barnett has his Canal.

  45. [Sorry Frankie Bolognaise, The WA Labor Govt is corrupt and out of touch. Carps is a dead man walking.]

    Ha, and you base it on a Westpoll which is an Absolute Joke,

    Enough Said.

  47. You sound worried Frankie Bolognaise? Just like Carps is worried about Canal. Well you should be. Wait until Canal rolls out The Man of Steel to help him. West Australian’s love the Man of Steel.

  48. Snoop, we’ll see. Let’s hope there are polls with more than 400 people being surveyed.
    Anyone can make barracking statements.

  49. [You sound worried Frankie Bolognaise? Just like Carps is worried about Canal. Well you should be. Wait until Canal rolls out The Man of Steel to help him. West Australian’s love the Man of Steel.]

    No, The Libs are a shambles, they haven’t endorsed all their candidates yet, nor have they decided on a Shadow Cabinet, which includes Troy Buswell – talk about rewearding micreants, at least Carpenter either sacked, or made them force to resign when they got caught out.

  50. [You sound worried Frankie Bolognaise?]

    Oh and name calling doesn’t help your cause either.

    Only cowards resort to childish name calling.

    Gary Hunt is a prime example.

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