Photo finishes (lower house): episode three

Labor needs to win four out of these five to be in a position to form a majority if John Bowler and Carol Adams (assuming she wins) support them.

ELECTION NIGHT
LATEST
ALP LIB Total ALP LIB Total
Riverton 8002 8034 16036 9534 9602 19136
Wanneroo 7299 7293 14592 10769 11014 21783
Albany 8182 8065 16247 9629 9572 19201
Forrestfield 8177 7935 16112 9581 9450 19031
Collie-Preston 8299 7883 16182 9909 9488 19397

Riverton. Going into the election with a 2.1 per cent margin, Labor’s Tony McRae has done remarkably well to remain in the hunt while some neighbouring seats were recording swings upwards of 6 per cent. Liberal candidate Mike Nahan has complained Labor pulled out all stops to retain this seat while fatally neglecting Jandakot and Southern River. Nahan nonetheless holds a 68 vote lead, which has widened by 18 since yesterday.

Wanneroo. This might be a similar story to the Riverton area in that Labor held back the tide in Joondalup, but were dumped in its safer neighbour Wanneroo. Labor member Dianne Guise led by six votes at the close of election night but it’s been one-way traffic ever since, Liberal candidate Paul Miles now believed to be ahead by 240. The swing was especially severe at the northern end of the electorate where the new development is concentrated: Carramar, Tapping and Banksia Grove accounted for 4908 booth votes compared with 2642 in 2005, and Labor’s share of that vote went from 61.4 per cent to 52.0 per cent. A similar story in this area helped the Liberals gain the corresponding seat of Cowan at the federal election.

Albany. Peter Watson is another Labor member who has performed outstandingly, picking up a 2.6 per to remain in the hunt in a seat that had been pulled from underneath him by redistribution. However, late counting has pared his lead back from 117 to 57 since Saturday. The Albany booths recorded an anti-Labor swing of just under 1 per cent, suggesting the swing to Labor in the Stirling parts of the electorate (where they played dead at previous elections) approached double digits. The Nationals vote was up from 5.1 per cent to 13.4 per cent, despite their nomination of a 20-year-old candidate.

Forrestfield. The Labor lead fell precipitously on Monday, but has since stabilised as counting proceeds slowly – with about 500 votes added today it’s gone from 115 to 131.

Collie-Preston. Labor’s Mick Murray looks home and hosed with a 421 vote lead and no trend against him.

Morley. The Liberal lead dipped intriguingly yesterday, but the rate slowed today with 691 new votes breaking only 356-335 to Labor, putting the lead at 375.

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.

80 comments on “Photo finishes (lower house): episode three”

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  1. The Lib supporters here seem to be a little rattled by the signs of independent thinking by the Nats.

    I totally agree, and you can also see it in Barnett’s tone of voice when talking about it as well. And I’ll predict if Brendan doesn’t do as he is told, then watch The Libs, in concert with The West attempt the mother of all campaigns to mount votes of no confidence in the Govt.

  2. Brendan has had his moment of fame, now it’s time to stop the games and join the Libs!

    And if he doesn’t are you going to throw a wobbly ? 🙂

  3. I would call for a vote of no confidence in the government.

    And as Professor David Black said on Stateline, it would be defeated because the Nats would vote with Labor 🙂

  4. Would Generic person, Glen, Barnett et al be displaying this attitude if the party with the 4 swinging votes was Family First or CDP? There seems to be too much disrespect for any independent party exercising its independence.

    The valid point has been made that, if the Nationals are always the junior partner to the Libs in a coalition, what would be the justification for their existence?

  5. labor will have the most seats in parliament so logically they should be favoured to by the nats when thinking of who to back. Labor also have the luxury of knowing exactly what can be redirected, cut and moved to accomodate the nats requirements because theyve been delivering the budgets for the past 8 years. the libs really have no idea of where the fat lies in the public service and program allocation and that is reflected in their rather pathetic 3 page attempt in trying to woo the nats. Labor thanks to the luxury of incumbancy can provide a full costed and comprehensive blueprint to meet the nationals demands. finally state labor will more than likely recieve federal assistance to offset the budgetary pressures of finding 2.8 billion over the next four years, the libs certainly will not. The issue may well be resolved because only the labor party is in a position to actually deliver what the nats want. It appears barnett is fully aware of this and this is why he is focusing on the electoral aspects of an alliance as opposed to tangibly meeting the nats requests. All things being equal it can only be a labor nats alliance if the nats want their royalties for regions.

  6. No 61

    Sorry, that doesn’t wash mate. If the Libs were to form government they would get the appropriate briefings by Treasury and other departments, as is applicable to newly elected governments.

    Furthermore, you cannot possibly presume that a Carpenter government would be more likely to secure Federal assistance any more than Barnett government. There are appropriate probity measures.

  7. [ They need to respect their constituency, and the fact that they ran on Independence because they thought the Libs under Sniff would implode, which was wrong. ]

    Sorry fella, this is wrong. If you’d ever been to WA, you’d know this… the Nats have been running on the same line throughout the leaderships of Birney / Omodei / Buswell / Barnett, for a few years now. Also, up north where the Nats are running for the first time, they’ve damn near displaced the Liberals as the second party in ALP-held seats. (They’ve come second in Pilbara, and may do the same in North West once the other preferences get distributed – anyone know which way Fullarton swung?) Hard to see how siding with the Libs is ‘respecting their constituency’ there.

    Also, Labor haven’t been reduced to a rump – they have more seats in the parliament than any other party, and are in the position of trying to negotiate a minority government. If you want to see a Labor demolition, wait a couple of years for NSW. 😉

  8. sorry generic person, but you reinforce my points. Yes the libs could ask treasury to give them a briefing when they form government. right now they are still the opposition and have no access to in depth treasury analysis. they have no means of offering a fully costed proposal. their pre election costings were at best very light on!

    As for negotiating with the feds, surely you dont postulate that a hostile liberal government would be as sucessful in negotiating a greater share of gst and royalties than a labor government. Probity measures are about general process, the negotiations preceding that at coag and other forums decide the cut the states pick up from the feds. Howard punished WA for years by withholding competition and other assorted funds. Labor would obviously secure more federal funds than the libs. sorry but any way you look at it its only labor that can currently offer the nats a fully costed proposal. With the libs it more a well see once we get into power. I repeat only labor can give the nats what they’ve asked for.

  9. sorry but any way you look at it its only labor that can currently offer the nats a fully costed proposal. With the libs it more a well see once we get into power. I repeat only labor can give the nats what they’ve asked for.

    And Barnett has always said that the libs, upon assuming office will be doing a “Financial Audit” to see where savings could be made to fund their “Tax Cuts”, so I wou;dn’t be surprised if they were the first to go in appeasing thge Nats. 🙂

  10. sorry generic person, but you reinforce my points. Yes the libs could ask treasury to give them a briefing when they form government. right now they are still the opposition and have no access to in depth treasury analysis. they have no means of offering a fully costed proposal. their pre election costings were at best very light on!

    According to Ch 9 News BArnett & Buswell got a briefing today and Buswell was saying they “can accomodate the Nationals” by being fischal Conservatives, which is code for expect any loony left funding to be scrapped.

  11. He said fiscal discipline, not fiscal conservatism. (Unless I missed something…) Makes plenty of sense for a sudden $700 million hole opening up in their plans, loony left or otherwise.

    Did you see the way they had the Liberal mainfolk walking out down the steps? Barnett and Constable, side by side, with other Libs off to the side / behind. Looks very much like she’s going to be his deputy premier. Sure, I’m just reading body language, but it beats tea leaves… 😛

    Also, they had a likely seat count as ALP 27 / Lib 26 / Nat 4 / Ind 2, with Riverton and Wanneroo going to the Libs. Where’d that come from? I thought Woollard and Adams were looking OK in their seats. Ah well, it’s only channel 9…

  12. Did you see the way they had the Liberal mainfolk walking out down the steps? Barnett and Constable, side by side, with other Libs off to the side / behind. Looks very much like she’s going to be his deputy premier. Sure, I’m just reading body language, but it beats tea leaves… 😛

    I’ll bet they’re doing that to counter the lack of women in senior cabinet positions and/or trying to do their version of the Rudd/Gillard team.

    And I did mean fiscal discipline – got the two mixed up.

    And on Ch 7, they had footage of Buswell pulling funny faces etc, when pointing out a possible Labor Bloodbath re leadership.

  13. Funny faces eh? Similar to his, um, comment about warming his extremities to Rebecca Carmody on the night?

    Yep, he’s our Dan Quayle 🙁

  14. Why is Van Olsen some sort of expert now?

    The Labor lot looked fairly confident on that clip. I guess they are happy they still have a chance.

    Would be fun to watch the reaction of the Federal Liberals if the WA NATS deserted the traditional coalition. Might give Joyce impetus to push for something similar..lol

  15. Why is Van Olsen some sort of expert now?

    Because he has a piece of paper saying so, and he teaches kiddies about it, oh and he wrote a book on El Rodente, and worked for the Mad Monk 🙂

  16. its highly likely that federal labor will serve at least one more term. The more progressive federal nats will be looking to deal themselves into the game the same way that grylls has. The future of the nats federally lies in them being able to develop brand differentiation from the libs. Grylls may be just about to deleiver them all the brand differentiation they can cope with.

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