Wild west wash-up

Upper house results from the Western Australian election are coming through this afternoon, and we will also have Premier-elect Colin Barnett announce his new cabinet. The first upper house result comes from Mining and Pastoral, which has gone two Labor (Jon Ford and Helen Bullock), two Liberal (Norman Moore and Ken Baston), one Nationals (Wendy Duncan) and one Greens (Robin Chapple). Full preference distribution here. It earlier appeared possible that second Nationals candidate David Grills might win a seat at the expense of the Greens, but Chapple emerged 8168 to 7070 ahead at the final count.

This post will be progressively updated as information becomes available.

UPDATE (1.30pm): Cabinet announced. Included are three Nationals (Brendon Grylls in regional development, Terry Waldron in sport and recreation and Terry Redman in agriculture) along with independent Liz Constable, who takes education from Peter Collier, who instead gets energy and training. Constable is one of only three women out of 17, and the only one in the lower house. The others are Robyn McSweeney as Child Protection and Community Services Minister and Donna Faragher as Environment Minister, the latter a surprise inclusion at the expense of former Shadow Women’s Affairs Minister Helen Morton.

UPDATE (3.30pm): North Metropolitan, East Metropolitan and South Metropolitan have all gone Liberal three, Labor two and Greens one. Still to come are Agricultural (likely result Nationals three, Liberals two and Labor one, although the third Nationals seat might go to Liberal-turned-Family First member Anthony Fels) and South West (looking like three Liberal, two Labor and one Nationals).

UPDATE (3.40pm): Three Liberal, two Labor and one Nationals in South West.

UPDATE (4.50pm): Three Nationals, two Liberals and one Labor in Agricultural. Final result: 16 Liberal, 11 Labor, five Nationals, four Greens.

UPDATE (Saturday): Full preference distributions:

North Metropolitan
East Metropolitan
South Metropolitan
South West
Agricultural
Mining and Pastoral

Listed below are close-ish results at the final counts. There were no tremendously close calls earlier in the counts that might have proved decisive, such as Family First or CDP candidates getting ahead of Liberal or Nationals candidates in South West or Agricultural.

EAST METROPOLITAN
Greens #1: 41489 (15.0%) ELECTED
Labor #3: 37106 (13.5%)

SOUTH METROPOLITAN
Greens #1: 43516 (15.5%) ELECTED
Liberal #3: 40174 (14.3%) ELECTED
Labor #3: 34640 (12.4%)

SOUTH WEST
Liberal #3: 22124 (14.4%) ELECTED
Greens #1: 20992 (13.6%)

AGRICULTURAL
Nationals #3: 11096 (15.2%) ELECTED
Labor #2: 8971 (12.3%)

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.

228 comments on “Wild west wash-up”

Comments Page 2 of 5
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  1. You are correct, Dovif – you don’t know what I’m talking about.
    I’m not talking about preference flows. Within each district, the result was of course roughly proportional. I am talking the malapportionment of the districts – the vast difference in the number of voters in each district. Viz:

    Mining and Pastoral: 76,005
    Agricultural: 84,553
    South West: 178,801
    East Metropolitan: 327,550
    South Metropolitan: 331,344
    North Metropolitan: 332,146

    So in M&P the quota was 10,588, while in North Metro it was 47,449. In other words, if you live in Port Hedland, your Leg Council vote is worth 4.48 times what it would be worth if you lived in Wanneroo.

  2. Get ready for the fireworks.

    [The Western Australian Premier-elect Colin Barnett and Nationals Leader Brendon Grylls have signed a formal agreement outlining the terms of their power-sharing arrangement.

    The agreement says the minority Government will be referred to as the Liberal-National Government.

    The three Nationals ministers will be able to walk out of Cabinet if they disagree with issues of conscience or if the matter significantly affects regional Western Australia.

    They will not be able to publicly disagree with the Government before policy positions are announced.

    In a move that signicantly bolsters the Liberal Party’s position, the three Nationals ministers will have to support the Government if any no-confidence motions are moved.]

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/18/2368522.htm

  9. Matt C, why do you think Barnett has alighted on Grant Woodhams as the new Speaker?

    What I can say is that this so-called “agreement” is simply not going to last the distance – it will hold up for a while, but I’m fairly certain WA will be “re-syncing” the polls back to February in 2010 or 2011.

    And I find it quite amusing that the new government hates the notion of Planning & Transport being together and have split them, at the same time giving Troy Buswell a ludicrous workload under a super Commerce ministry IN ADDITION to being Treasurer and Minister for Housing & Works…

  10. Adam in Canberra

    I think you should complain to the WAEC while you are at it, I just notice another problem in the electorate system

    Like the Nationals, The ALP had 35% of the vote, but somehow managed 46% of the seats in the lower house, can you complain about that too

  11. [ Matt C, why do you think Barnett has alighted on Grant Woodhams as the new Speaker? ]

    I’m guessing because they lose the vote of the Speaker, they’d prefer it to be someone who wasn’t absolutely certain of voting with them anyway (ie: not in the Liberal Party), which if you take out the ministers (Constable + 3 Nats) leaves Woodhams, Woollard or Bowler. Grant Woodhams is probably the least flaky of that lot.

  12. Sorry Bird, I did mean my question somewhat more ironically than it comes across on the screen!

    Although the thought of the Peter Lewis of Western Australian politics, Mrs W in the chair is reason enough for us to opt for the ex-weatherman…

  14. Ahh – a ferrous remark. I miss those more than I should. 😛

    In terms of leaving a major party to become an independent, supporting the minority govt of the other major party, and then imploding halfway through the term, I would’ve picked John Bowler as our Peter Lewis. Janet Woollard seems mostly harmless… although I guess she hasn’t been tested yet. I can see her getting her face on telly a lot more now.

  16. [OK, one more question: who will be the shadow ministers, has Ripper announced the lineup yet?]

    Shadow Caucus Meeting next tuesday 🙂 Line up should be released then, and probably delayed so Labor can do matchups.

  18. [And will THE WEST AUSTRALIAN take a break from drooling over the new Liberal Govt and give the opposition any coverage?]

    Well the Axe is poised over the Nationals 🙂 If Brendon plays up, then maybe they’ll be forced to give time to the opposition 🙂

  22. The Australian article seems to suggest that Buswell has become a modern day Russ Hinze – “Minister for everything”.

    [PREMIER-ELECT Colin Barnett has placed extraordinary confidence in his trouble-prone predecessor, Troy Buswell, in a new cabinet that includes an eclecticblend of youth and experience, but few women.

    Three Nationals MPs and an independent were included in the ministry, which will be sworn in on Tuesday, after helping Mr Barnett form Western Australia’s new minority alliance government.

    Nationals leader Brendon Grylls was given substantial power in country areas as minister for regional development as well as assisting the premier with state development. The combination ensures Mr Grylls has influence over the $675million Royalties to Regions fund demanded by the Nationals.

    But Mr Buswell was the big surprise. While he was widely tipped to gain the key post of treasurer, he was also given responsibility for housing, science and innovation, commerce, small business, trade, consumer protection and industrial relations. Mr Barnett said he had great faith in Mr Buswell’s abilities.]

    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24368855-2702,00.html

  23. 51 “So in M&P the quota was 10,588, while in North Metro it was 47,449. In other words, if you live in Port Hedland, your Leg Council vote is worth 4.48 times what it would be worth if you lived in Wanneroo.”

    Adam, what a coincidence – the same order of magnitude as the zonal system malapportionment of Johannes Bjelke Petersen. In that one the western zone had a quarter of the voter numbers in city seats so gained a disproportional amount of seats relative to the city. A 10% tolerance is acceptable, this is scandalous.

  24. Ever since the Fitzgerald Inquiry pinpointed this sort of electoral rorting as a form of official corruption and recommended EARC be established, I can see no reason or excuse for this sort of malapportionment to continue anywhere in Australia.

    [The Electoral and Administrative Review Commission was established by Act of the Queensland Parliament in 1989, pursuant to a recommendation of the “Fitzgerald Report” (Report of a Commission of Inquiry Pursuant to Orders in Council, July 1989). The Report noted (section 3.3) that “the institutional culture of public administration risks degeneration if, for any reason, a Government’s activities ceased to be moderated by concern at the possibility of losing power”, and that “the fairness of the electoral process in Queensland is widely questioned”.

    Therefore the Commissioner recommended the establishment of an Electoral and Administrative Review Commission, the powers of which would include a prompt review of the “zonal” electoral system (a.k.a. the “gerrymander”), and a more general review of the then Elections Act (Qld) as it stood at the time. When the Parliament established the Commission it duly included those powers in the Act (now repealed, so apparently not available on the Web). The new Commission made the review of the electoral system one of its first tasks in 1990 – the Issues Paper on the topic was its first (90/I1).]

    http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~lee/prsa/earc/

  25. Dovif @ 60, spare me your silly sarcasm: it is unbecoming when you obviously don’t understand this subject very well.

    The Legislative Assembly figures you cite are not analogous at all, because the Assembly is not elected by proportional representation. The Greens got 11% of the Assembly vote but won no seats. Most of their preferences went to Labor, so of course Labor got a higher proportion of seats than their proportion of the primary vote. The Council, on the other hand, is elected by PR. That’s why the Greens get seats there. But the proportionality of the Council result has been grossly distorted by the malapportionment I described above. And that was brought about by the Greens. The Nats got 5% of the Council vote, which should have got them 2 seats (5% of 36 being 1.8). Instead they got five, because of the much lower enrolments in the three rural districts. Are we clear now?

  26. Adam in Canberra

    Can you make up your mind, first you blame the green

    now you said the green help you win the seats?

    a. the 2PP preferred is 52-48 Liberal + independants Vs ALP, as a point of reference the federal poll was 53-47 Labor in the Ruddslide.
    If you are going to complain about misrepresentation of a system, you cannot ignore the part that benefits you and complain about the part that is against you

    b. while the National only recorded 5% of the vote, it is a regional party, it only ran for seats in the country area, so its representation is always going to be higher than its vote
    It is similar that Tasmainia has a misrepresentation in the Federeral senate, I don’t think I heard you complaining about that

    perhaps when the Labor tried to change the electorate map at the last election, it should have looked at the upper house as well

    The system was set up for a reason, and currently most of the wealth is coming from the mines in the country area, so there is a arguments for the country receiving higher representation

  27. Dovif, it’s hard to know where to start with a post of such invincible obtuseness.

    1. Your first two sentences: I was talking about two different houses, duh.
    2. Your point (a): there is no such thing as 2PP in the Legislative Council, because it is elected by PR.
    3. Your point (b): in a true PR election, all parties would get seats roughly proportional to their vote. The fact that the Nats are a regional party is irrelevant.
    4. Tasmania has equal representation to the other states in the Senate because the Senate is a states’ house and has never claimed to represent the states proportionally.
    5. Your 2nd-last paragraph: Labor DID try to change the Council as well as the Assembly, but was blocked by the Greens. That was the whole point of my original post – please pay attention.
    6. Is a political opinion and not relevant to this discussion.

  28. Adam,

    first things first. Greens are not ferals. keep your damn prejudices and childish comments to yourself.

    Secondly, before you talk about upper house problems, lets talk about the Labor parties mistake in preferencing the Chistian fundamentalist conservative Steven Fielding and electing him! hmmm, the right wingers inthe Victorian ALP are keeping very quite at the moment. I remember your staunch defence of this.

    I don’t agree with the upper house as it is elected in WA. But then I don’t believe that my 1.8% should have been elected. Lets fix all of it. But name calling and thumping our chests aren’t going to do it. Until then, you may want to try and fix the mess in the ALP party office and kick the right wing out.

  29. Damian
    The preferencing of Family First in Vic in 2004 was done with as a tactic to get three ALP Senators elected. If the ALP primary vote had been a few % higher, it would have worked. The Senate electoral system forces all parties, including the Greens, to do preference deals. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t.

    I remind you that the same Vic ALP has successfully reformed the Vic upper house so that it is elected by full PR with equal-sized districts, reducing the over-representation that the Nats had under the old system.

    In WA, the Greens sided with the Nats to keep the upper house malapportionment. That is why the Lib-Nats now have a large Council majority. What would have happened if a couple of lower house seats had gone the other way and the ALP had been able to form a government? It would have been faced with a Lib-Nat majority in the Council, elected on a minority vote thanks to the Greens refusal to allow the Council to be reformed.

  31. Re Adam at 79.

    C’mon Adam, at least get your facts straight.

    The Legislative Council was reformed at the same time as the Legislative Assembly in legislation supported by the Greens and the ALP and opposed by the Nats and the Libs. There was no deal between the Greens and the Nats.

    The Libs, the Nats and other minor right wing parties got a majority of the 2PP vote in this election and now have a majority in the Upper House although I do concede the size of their majority is out of porportion with the vote they received.

    I do not agree with the 6×6 model for the Council and cannot defend it but your belligerent insistence that there was some “deal” between the Nats and the Greens is pure fantasy.

  32. 1. The Legislative Council was NOT reformed. The only change was to have all the districts elect six members. The malapportionment was not touched.
    2. I didn’t say there was a deal. I don’t know if there was a deal or not. And I don’t really understand why the Greens took the position they did. Do you? I do know that if the Greens had supported Labor they could have reformed the upper house, but they didn’t.
    3. There is no such thing as 2PP for a house elected by PR. The Libs-Nats did NOT get a majority of the Council vote. (WAEC have taken their figures down today, but my recollection is that they got about 45%.)
    4. Whether there was a “deal” is not really relevant. There was a voting alliance, overt or covert. The Greens joined with the Lib-Nats to block Labor’s attempt to reform the Council, and that’s why (to return to my original point) we have the current situation. I really don’t see how anyone can dispute this.

  33. So the ALP deal with Family first was done by a Secretary From the Left? Is that OK. What about the ALP Victorian State deal done by Secretary Newmann from the Right that got the DLP (upper house) in at the expense of the Greens,. Is that all right too. The ALP members are fairly touchy about these deal and what about doing what is right and preferenceing like minded, Oh Sorry, on these occasions they did. And why did they because they get preferences back, Look at the Northern Region in Victoria at the last election, the second ALP was elected on , you guessed it, family first prefereces, at who’s expense, you guessed it , the Greens. The Greens are showing that they are fair more likely to preference against the ALP, good on them,.

  34. With respect Adam, that is just bollocks.

    The ALP and the Greens (and Alan Cadby) supported the 1V1V legislation which reformed both upper and lower houses while the Nats and Libs voted against it. There was no voting alliance between the Nats and the Greens.

    Like it or not Adam, a change to the Upper House composition is still a “reform” in the strict sense of the word.

  35. My reference to Eric Locke was in response to Damian @ 78 who said the Family First deal was all the Right’s fault. As I have said before, I think Locke was quite correct to negotiate that deal. I also think Newnham was correct to negotiate the deals he did in 2006. I’m not a bit tocuhy about preference deals. All parties do preference deals, and no-one is any position to get too sanctimonious about them. All deals are done to maximise the chances of Labor winning seats. That’s what political parties are for, and I don’t apologise for it. But from Labor’s point of view, if we can’t win the seat ourselves, having the DLP in the Council was preferable to having more Greens. The DLP is, at bottom, a labour party – certainly in Kavanagh’s case that is true – and it sticks to its principles, which are known to all. The Greens by contrast are a party of petit bourgeois dilletantes, who combine self-righteous rhetoric with treacherous and unprincipled behavior, as we saw in Qld in 1995 when they got into bed with the Nats, and again in WA when (to return to the topic), they handed the Legislative Council over to the Nats.

  36. Luke: “The ALP and the Greens (and Alan Cadby) supported the 1V1V legislation which reformed both upper and lower houses while the Nats and Libs voted against it.” Oh really. Then why don’t we now have 1V1V in the upper house?

  37. #84 luke. But that proposal wasn’t the orginal one put to the Greens by McGinty which would have extended 1v1v to the Council. The Greens knocked that proposal back.

  38. Frank or anyone who knows about WA politics,

    Related to WA politics but not directly related to the election, I am searching to try to find a map of the state districts to know where and in what district Ellenbrook is. Can someone let me know please? I’ve searched the Parliament map for WA and can’t seem to find a link which identifies the boundaries for each seat. Cheers 🙂

    * I know it is in Pearce federally but I need to know the state seat …..

  42. I love the argument ‘we supported a legislation package of which Assembley 1V1V was a component, therefore we supported 1V1V even though we didn’t support 1V1V in the upper house.’ Greens are so good at having their cake & eating it too, then walking away leaving the crumbs for someone else to worry about.

    I see Carol Adams is demanding a recount in Kwinana. She clearly has a rudimentary grasp of preferential voting – she got 22% of the primary vote, lost on preferences, and believes there must have been foul play (counters playing footsy with scrutineers, etc! how would she know, as she was swanning around at parliament house the whole time the count was going on?) for that to occur. She’s not competetent for local government, let alone state parliament, if she doesn’t understand how she lost.

    Oh and Luke belated thanks for Kwinana, as requested a while ago, although I’m not sure how cluey Green voters choosing to ignore the preference deal favouring Adams on your HTV is something the party negotiators can take credit for. I thank the Green voters as a mass, and assorted Liberals who put Labor second.

  43. Adam (85)

    So the DLP and Family First are closer to the ALP than the Greens, Umm So the ALP have moved to the right of the Libs and the Nats or am I missing something. I really enjoy the DLP being fundamentally a Labour Party. Ha Ha Ha Ha , thats really funny, and I suppose that Family First are an old group of lefties that are just missunderstood.
    I know that its Friday, late in the week, but my bull**** detector is going right off.

  45. […from Labor’s point of view, if we can’t win the seat ourselves, having the DLP in the Council was preferable to having more Greens…]

    Are you serious Adam?????

    I really don’t think many in the ALP would agree with you.

  46. I love that Adam’s hatred for the Greens is up, usually means Greens vote is going up in proportion to Labors going down.

    Labor is not a party of Labour anymore, The Greens have positioned themselves as the party of labour and slowly will squeeze more of Labors core vote out. As they say in the Pantene ad… it wont happen overnight… but it will happen.

    Bring on the ACT election and the Vic local council elections. Now if only Labor candidates in Vic actually said they were Labor candidates. Can’t blame them for hiding though.

  47. [Luke: “The ALP and the Greens (and Alan Cadby) supported the 1V1V legislation which reformed both upper and lower houses while the Nats and Libs voted against it.” Oh really. Then why don’t we now have 1V1V in the upper house?]

    Because, unfortunately, that was the compromise that was needed to gain the support of all Greens MLC’s. If your criticism is that the decision was stupid then I totally agree but if your claim is that there was some underhanded purpose to advantage the Greens in the regions then you are wrong.

  48. Luke @ 95: Yes they do actually.
    Luke @ 97: In other words, your first statement was wrong. The Greens DIDN’T “support legislation which reformed both upper and lower houses,” because, as you now concede, they in fact sank 1v1v in the Council. I didn’t say they did it for “an underhand purpose”. I said yesterday that they did it to advantage themselves, as shown by Chappel winning a seat with less than 5,000 votes. This has been denied, which means that I have no idea why they did it, as I said above. Why don’t you tell me why they did it?

  49. Adam, I am not asserting the reform of the Upper House was for the better or that it addressed the malapportionment of the LC but surely you would have to concede that 1V1V in one house is better than malapportionment in both.

    I really fail to see your point about the number of votes received by Chapple. The ALP members in M&P also got elected off a comparatively low number of votes. It was not an advantage open to the Greens only.

  50. What was Alan Cadby’s position on the upper house? For those unfamiliar with the situation, he was a Liberal-turned-independent MLC who held the swing vote at the time between Labor-Greens and Liberal-Nationals.

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