Nominations have closed for the March 9 Western Australian state election and the ballot paper orders have been drawn, so I hope you got your nominations in on time if you were hoping on running. Salient factoids:
• Labor, Liberal and the Greens are contesting every seat, with the Nationals contesting 17. There are also 42 Australian Christians candidates and 16 from Family First, plus 39 independents (some from unregistered parties such as the Socialist Alliance).
• There are 291 candidates for the lower house, ranging from three in Bateman, Jandakot, Victoria Park and Warnbro to seven in Balcatta, Bunbury, Churchlands, Mandurah, Vasse and Warren-Blackwood.
• There are 165 candidates for the upper house, including 41 in Agricultural, 24 from East Metropolitan, 26 from Mining & Pastoral, 25 from North Metropolitan, 23 from South Metroplitan and 26 from South West.
• The 41 for Agricultural is apparently a Legislative Council record, which isn’t bad going for a pocket borough of 85,766 voters which gets six upper house seats in addition to its four lower. This includes the formidale independent ticket of Max Trenorden, Phil Gardiner and Bill Cowan (two outgoing Nationals MPs and the brother of former Nationals leader Hendy Cowan). Former Liberal member and 2008 Family First candidate Anthony Fels is in the mix as an independent, presumably at the head of his own ticket (the website display doesn’t make this clear).
• I’m not seeing any big surprise late entrants as independents. I had been waiting to see who would emerge as the Max Trenorden candidate in Central Wheatbelt, but I’m not sure that there is one – the one independent candidate for the seat is Gerald Sturman, a former Labor candidate. Other noteworthy independents are Kwinana mayor Carol Adams, who very nearly thwarted Labor deputy leader Roger Cook’s entry into parliament in 2008; former MP Bernie Masters running against the man who unseated him for Liberal preselection in 2005, Troy Buswell, in Vasse; Cottesloe mayor Kevin Morgan, running against Colin Barnett in Cottesloe; and Nedlands mayor Max Hipkins, running against Bill Marmion in Nedlands in tandem with Morgan in opposition to local over-development.
UPDATE: From today’s West:
The Weekend West can reveal internal Liberal Party polling shows Metronet has gained traction in the community but that a Liberal-Nationals Government would be returned by a narrow margin.
According to the polling, the Liberals would win Forrestfield from Labor, while Brendon Grylls would win the Pilbara and Wendy Duncan would take Kalgoorlie for the Nationals.
However, Labor would win Morley and Swan Hills from the Liberals and pick up Fremantle from independent Adele Carles.
If that scenario plays out, Labor would hold 27 seats seats – three short of Government – and the Nationals would increase their representation to six seats, entrenching their balance of power position.
The polling also suggests that Wanneroo is in danger of falling to Labor and that the party’s Peter Watson may hang on in Albany.
For a man who is regarded by most as a shoo in on march 9 Colin Barnett is looking anything but. On television on Thursday to poo poo the ALP plan to raise funds for its rail project he like like a man wearing a collar a size or two too small. Very tight. I would have thought The relaxed approach would have been better, sort of politely scoff, point out the flaws, tell em labor is dreaming an move on. I reckon he is a bit spooked, I still expect him to win but it might be an interesting campaign from here
Would be interesting to see what happens if Masters manages to unseat the incompetent Buswell, despite the almost inevitable Liberal victory.
Some polling would be nice and I don’t want to go out and buy the West to get it!
If you want unbiased FACT I see no point in buying the WEST – and since Dixie Marshall( ex Channel 9) is Mr Barnett’s media person I understand media contact with him is strictly controlled/policed and displeasure expressed at any perceived negative comments.
Media in tiptoe mode.
I also note that, of the 59 seats in the Legislative Assembly up for grabs, the Liberal candidate is listed above the Labor candidate in 34 of them (with Labor listed above the Liberals for the other 25 seats).
A complete coincidence (random draws, right?), but interesting to notice.
From today’s West:
[The Weekend West can reveal internal Liberal Party polling shows Metronet has gained traction in the community but that a Liberal-Nationals Government would be returned by a narrow margin.
According to the polling, the Libearls would win Forrestfield from Labor, while Brendon Gryllas would win the Pilbara and Wendy Duncan would take Kalgoorlie for the Nationals.
However, Labor would win Morley and Swan Hills from the Libearls and pick up Fremantle from independent Adele Carles.
If that scenario plays out, Labor would hold 27 seats seats – three short of Government – and the Natioanls would increase their representation to six seats, entrenching their balance of power position.
The polling also suggests that Wanneroo is in danger of falling to Labor and that the party’s Peter Watson may hang on in Albany.]
Internal polling. Always ‘released’ for a reason.
Labor is paying $10 with the bookies, Libs are 50 to 1 on!
That’s NSW territory.
The Big Mo is with Labor.
This could be boilover!
That would be nice, but it seems unlikely at this point. More likely that Labor will fall just short (again) and the Liberals will be returned on the back of National support. More regional porkbarrelling should ensue.
At least there’s next time.
As if this could possibly be a close election. The last Newspoll was 57:43 to the Coalition and Labor will be wiped out. There is no time for them to turn things around. They should just accept they will lose badly and give up.
But seriously, if it ends up being close will the rest of the media shut up about Labor being doomed because of polls 7 months out of an election?
(A: no)
Actually, taking the polls at face value is a problem because a swing to the Liberals overall could simply be representing “wasted” vote gains in already solidly Liberal seats, or similarly “wasted” vote gains in solidly Labor seats that aren’t at risk of being lost anyway.
Really, you need seat-by-seat polling to be sure (at least in the marginal seats that could change hands), but we don’t see that.
That’s the inherent problem with the electorate system. In an extreme case, a party with as much as 70% of the popular vote could actually lose the election.
Arrnea
Well said , not much point if the libs get extra votes in the heartland if they don’t get them in Albany. In a seat like that a good local member, which Peter Watson seems to be, can easily defy a swing.
Further to the point I was making, I did some more maths and calculated that the maximum amount of votes a party can win (on a 2PP basis) without winning the election asymptotes against 75% of the total votes cast as the number of electorates and the number of voters in each electorate increases to infinity.
In other words, polls that report a 2PP margin of narrower than 75-25 cannot substantiate a definite victory unless corroborated by further polling evidence on a more localised level.
Libs better beware the “Ides of Wanguri”!
[However, Labor would win Morley and Swan Hills from the Libearls and pick up Fremantle from independent Adele Carles.]
If Labor picked up Swan Hills it would restore some of my faith in voters, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Alban had a negative sophomore surge, he really only promised a train and to remove Ellenbrook’s restrictive covenants in the retail centre. Neither delivered and the second was a silly idea driven by a campaign by a very small number of landowners so of course he tried to do that which is more than he did with the train promise which he tried to pretend he hadn’t made.
Would be great to see Ian win too.
What’s this “Australian Christians” thing supposed to be? I thought it was some kind of alliance of the minor Christian parties (CDP, FF, DLP), but if FF are running separately that can’t be it.
They seem to have slipped in more or less under the radar, but here are some sources about them:
http://australianchristians.com.au/ (their website)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-16/church-leaders-upset-over-australian-christians-party-name/4134380 (a story about their registration)
In short, it appears to be a spinoff of the Christian Democratic Party.
This polling seems bizare…. no change of govt , opinion polls showing a 57/43 split……. the Nats winning seats they should not. Labor to win and lose metro seats…….
With the NATs why have our fearless reporters not tackled Col And the chair sniffer on that very large SLUSH fund run by the National party, plenty of cash for Grylls and the election in the north but none to fix up the wheat belt train lines.
Which were sold by the incompetent Court Govt,but then The West and Ch 7 are both run by Stokes and Liberal HQ
That’d be because of our status as a plutocracy.