Seat of the week: Hasluck

Held for the Liberals by the first ever indigenous member of the House of Representatives, this ultra-marginal eastern Perth seat has changed hands at every election since its creation in 2001. Labor desperately needs for it to do so again on September 14.

UPDATE (22/4/13): The weekly Essential Research records no change on last week on voting intention, with the Coalition leading 55-45 on two-party preferred from primary vote of 34% for Labor, 48% for the Coalition and 9% for the Greens. The poll also finds 51% thinking Australia made the wrong decision going to war against Iraq against 23% for the right decision; support for same sex marriage at 54% and opposition at 33%; and 68% supporting the Gonski report recommendations against 13% opposed, but 43% opposed to the government’s specific plan against 40% in support.

UPDATE 2 (22/4/13): The Morgan multi-mode poll has Labor up half a point to 32.5%, the Coalition down 2.5% to 44% (their weakest result since this series began eight weeks ago) and the Greens steady on 10.5%. That pans out to 54.5-45.5 on respondent-allocated preferences (down from 55.5-44.5), which Morgan prefers, and 54-46 on previous election preferences (down from 56-44), which I and every other pollster prefer. The sample this time around was 3270.

The eastern Perth seat of Hasluck has changed hands at all three elections since its creation as Western Australia’s fifteenth seat at the 2001 election, from territory that had previously been in Perth, Tangney and Swan. Labor has outperformed the state swing in Hasluck at each election, but has twice been denied by the force of the statewide tide to the Coalition. The electorate consists of three discrete population areas, with those in the north and south favouring Labor and the one in the centre leaning to the Liberals. The northern area includes Midland, home to a high proportion of seniors, rent payers and low-income earners, and the more Liberal-friendly Guildford, which is demographically unremarkable on all measures. The central area includes middle-income suburbs around Kalamunda in the Darling Scarp, home to a large number of English migrants, as well as mortgage-sensitive Forrestfield and Maida Vale nearer the city. In the south are the suburbs of Gosnells, Thornlie and Maddington, which are marked by lower levels of income and home ownership.

Hasluck is held for the Liberals by Ken Wyatt, whose win in 2010 made him the first ever self-identifying indigenous member of the House of Representatives. Wyatt was formerly a director of the Office of Aboriginal Health director and is the uncle of Ben Wyatt, an emerging figure in the state Labor Party. His win came at the expense of Labor’s Sharryn Jackson, who had won the seat in 2001, lost it in 2004 and recovered it again in 2007. Jackson became the seat’s inaugural member after defending a notional margin of 2.6% against a Liberal swing of 0.6%, before a further swing of 3.6% evicted her as Perth failed to take a shine to Mark Latham in 2004. The seat was then held for the Liberals by Stuart Henry, former executive director of the Western Australian Master Plumbers Association. Jackson served as Labor’s state president in the interim, and was reportedly urged by the LHMWU to seize the opportunity of Kim Beazley’s vacancy in Brand at the 2007 election. She instead declared herself set on recovering Hasluck, and was duly successful on the back of a 3.1% swing driven by a recovery of support for Labor in the electorate’s south following a slump in 2004. Redistribution cut Jackson’s 1.3% margin to 0.9% going into the 2010 election, and she was then seen off by an evenly distributed 1.4% swing in 2010

Labor’s new candidate for Hasluck is Adrian Evans, deputy state secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia. Evans’ preselection is the product of an increasing assertiveness within the state ALP on the part of the MUA, which according to one report accounts for a quarter of the state branch’s membership after a recruitment drive swelled its numbers from 150 to 850. The union first sought to flex its muscles when Evans ran for preselection for the state seat of Fremantle, which prior to the 2009 by-election defeat was held by LHMWU figurehead Jim McGinty. The LHMWU faction was able to secure preselection for its favoured candidate, UnionsWA secretary Simone McGurk, but it took a deal with the Right faction Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association to shore up her position in the face of the challenge from Evans. The quid pro quo included support from United Voice (as the LHMWU had become known) for the Senate ambitions of SDA state president Joe Bullock, who has duly gained top position on the Senate ticket at the expense of incumbent Louise Pratt. This has in turn caused friction between United Voice and Pratt’s AMWU sub-faction of the Left, with which the MUA is aligned.

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.

1,831 comments on “Seat of the week: Hasluck”

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  3. [I think Abbott is just trying to over-emphasise how bad a situation he wants people to believe Swan had put us in.]

    There I have cleaned it up for you Rua.

  4. The passing of Chrissy Amplett is indeed sad.

    A true original in a very derivative industry. Her signature songs will always be remembered for their slutty humour, driving rythyms and catchy lyrics.

    Vale.

  5. ruawake @ 1599 – you are right, by the standards that Tony Abbott applies to others, his pledge to lower the Company Tax rate was a lie. And in any case, isn’t increasing company tax on the largest, most profitable companies class warfare? Imagine the howls of outrage if Labor did something similar to support, say, the Gonski reforms.

  6. In “normal times” there shouldn’t be any need to manipulate our exchange rate.

    In the current times where most of the world’s economy is engaged in currency wars there is almost nothing we can do.

    We’re not big enough to push against Europe, the US, the UK, China, Switzerland and others who are all trying to suppress their currencies.

    That’s bad for us (in some ways), and is definitely artificially distorting for our economy, but there’s not much we can do about it.

  7. Agree Jackol realistically we can’t do anything about it unless we decide to fix our currency rate and we would be lambasted if we tried that. We have to ride it out.

  8. Oh noes JWH makes it on to the Jon Stewart show. For a good cause though.

    [Popular satirical news program The Daily Show has used an interview with former Australian prime minister John Howard to embarrass the powerful US gun lobby.

    The interview, conducted by reporter John Oliver, focused on the gun reforms Howard introduced after the Port Arthur mass shooting of 1996.

    But there were so few [shootings in Australia before 1996]. Whoopty do!

    Oliver caused a stir last week when he described Australia as “comfortably racist” in his Bugle podcast.]

    http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/us-show-uses-howard-to-embarrass-gun-lobby-20130422-2i9rh.html#ixzz2RAvKcv1C

  12. They should have shown some of Phil Williams interview with Howard last week regarding Margaret Thatcher’s Funeral.

    Williams asked Howard if he had any plans for his own funeral.

    AN absolute hoot!

  13. I think Ashby has a case.

    It doesn’t matter if he had political agenda against his boss, from the text messages we can see he was being harassed by his employer.

    Having a political agenda or leaning does not excuse sexual harassment, never has and never will. Justice Rares judgement will be overturned I believe and the case will finally be allowed to go to court to be heard in it’s entirety.

    It is important to uphold the law in this country no matter what political leanings you may or may not have.

  14. The link above gives a running commentary on the forum. From what I can gather you need ro watch it on Sky though. I could be wrong

  16. Steve777 @1605 – we still need to get through the Budget and then publication of the actual state of the Government’s Finances and then the election – if the Coalition get into power – then you can judge them on what they ended up taking to an election versus what they actually do and whether or not lies were told or promises broken.

    At the moment Swanny is giving us a moving target from which to attempt to build a fiscal position. Very hard to say “I’m going to stand here!” when the ground is shifting beneath you.

  17. The little Aussie Battler is high against the prevailing wind of lower commodity prices which usually means a drop n the currency.

    It’s a measure of how bad everywhere else is perceived that our currency is holding up as a place of safe haven when the traditional indicators would see a crash.

    Swan and Gillard are far too successful for their own good as economic managers.

  19. GG – so just to get this clear – Gillard & Swan = World Best Economic Managers and without them we would have gone to hell in a hand basket.

    Howard & Costello – complete buffoons who wouldn’t know what an economic policy is let alone set one and Australia was just lucky while they were in power for 11 years.

  20. Sean Tisme

    Justice Rares found that Ashby and his legal team had taken a vexatious action against Slipper.

    The first statement of claim was dropped and amended, the sworn evidence of Slipper being on a video was never sworn.

    The appeal/leave to appeal is about this crud. They cannot wish it away.

  22. 1617

    The Australian economy is certainly doing well and the ALP`s good management of the GFC has certainly got us into the world beating class of economy but the high dollar is also a problem because it is hurting some productive parts of the economy. The dollar is so high party because other places are engaging in competitive devaluation and Australia may be forced to follow so that we are not priced out of markets.

  23. [Howard & Costello – complete buffoons who wouldn’t know what an economic policy is let alone set one and Australia was just lucky while they were in power for 11 years.]

    At last you get it Cranky. 😆

  26. CC @ 1616 – Australia is being buffeted by external forces that are seriously impacting the Australian Government’s revenue. An Abbott government will have no more hope of changing these. Tony Abbott bangs on about boats and ‘waste and mismanagement’ while having no credible alternative policies, or at least none that he wants to tell us about.

  27. victoria

    Sorry about that. She seemed a little tense but was going well. For myself, I think she’s tired. PMs not allowed to be human!

  28. Steve I think Abbott’s economic policy is to spend more, tax less and thereby create a fiscal surplus. In accounting terms we call it bottom up accounting.

  29. Justice Rares judgement: “Sexual harassment of anyone, including an employee such as Mr Ashby, is a violation of the person’s human dignity and rights. The Court must always be available for the hearing and determination of bona fide proceedings to vindicate and protect those rights. But for the reasons I have given, Mr Ashby’s pre-dominant purpose in bringing the proceedings was not a proper one.”

    So in other words… Rares said Ashby has a case, but because it was launched in his view for political reasons he wasn’t going to hear it.

    I’d argue sexual harassment is sexual harassment. You wouldn’t drop a murder case against someone because the victim had a political agenda against their murderer. Rares judgement will be overturned for this reason.

  30. CC,

    Howard and Costello were moderate economic managers.

    Basicly they shoved money out as quick as it came in. The proceeds of the boom pissed up against the wall.

    You’ve been sold a pup about the $20 billion in surplus. With everthing they had going their way, it should have been $200 billion. Or they could have invested in infrastructure for Australia’s future. That would have got them some credit in retrospect.

    Costello talks about this in reference to the 2004 election campaign. Costello offered Howard a selection from a menu. Howard scoffed the lot.

    Costello made a poor call on gold. He has to live with that.

  31. [Does anyone know when we will find out whether the Mining Tax is illegal or not?]

    Next week the HC will rule that all minerals are owned by the Crown and Queen Liz will want her cut.

  32. [Does anyone know when we will find out whether the Mining Tax is illegal or not?]

    The HC normally delivers judgments within six months of hearing.

    The timing of any decision is only influenced by how long it takes seven bright minds to wade through thousands of pages of material to reach a conclusion which binds the nation. It is not influenced by budgets or the like if what is to be done takes time.

    Sometimes circumstances permit or require a quick decision eg M70 (Malaysia swap)in 2011, Patricks in 1998.

    Sometimes the party dies while judgment is pending eg Eddie Mabo.

  33. [But for the reasons I have given, Mr Ashby’s pre-dominant purpose in bringing the proceedings was not a proper one.”]

    This is the crunch point. Rares goes into great length to explain why Ashby bought the case, it was not because of harassment of any kind.

  34. [Rares judgement will be overturned for this reason.]

    No, it won’t.

    Overturning, if it is to occur, will be based on an insufficiency of evidence to permit the conclusion of ulterior motive in bringing the proceedings or an error of law in applying the test for dismissing a claim summarily.

  35. Compact Crank@1619

    GG – so just to get this clear – Gillard & Swan = World Best Economic Managers and without them we would have gone to hell in a hand basket.

    Howard & Costello – complete buffoons who wouldn’t know what an economic policy is let alone set one and Australia was just lucky while they were in power for 11 years.

    You are catching on!

    I can testify to what a goon Costello is, having been at uni with him and shared a few lectures and tutorials.

  36. Terrible news indeed that Chrissy Amphlett has left our midst. She’s a year younger than hubby and me!

    I grew up loving her work and her brassiness. I feel a genuine sense of loss, even though I knew only the public persona.

    Death comes to us all, but it’s especially sad when it claims someone too early.

  38. ST @ 1613 – James Ashby seems to a pretty unlikely victim – a 33 year old would-be political operative who’s been around the block a few times. We are hardly talking about a young innocent here, say a Monica Lewinsky in awe of an attractive and powerful man. He probably would have decked Peter Slipper if he found the texts objectionable at the time. It does matter that he had a political agenda in bringing about the court case. Sexual harassment is a serious matter but the presiding judge has ruled that James Ashby with others abused the process of the courts to pursue an agenda other than to seek redress for harm done. Please spare us the hypocritical cant.

  44. I don’t wonder the right-wing fail to grasp the nuances of detailed policy delivery….hence the vernacularisation of Labor ministers…”Swanny”…”Albo”…”Emmo”..etc..and the love of the three-word slogan..and the truncated criticism..”Pink Batts”..”BER”and the next : “Gonk”? There seems to be this lack of capacity to “join the dots” for a continuety of comphrension of policy intent and or capacity..the “Batts” were great..the “BER” was too!
    I am not suprised therefore that they would vote for the first, most miserable bloke who came along, offering to beat-up on the first bastard who tells a good non-racist/sexist joke!
    I bet they all suffer from heartburn!

  45. David Paris ‏@DavidParis 4m Of all of the reconfigured Liberal signs today, this one may be the best/worst

  47. JGPM has shocked the News Ltd mob by answering policy questions, who would think that people would be interested in policy?

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