Western Australian election minus four days

A round-up of recent WA election reportage, as Pauline Hanson hits town and the Liberals all but abandon hope.

With only four more sleeps to go:

• Latika Bourke of Fairfax reports Liberal internal polling shows the government set to be crushed by a 14% swing to Labor, reversing the 57-43 two-party split at the last election and all but doubling Labor’s existing complement of 21 seats out of 59. Among the seats the Liberals are said to be pessimistic about are Joondalup (10.1%), Kalamunda (10.3%) and, remarkably, Jandakot (18.1%). A list of further potential Labor gains includes Darling Range (12.8%), Burns Beach (11.5%) and Riverton (12.7%).

• A report in The West Australian’s weekend edition listed Joondalup, Kalamunda, Bicton (10.6%) and Southern River (11.0%) as the “last-stand battlegrounds for the Barnett government as fears of a double-digit swing to Labor grip the Liberal Party a week from the election”. Belmont (1.2%), Forrestfield (2.2%), Perth (2.8%), Swan Hills (3.9%) and Morley (4.7%) are, naturally, “all but written off”.

• The West Australian reports today that One Nation’s candidate for Scarborough, Margaret Dodd, will take her opposition to the Liberal preference deal to a new pitch by displaying “put the Liberals last” posters at polling booths. The posters feature images of Dodd herself along with Pauline Hanson, who says she is “not happy with this at all”. Dodd says she will announce on Thursday whether she will distribute the 30,000 how-to-vote cards the party has printed for her.

• Flux the System has claimed/admitted responsibility for the twenty-six upper house independent candidates whose preference tickets perfectly accord with the micro-party preference deal that also encompasses Family First, the Liberal Democrats, the Daylight Saving Party and Fluoride Free.

• The Sunday Times’ pre-election editorial concluded: “It’s time for fresh ideas. And new leadership. The Sunday Times supports the election of Mark McGowan and his Labor team.”

• From my paywalled contribution to Crikey yesterday, previewing Pauline Hanson’s whirlwind week-long state visit:

When Hanson came to Perth in late January, news coverage focused on the “rock star” reception she received at suburban shopping malls. This time around, viewers could instead see the very different spectacle of Hanson stammering her way through responses to sharp questions on controversial subjects.

• And from a piece on the Nationals’ proposed mining royalties hike from Friday:

The policy bears all the stylistic hallmarks of party leader Brendon Grylls, whose remarkable electoral achievements over the past decade largely reflect his success in imposing the Royalties for Regions scheme on the Barnett government. This reserves a quarter of the state’s mining royalty revenue for regional projects, and would itself be first for the chop under any rationally ordered scheme to restore the budget to health, if either major party dared countenance it. But whereas Royalties for Regions offers a politically happy confluence of thinly spread pain and thickly concentrated benefit, the loser this time around is the most powerful enemy that anyone in Western Australian politics could contrive to create for themselves.

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.

62 comments on “Western Australian election minus four days”

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  1. If even ‘The Sunday Times’ is backing Labor, its curtains for Barnett – and so much for the conservatives in the LNP who have argued that they need a hard turn to the right to coddle-up to One Nation ideologues. That’s turned out well, hasn’t it?

    Doubtless comparisons will be made to the elections of 2001 and 1989….

  2. So the brains trust of WA Liberals is trying to scare previous Liberal voters with a doomsday Labor landslide scenario. And then of course they also get the credit for a “late swing” back to the Liberals as a result of brilliant campaigning and justify their party positions. Have I missed anything?

  4. First time I have read my seat Riverton is in play.

    I think the redistribution is supposed to have made Nahan safe.

    When he was elected His background as an academic and IPA operative had him touted as a policy genius. He found out that sitting in an ivory tower firing bullets is much easier than having to find solutions in the real world.

    Inherited a mess from previous treasurers Buswell and Porter but was incapable of doing anything about it.

    Won’t be missed if he goes.

  5. Wakefield
    Tuesday, March 7, 2017 at 9:10 am
    So the brains trust of WA Liberals is trying to scare previous Liberal voters with a doomsday Labor landslide scenario. And then of course they also get the credit for a “late swing” back to the Liberals as a result of brilliant campaigning and justify their party positions. Have I missed anything?

    If this is the plan, it will fail. This message will simply give further encouragement to disaffected past-Liberal voters to shift their support.

    The ON/Lib plot has undermined one of the Liberals key brand values – that they are “reliable” and “predictable” and can provide “stable” Government. It’s quite obvious the Liberals now represent contra-values. They are “desperate”, “cynical” “unreliable” and “weak”. Very few voters will want to support a weak team that will be unable to offer strong and stable government.

    The Liberals are asking to be thrown out of office. They will be.

  6. Rossmcg………Nahan was brilliant in Opposition………..he had an answer to everything but mainly relied on the magic pudding of Adam Smith’s ‘the market will fix everything’ approach to economics. He has found government much harder going and he is probably wistful for the days when he had it all sorted on talk-back radio…..Mind you, he is one of the more rational Libs. If Labor should be successful come Saturday, the 39-41 $$$ billion or whatever it is now, will be a daunting challenge for the new government.
    I listened to Hanson on 6PR yesterday and all she has is a list of things that are wrong…..Gareth Parker treated her lightly I thought and she was still and empty vessel. At one point he questioned her about some policy which she was totally ignorant of. She then threw her local ‘leader’ into the fray. He admitted the party had no policy in the area. Hopefully, if Labor does win, a few more upper house seats will go Labor’s way and lessen the impact of the minors…………..One the other hand, with possibly 10% of the vote, the presence of ON, will be like weeds growing in winter…….a damned nuisance without much use to anyone.

  7. Oh, and the Sunday Times support for Labor came as a real surprise……The West on the other hand, has stuck with Barnett though in a weak editorial recently, the paper was keen to bag the role of the minors. I sense the Lib ads are at desperation levels accusing Labor of increasing household costs such as electricity and water while they themselves have increased charges for power, say, but somewhere between 60% and 80% in the last few years. Barnett lost his cool yesterday when the press pack were only interested in his views on the impact of Hanson’s visit…………..I guess he can pick up, 8 years later, his plans to retire from politics……

  8. Briefly,
    Your analysis of why the Liberals will be thrown out is absolutely spot on. No longer reliable, sensible or centrist. The PHON deal sealed it. As you point out their brand in now ratshit.
    Leaking a cataclysmic poll in the hope of prying back Liberal deserters will only add to the anti liberal bandwagon. In the end, voters want to be with the winners. You nailed it.

  9. Briefly,
    Your analysis of why the Liberals will be thrown out is absolutely spot on. No longer reliable, sensible or centrist. The PHON deal sealed it. As you point out their brand in now ratshit.
    Leaking a cataclysmic poll in the hope of prying back Liberal deserters will only add to the anti liberal bandwagon. In the end, voters want to be with the winners. You nailed it.

  10. Al Pal
    Tuesday, March 7, 2017 at 10:43 am

    Cheers, Al Pal.

    The Liberals lost the plot about 18 months ago. They have only made a difficult situation even worse. Voters will rejoice when they’re gone.

  11. Tough days ahead for Malcolm, sucking up to Pauline to get her vote in the Senate while now trying to keep his distance.

  12. So the brains trust of WA Liberals is trying to scare previous Liberal voters with a doomsday Labor landslide scenario.

    Surely compulsory voting makes that an ineffective strategy at best.

  13. Barnett is the architect of what may be a disaster.

    He should have left two years ago. The fact the likely successors had either imploded (Buswell), spat the dummy (Porter), had delusions of grandeur (Nalder) or needed more time to prepare (Harvey) should not have been his problem.

    But in typical emperor style he believed he was the only one.

    Labor to its credit stuck with McGowan despite the poor result in 2013 and a few hiccups along the way. Not many State opposition leaders get two goes at winning. WA Labor has coped a lot of flak over the years and rightly so but they got it right this time.

  14. tricot @ #7 Tuesday, March 7, 2017 at 10:40 am

    Oh, and the Sunday Times support for Labor came as a real surprise……The West on the other hand, has stuck with Barnett though in a weak editorial recently, the paper was keen to bag the role of the minors. I sense the Lib ads are at desperation levels accusing Labor of increasing household costs such as electricity and water while they themselves have increased charges for power, say, but somewhere between 60% and 80% in the last few years. Barnett lost his cool yesterday when the press pack were only interested in his views on the impact of Hanson’s visit…………..I guess he can pick up, 8 years later, his plans to retire from politics……

    To be fair to the Liberals on the cost of power, prices were held artificially low for nearly 10 years at the beginning of the century.

    There is worse news to come for power prices, which are still heavily subsidised in WA. The estimate on the subsidy is somewhere between 18% and 25%, which is $600m – $700m per year, money which has to come from somewhere.

  15. The residential tariff in WA is currently 26.474 cents per kWh, so an 18% – 25% increase would push prices to ~$0.31 – ~$0.33 per kWh, very bad news for the incoming Labor government but I don’t see an alternative in the long term.

    At least it puts to rest the ridiculous talk we’ve had of going to full retail contestibility here.

  16. Grimace – take your point about power costs being kept artificially low and it is a bit of a concern as to just how Labor is going to fund their promises……….all worthwhile but expensive. I think Wyatt has a handle on it but there is a certain inevitability that Labor will pay the price in popularity in the short term. It is to be hoped that any win will be of significant magnitude in terms of seats for Labor to function……….however, the Legislative Council composition could be another Senate-type nightmare…

  17. Agree there may well be a nightmare for Labor in the Legislative Council.

    In regard to the deficit, I think Labor will end up doing a deal with the Nationals on the mining royalty tax. When people are presented with a choice between significant cuts to services and the big miners getting it in the neck, well, it won’t be a good time to be Rio Tinto or BHP.

  18. From afar, seems to me the WA Libs have really screwed the pooch here with the ONP deal – the ALP can get a lot of things done with a bunch of angry and resentful Nats.

  19. Tricot
    There is never a better time to make “unpopular” decisions than when you have just be elected for a four-year term with a handy majority.

    Rudd had the chance but blew it and people are still arguing about how and why that happened. Abbott had a chance but overreached in the 2014 budget. Had he moved more slowly he might just have got away with it.

    Barnett had a chance after 2013 but through incompetence and reluctance to confront the problems has left the state a basket case financially.

    Go back to 1983. Hawke ditched just about every election commitment when he found Howard had left the cupboard bare, made some unpopular decisions and Labor were in power for 13 years.

    Hopefully a McGowan Labor government can be disciplined and work to bring people with them as they set about repairing the damage left by eight years of Barnett and his succession of failed treasurers.

  21. Rossmcg,

    I would be very happy if Nahan lost his seat.

    I don’t think I have disliked a state Liberal so much since Graeme Kierath.

  24. grimaceTuesday, March 7, 2017 at 11:15 am

    To be fair to the Liberals on the cost of power, prices were held artificially low for nearly 10 years at the beginning of the century.

    To be fair to the ALP, this was at the insistence of the Liberals. It was a condition for their support in breaking up Western Power.

  25. It’s interesting that Latika Bourke had the story on the poor internal Liberal polling. I’m pretty sure Latika’s still in London. It makes me wonder as to her source?

    On to a different matter. Was it Latika who was awarded the 2015 Elizabeth O’Neill Journalism Award by our current foreign minister?

  27. b.c. @ #24 Tuesday, March 7, 2017 at 3:37 pm

    grimaceTuesday, March 7, 2017 at 11:15 am

    To be fair to the Liberals on the cost of power, prices were held artificially low for nearly 10 years at the beginning of the century.

    To be fair to the ALP, this was at the insistence of the Liberals. It was a condition for their support in breaking up Western Power.

    Well you learn something new every day.

  29. I have been doing some estimates of just how badly WA has squandered the mining boom in the past decade. The numbers are staggering. In 2006 mining and oil & gas exports were $43 billion. Last year they were $87 billion. Over the ten years mining oil and gas was worth over $600 billion from WA. They got less than $40 billion in royalties (which are 7% or less). If WA royalties had been 18% as in NT, they would have gotten another $60 billion+!! That would have been enough to pay off the WA debt and still have $20 billion in the kitty to stimulate the economy now.

    So the state level of management of the WA mining boom has been a scandal. The fact that WA also opposed the Federal government picking up the MRRT, means that most of the profits saled out of the country untaxed, since the mining industry is around 80% foreign owned. What a disaster! Barnett should hang his head in shame. The Liberals mindless obsession with low taxes has sunk the state. See
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_in_Western_Australia
    And this for royalty rates:
    http://www.aph.gov.au/parliamentary_business/committees/house_of_representatives_committees?url=economics/mineralstax/subs/supp%20sub%206.2%20treasury%20.pdf

  31. [Question is for how long? And won’t it be fun watching the liberal factions sort out his replacement.]
    For as long as it takes him to convince the federal gov to send him off to some cushy sinecure.

  32. Shows On

    Doubt it. Nobody likes Barnett that much and the Feds have too many of their own to look after to be handing out jobs to ex WA premiers.

  33. I quote from a press release from Alan the Truly Hopeless:
    “Tuesday, 28 June 2005
     
    28/06/05

    Energy Minister Alan Carpenter has congratulated the State Opposition for agreeing to support the Government’s plan to reform Western Power.

    To guarantee that support, Mr Carpenter said the Government had agreed to cap electricity prices for householders and small businesses during this term of office.

    “Our existing budget allocations for Western Power are based upon no increase in the tariff during the current four-year budget cycle,” he said.

    “In return for its support for our legislation, the Opposition sought a guarantee that tariffs would not go up and that the disaggregation process would not lead to increasing prices.
    “

  34. In addition to the libs supporting disaggregation of Western Power, and the price freeze there was nothing that happened between the Emperors promise not to increase power prices at the last election and his decision to do so afterwards. He just lies at elections and only fools would case a vote for him.

  35. I think perhaps as Howards electricity game network gold plating thing on the east coast started to get out of control and bite the east coast the WA prices might have started to look low, but that is just a guess …

  37. Has the West Australian done an editorial yet advocating a vote either way ?
    IFRC in Sydney, the SMH runs a couple of days before the day.

  40. Thanks Crikey …
    The mining tax might actually destroy the Nationals chance in the Pilbara, at least among mining communities. And the Liberals proposed sale of Western Power is incredibly unpopular. The Liberals have shown WA once again, that they are incredibly inept economic managers. The Liverals have driven the State into a massive debt of $41 billion dollars, that Barnett himself is vastly misreporting as only $27 billion.
    The debt itself is not the real of issue. Instead is the misuse of this money, that the Liberals are totally committed to. Over a quarter of this multi-billion dollar debt, was just to fatten up Western Power ready for sale.
    The only thing that will happen if the Barnett government is returned to power, is that the public will be left with a massive debt, that has been used to pass the value of this debt straight to the billionaire buyers of Western Power.

  41. WA election: Record number of electors opt for postal votes
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-07/wa-election-sees-record-number-of-early-voting-applications/8333474

    Election 2017 Promise Tracker
    https://thewest.com.au/politics/state-politics/promise-tracker

    WA election: Shopping centres and footy banners — here’s what happened on the campaign trail today
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-07/shopping-centre-campaigning-and-footy-banners-on-election-trail/8333272

  43. [Speculation that Team Bishop dropped the disasterous LNP WA internal polling to Latika in London is an outrageous slur ….]

    Latika was an odd choice for a WA election drop.

  44. wewantpaul @ #35 Tuesday, March 7, 2017 at 10:18 pm

    I think perhaps as Howards electricity game network gold plating thing on the east coast started to get out of control and bite the east coast the WA prices might have started to look low, but that is just a guess …

    I own a business related to the energy industry.

    ~70% of our power bills are the network charge and the capacity charge. As consumers we want to use as much power as we want, whenever we want to use it and we are extremely intolerant of power outages. Engineering wise that isn’t a problem to provide as much power as we want whenever we want it with 99.9% uptime, its just expensive, thus Australia’s relatively high electricity costs.

  45. “Engineering wise that isn’t a problem to provide as much power as we want whenever we want it with 99.9% uptime, its just expensive, thus Australia’s relatively high electricity costs.”
    I know very little about the east coast interconnected system, except for the abundant material published on the failed Howard model and the incentive it provided for over engineering and gold plating. Currently the regulator seems quite political but I haven’t investigated that.
    WA never had that, you can’t sensibly talk of one Australian electricity market.

  46. Bishop has always has eyes on the leadership as unwavering loyal deputy to Nelson, Turnbull, Abbott and Turnbull. But only ever her eyes – never her mind.

  47. If a 14% swing to the ALP eventuated, then it wouldn’t be a particular surprise to see a few of the seats in the 15-20% range fall – and Jandakot would be a likely candidate for that.

    If Riverton, Darling Range and Jandakot are in trouble, then the Libs are likely to be wiped out in the metro area – you’d start wondering if a few other seats that perhaps haven’t been polled and used to be marginal, like Kingsley are in jeopardy.

    If there was that level of swing on, I’d expect that the metro area to mostly swing big, with regional seats to have little 2PP swing (though the effect of PHON will be interesting). I’d expect little swing though in river and western seats (Cott, Nedlands, Churchlands, South Perth and Bateman), and muted in Bicton, Carine and Hillarys (though Rob Johnston could be a wildcard factor there). Scarborough could go either way – as nasty as the rest of the metro area, or muted, though since the Libs don’t seem to be protecting Liza Harvey particularly, I’d guess it’s likely to be the latter.

    You’d also think this means the Libs are almost certain to lose their third MLC in East and South Metro, and even be in danger of losing two in North Metro (though they’d still be close to three quotas). The Greens might also be able to recover a seat in South West.

  48. https://www.crikey.com.au/2017/03/08/has-one-nation-abandoned-its-family-law-policies/
    Tips and rumours
    Mar 8, 2017
    Has One Nation abandoned its family law policies to appease the Libs?
    Did they vanish as a consequence of the party’s election deal with the WA Liberals?

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-08/analysis-on-libs-lack-of-focus-in-election-campaign/8334616
    Analysis: Liberal lily-pad politics undermines efforts to cut through on Labor promises
    By Andrew O’Connor
    Updated about 2 hours ago

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-08/bookies-tip-bleak-election-day-for-wa-liberals/8335654
    WA election: Bookies tip bleak outlook for Liberals as odds of Labor government increase
    By Jacob Kagi
    Posted 12 minutes ago

  49. The anti Roe 8 campaign must be biting.

    Big glossy colour pro Roe 8 brochure in the mail today.

    Interesting that it carries no mention of the Liberal Party but is authorised (in tiny print) by one B. Morton, who know to be the member for the Federal seat of Tangney.

    Hope Federal money not being used to help the local State candidate.

    The campaign in Riverton has been low key but with some of the reported potential swings Nahan may have cause for concern. I saw a bus stop sign of his today defaced with the words “debt” and “liar”.

    And he took a strange tack yesterday accusing Labor of being in league with property developers, describing an Ellenbrook rail line as “payback”.

    This is a guy who never really explained his role in meetings with Dean Nalder over the bid to oust Barnett that seems to have been engineered by mogul property developer Nigel Satterley.

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