Every seat in alphabetical order, with commentary where there’s anything that needs saying. See the post below this one for my first take on the Legislative Council.
Albany. Before: Labor 1.0%. After: Labor, unknown. I’m a little confused here, because the Nationals rather than the Liberals finished second here, and the WAEC presumably only conducted a Labor-versus-Liberal two-party count, which has been pulled from their site. So I can only assume the Labor-versus-Nationals result displayed on the ABC site is based on Antony’s estimate, and not as I first suspected a rebadged Labor-versus-Liberal result. Certainly the margin displayed is more what would expect from a Labor-versus-Nationals count, i.e. lower. If so, the result for Watson is better than the swing makes it appear – more like an 8% than 5.5%. That’s still more remarkable given that Watson’s excellent electoral performance in the past presumably meant he didn’t have as much slack to take up.
Armadale. Before: Labor 9.6%. After: Labor 25.0%.
Balcatta. Before: Liberal 7.1%. After: Labor 5.8%. Labor’s defeat here was their first in a history going back to 1962, and the swing was fairly typical for Perth.
Baldivis. Before: Labor 6.1%. After: Unknown. Reece Whitby hasn’t completely shaken off the electoral bogey that followed him through two failed bids for Morley, as he is being run fairly close by independent Matt Whitfield. In this he has suffered from the collapse in the collapse of the Liberals, who went from 33.1% to 14.2% and finished third. Whitfield would win the seat if he got 82.6% of the preferences from the Liberals, One Nation (7.0%), Greens (5.1%) and the rest (5.8%). The ABC projection is crediting him with two-thirds, but Carol Adams got around three-quarters under similar circumstances in Kwinana, from which Baldivis draws most of its voters. She also did very badly on absent votes, for some reason. Presumably a Labor-versus-independent vote will be conducted tomorrow, and I won’t be calling this until I see it.
Bassendean. Before: Labor 5.1%. After: Labor 21.7%.
Bateman. Before: Liberal 23.1%. After: Liberal 10.0%.
Belmont. Before: Liberal 1.0%. After: Labor 13.2%. Another seat Labor lost for the first time in 2013, and has now recovered with a vengeance on the back of a regulation 13.2% swing.
Bicton. Before: Liberal 10.0%. After: Labor 2.4%. Dean Nalder’s determination to contest Bateman instead was vindicated by a fairly typical 12.4% swing, contrary to impressions that the Perth Freight Link might make a difference one way or the other.
Bunbury. Before: Liberal 12.2%. After: Labor 11.3%. The Liberal vote fell 30.6% in John Castrilli’s absence to 45.3%, translating into a devastating 23.4% swing to Labor. The Nationals campaigned pretty hard here but only gained 6.5%, and finished well behind the Liberals in third.
Burns Beach. Before: Liberal 11.3%. After: Labor 2.7%. Environment Minister Albert Jacob gained the notionally Labor seat of Ocean Reef when he entered parliament in 2008, and now he’s lost its reconfigured successor on the back of a fairly typical 14.1% swing.
Butler. Before: Labor 1.0%. After: Labor 19.9%. John Quigley’s 18.9% swing is particularly notable given he only suffered a 1.1% swing in 2013.
Cannington. Before: Labor 2.1%. After: Labor 18.7%.
Carine. Before: Liberal 18.3%. After: Liberal 9.9%.
Central Wheatbelt. Before: Nationals 8.9% versus Liberal. After: Nationals unknown. The Liberal vote went from 31.2% to 11.0%, which presumably reflects conservative voters falling in behind Nationals member Mia Davies, who was up slightly, now she’s the sitting member. A former upper house MP, she came to the seat in 2013, filling the vacancy created by Brendon Grylls’ move to Pilbara. The Liberals fell to third, so the notional count was redundant, and the two-party result on the ABC computer is presumably an estimate.
Churchlands. Before: Liberal 20.0%. After: Liberal 14.6%.
Cockburn. Before: Labor 4.6%. After: Labor 16.2%.
Collie-Preston. Before: Liberal 2.9%*. After: Labor 13.9%. Big swings here across the board as Mick Murray effortlessly retained a seat that had been made notionally Liberal by the redistribution, but the biggest of all were in suburban Bunbury.
Cottesloe. Before: Liberal 21.1%. After: Liberal 13.8%. Swings were relatively modest in the wealthy western suburbs, including the one against the Premier.
Darling Range. Before: Liberal 13.1%. After: Labor 5.4%. A well above par 18.4% swing delivered Labor one of its strongest wins, and typified the Liberal collapse in the outer suburbs.
Dawesville. Before: Liberal 12.7%. After: Labor 1.6%. A nervous debut for Zak Kirkup, who succeeds former Deputy Premier Kim Hames.
Forrestfield. Before: Liberal 2.2%. After: Labor 9.6%. A slightly below average swing, but plenty enough to take out a fragile Liberal margin in this eastern Perth seat.
Fremantle. Before: Labor 15.4%. After: Labor 24.0%. Of academic here of interest is who finishes second out of Liberal and the Greens – the Liberals are on 20.0% and Greens are on 18.1%, and presumably preferences won’t close the gap. Labor’s Simone McGurk won a clear majority on the primary vote.
Geraldton. Before: Liberal 10.9% versus Nationals. After: Liberal 0.8%. The ABC computer says the swing here is 10.1%, but it’s wrongly measuring the Liberal-versus-Labor result from this election with the Liberals-versus-Nationals result from the last. The real figure is 22%, which appears to have brought Labor to just short of victory in a seat where they finished third in 2013. Nationals candidate Paul Brown, who was seeking to move from the upper house, came in third.
Girrawheen. Before: Labor 2.8%. After: Labor 16.7%.
Hillarys. Before: Liberal 16.0%. After: Liberal 3.9%. Liberal-turned-independent Rob Johnson came in third with 21.0% to Labor’s 28.2%. Liberal candidate Peter Katsambanis, with 39.7%, would have been in big trouble if he had got ahead of Labor and soaked up their preferences.
Jandakot. Before: Liberal 18.3%. After: Labor 0.1%. Liberal leadership hopeful Joe Francis going right down to the wire here, with absents and outstanding postals to decide the result. Based on the past form of such votes, my guess would be that he will sneak over the line.
Joondalup. Before: Liberal 10.4%. After: Labor 0.5%. The 11.0% swing against Liberal member Jan Norberger was fairly modest by outer suburban standards, and he may yet hang on.
Kalamunda. Before: Liberal 10.3%. After: Labor 3.1%. A typical 13.3% swing was sufficient to tip out Health Minister John Day out, and deliver Labor a seat it had never before held (it existed from 1974 to 1989, and has done so again since 2008).
Kalgoorlie. Before: Nationals 3.2% versus Liberal 10.3%. After: Unknown. The ABC computer says the Liberals will gain this from the Nationals with a margin of 5.1%, but this assumes these will be the last two candidates, when there’s an effective three-way tie between Labor, Liberal and Nationals from the top three positions. I believe it’s also based on an estimated preference flow, since there’s no two-party result shown on the WAEC site. For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t have thought Labor and One Nation preferences would have favoured the Liberals. Nationals candidate Tony Crook will certainly win if preferences cause the Liberals to finish third.
Kimberley. Before: Labor 5.1%. After: Labor 8.8%. Unclear here who finishes second out of Liberal and Nationals, but Labor goes untroubled either way. The swing was relatively mild, as it was in 2013.
Kingsley. Before: Liberal 14.0%. After: Labor 0.8%. Labor with their nose ahead in a close race in a seat they had only previously won in 2005, after a fairly normal 14.9% swing.
Kwinana. Before: Labor 18.5%. After: Labor 4.3%. At his third election, incoming Deputy Premier Roger Cook finally goes undisturbed by independent Carol Adams.
Maylands. Before: Labor 2.7%. After: Labor 18.4%.
Midland. Before: Labor 0.5%. After: Labor 13.0%. An easier night for Michelle Roberts this time around.
Mirrabooka. Before: Labor 4.6%. After: Labor 19.2%.
Moore. Before: Nationals 5.9% versus Liberals. After: Nationals 8.7% versus Liberals.
Morley. Before: Liberal 4.7%. After: Labor 12.1%. A particularly big swing in a seat Labor didn’t expect to lose in 2008, and couldn’t win back in 2013.
Mount Lawley. Before: Liberal 8.9%. After: Labor 3.8%. A regulation swing tips out the Liberals in a seat that wouldn’t have responded too favourably to the One Nation preference deal.
Murray-Wellington. Before: Liberal 12.0%. After: Labor 1.1%. Labor looks like it’s done enough in a seat it has only won in the past when it was more oriented to Mandurah, with a mid-range 13.1% swing.
Nedlands. Before: Liberal 19.1%. After: Liberal 8.8%.
North West Central. Before: Nationals 11.5%. After: Nationals 8.8%. I think the WAEC conducted a Nationals-versus-Liberal count that proved redundant because the Liberals crashed to third, so I guess the ABC figure is an estimate.
Perth. Before: Liberal 2.8%. After: Labor 12.5%. A particularly big 15.3% swing in a seat Labor was always going to recover, perhaps reflecting an inner-city One Nation preference deal effect.
Pilbara. Before: Nationals 11.5%. After: Labor 1.4%. I called this seat for Brendon Grylls on ABC Radio, so I’m a bit perplexed that the preference count has him trailing Labor by 1.4% at the end of the night. Preferences overall appear to be splitting evenly, which is pretty extraordinary given their make-up: Liberal 14.6%, One Nation 11.1%, Shooters 9.9%, Greens 3.8%.
Riverton. Before: Liberal 12.7%. After: Liberal 4.5%. Another relatively mild swing in a stronger Liberal seat.
Rockingham. Before: Labor 13.2%. After: Labor 23.9%.
Roe. Before: Nationals 16.7% versus Liberal. After: Liberal 14.9% versus Nationals. This is a new seat that essentially merges Wagin, held by Terry Waldron of the Nationals, and Graham Jacobs, a Liberal. Waldron didn’t contest, but Jacobs was nonetheless unable to put the Nationals under serious pressure.
Scarborough. Before: Liberal 17.3%. After: Liberal 5.1%.
South Perth. Before: Liberal 20.0%. After: Liberal 7.7%.
Southern River. Before: Liberal 10.9%. After: Labor 8.6%. A massive swing to Labor in an area that also moved heavily in their favour at the federal election.
Swan Hills. Before: Liberal 3.7%. After: Labor 14.2%. Always a very likely Labor gain, but went well beyond the call of duty with a swing of 17.9%.
Thornlie. Before: Labor 1.8%. After: Labor 15.9%.
Vasse. Before: Liberal 21.1%. After: Liberal 15.0%.
Victoria Park. Before: Labor 4.0%. After: Labor 16.6%.
Wanneroo. Before: Liberal 11.0%. After: Labor 8.0%. The one seat where the Liberals really hoped the One Nation preference deal might do them some good returned a 19.0% swing, in another example of the outer suburbs effect. One Nation polled 9.6% — a look at their preference flow will have to wait for tomorrow.
Warnbro. Before: Labor 10.6%. After: Labor 24.2%.
Warren-Blackwood. Before: Nationals 7.2% versus Liberal. After: Nationals 12.0%. Another former Nationals-versus-Liberal contest where the Liberals fell to third.
West Swan. Before: Liberal 0.9%*. After: Labor 18.5%. Made notionally Liberal by the redistribution, but swung fully as forcefully as neighbouring Swan Hills.
Willagee. Before: Labor 2.5%. After: Labor 16.4%.
Should that be: Before: Nationals 16.7% versus Liberal. After: Nationals 14.9% versus Liberal.
Steve777
Sunday, March 12, 2017 at 10:29 am
Great result in WA. Congratulations to Briefly and other Bludgers who helped make it happen.
Thank you Steve 777. I’m sure everyone feels as gratified as I do. We may soon come down from our extra-planetary orbits. It is certainly the case that Labor campaigned hard and with great discipline. This set the scene for the win. The eventual scale of the win is also in part due to the errors of the Libs and ON. They also campaigned for Labor, though unintentionally, to be sure. Their deal had two side effects – ON connection repelled Lib voters from the Liberal Party; and the Liberal connection repelled ON voters from ON. The net effect was to re-assign voting support to Labor.
The Liberals and ON will now have to sort out how they will interact in the future. My guess is they will tear themselves apart. ON can only exist if they are able to cannibalise the Lib-Nat vote. The LNP have to reject ON, as they did in 1998. Yet their own (very thin) ranks will baulk at this. The Liberal hegemony on the right is decaying. The most obvious winners from this will be Labor.
I am reasonably sure they were not paid. Just young enthusiasts who seemed to know each other. Perhaps part of a church group?
McGowan’s top priority should be to pass legislation that bans any federal or state political advertising by mining companies (and maybe developers as well). Labor will never get such a good chance to cut them off at the knees. It will also, surely, bring Gryllis onside. Then bump up their royalties.
Rossco – thanks. I was just thinking of some federal elections when the libs had to bring in back-packers!
Rossco
Given Albert Jacob’s Globalheart church connection I would say your guess about his volunteers is on the money.
Is there any update on Gryllis? I’ll be very annoyed if the mining industry has been allowed to knock him off, even if an ALP candidate gets up
It’d be hard to make such a ban stick, it’s almost certainly an abridgment to their right to speech.
You could potentially ban foreign companies from advertising but both are listed on ASX last I looked.
You might be able to get away with a spending cap on such ads though, the argument that you deserve more speech because you have a fuckton of money is probably shakier than that you deserve speech at all. You’d likely still have to be neutral on that cap through (ie you probably can’t just target it at the miners).
rossmcg @ #56 Sunday, March 12, 2017 at 7:13 pm
One of those ‘fake’ religions purporting to be “Christian”?
Given the race it seems unlikely that the ALP candidate will get up, like 60% of the vote is with conservative groups. To get the ALP up, you almost certainly need the Libs to get enough preferences to bump the Nats for 2nd, at that point the Libs being so on the nose might get you enough leaking to keep you ahead. If the Nats keep second you won’t get enough leaking.
Elaugaufein, I share your incredulity, but it appears Labor really is well-positioned in Pilbara. Apparently the Shooters who got 10% directed preferences to Labor. The point is the current preference count is a real one based on the primaries we’re seeing, so there’s some serious conservative leakage going on somewhere, perhaps in response to Grylls’ mining tax.
And Mr Green has announced his best guess at the 2PP, bearing in mind that not every electorate is Lib vs Labor – 55.7 to 44.3! With a warning that “it” (meaning the ALP I presume) might fall as the count continues. Still pretty fantabulous!
Antony Green on Twitter also reports that one very pro-Labor booth (Pilbara Hospital/Remote) has not been added to the 2PP count yet, meaning Grylls is actually about 120 votes further behind than the current count indicates.
bemused
What you said about booth volunteers got me thinking. I was giving out GetUp material from a strong Liberal booth of Kooyong. Many of the known parties were represented by fair amount of people, so Labor and Greens, and there was a small handful of people for NXT, Animal Justice and the like. However, the Libs were overwhelmingly numerous with young volunteers, which I could only imagine be the children of Liberal stalwarts or members of the young Libs.
Why they chose to put so many people in an already safe booth is beyond me, when they could focus more on booths further west where the Greens and Labor tend to poll strongly.
Raaraa, they like to be among naice people like themselves!
You know you’re boned when you’re a conservative party and the Shooters are preferencing Labor over you.
Bemused
Dunno about fake religion but Moore MHR Ian Goodenough is associated with Globalheart and he knows a fake Rolex when he sees one.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/feb/10/liberals-took-rolex-and-other-designer-watches-assuming-they-were-were-fake
Globalheart is said to be influential in Liberal branches in the northern suburbs but lost a couple of members yesterday which is a good thing.
Cormann said on insiders this morning that their internal polling was bleaker than the public polling pre PHON deal, so it’s possible the Libs had given up on trying to win anything that wasn’t ~10% in their favor.
Of course Cormann had a hand in that deal, and it’s the first significant mistake he’s made, so he’s got to defend it, so take it with a grain of salt.
[Antonbruckner11
Sunday, March 12, 2017 at 6:58 pm
McGowan’s top priority should be to pass legislation that bans any federal or state political advertising by mining companies (and maybe developers as well).]
WTF? How could this be constitutional?
jack a randa @ #65 Sunday, March 12, 2017 at 7:58 pm
Something in that. We have the same issue when we have a group volunteer. They like to work together which is not necessarily optimum usage of resources.
elaugaufein @ #66 Sunday, March 12, 2017 at 7:59 pm
A lot of shooters vote Labor. They are not all RWNJs although there certainly are some. I am expecting Labor to get close to half of ON preferences too.
rossmcg @ #67 Sunday, March 12, 2017 at 8:00 pm
From what I can make out they are a fundy nutter outfit like Hill Song or Scrotts Shire Life.
We would be returning to the glory days of state rights if a premier could ban federal advertising by mining companies.
Bemused
I would think so
This was bit of publicity they could maybe have done without as it affected rising young Liberal Albert Jacob. he is rising no more, he lost his seat
https://thewest.com.au/politics/state-politics/top-lib-on-board-of-controversial-church-ng-b88365679z
https://thewest.com.au/politics/state-politics/perth-pentecostal-churchs-rule-allowing-it-to-expel-mentally-ill-is-out-of-touch-with-humanity-ng-b88369500z
ShowsOn, the High Court has upheld the NSW Govt ban on developers as enhancing democracy. How are FOREIGN owned mining coys any different. Indeed, my view is that corporations (which, after all, are artificial constructs and not real human beings) have ZERO, ZILCH, NADA political rights. Only the real human beings employed by them have rights.
Shell-bell. Unless it offends s109 the constitution (on reflection, it probably would) I don’t see why a State Govt can’t ban any form of advertising in its jurisdiction that it wants.
rossmcg @ #74 Sunday, March 12, 2017 at 8:58 pm
That second article is a bit of a hoot!
I would classify the whole lot of them as mentally ill, auditory hallucinations they regard as the voice of God and speaking in gibberish.
bemused @ #50 Sunday, March 12, 2017 at 6:31 pm
The swing against the Liberals was around 16%, and Hastie is on a 6.79% margin, so he’d be out on his ear.
If Federal Labor were to replicate that swing, the L/NP would loose 67 seats at the next election. Gives you an idea of the magnitude of the Labor win.
Elaugaufein – As I said, there is no legitimate argument for saying corporations have “political rights”. They are not a legitimate part of the demos (only real citizens are). But if that argument fails, I don’t see how a listing on a public stock exchange stops you being foreign when 90% of your shareholders are foreign.
You should read Harari’s book, Homo Sapiens, in which he makes the point that there isn’t much difference between belief in a corporation and belief in god. Both depend upon believing in certain writings (in one case corporations law and the other scripture) and rituals then conjuring up from that an incorporeal entity.
This is a big hobby-horse of mine!
antonbruckner11 @ #54 Sunday, March 12, 2017 at 6:58 pm
Any attempt to limit the political advertising by the mining companies would be quickly quashed by the High Court.
Gryllis is probably going to loose his seat, so it doesn’t matter what he thinks.
Bemused
As I mentioned I am really pleased that the likes of Jacob and a couple of other churchie Libs including the Abetz brother Peter lost their seats.
Since NSW 2011, massive swings have been pretty regular.
grimace @ #78 Sunday, March 12, 2017 at 9:06 pm
Sorry all I got the swing wrong in my earlier post – I rushed and put the drop in the Liberal PV. The swing looks more like 12% or 13%, which is a loss of 55 – 58 seats, not 67 as I incorrectly stated earlier.
Grimace – The High Court didn’t quash the ban on NSW developers and I would have thought they are less dangerous to our democracy than mining coys. If Gryllis loses, major multinationals (70 to 80 per cent foreign owned) will have run out of town a politician who tried to tax them. That’s pretty sick-making. I don’t know how the High Court could ignore that.
grimace @ #78 Sunday, March 12, 2017 at 9:06 pm
That sort of swing is unlikely in Victoria where Labor is not so far behind at the start. Same will be true to a greater or lesser extent in other states except maybe Qld, but anything could happen there.
Only in msm land was Hanson ever equated with Donald Trump. The reality is that Trump was the presidential nominee for a major mainstream political party and that’s why he succeeded (along with a flawed electoral system). Hanson is nowhere near in the same league as this, with her angry band of misfits and degenerates. No comparison whatsoever.
rossmcg @ #81 Sunday, March 12, 2017 at 9:09 pm
We are on the same page there.
antonbruckner11 @ #84 Sunday, March 12, 2017 at 9:16 pm
No ‘i’ in Grylls.
I think part of the Liberals’ problem is their standard messages don’t resonate in the wider community any more.
There has been massive growth in the outer suburbs of Perth, many youngish families.
The Libs go on about how much better they are than Labor at managing finances. How many voters in their late 20s or early 30s remember when WA Labor last made a mess of the books? Eric Ripper left a surplus and a $3 billion debt. What they do know is that Barnett and Nahan and his predecessors have basically sent the state broke.
Then they painted McGowan and his team as being captives of the unions. How many youngish voters remember the bad old days of union militancy, a strike or two a day?
What some will remember is Work Choices and Barnett’s praise for the penalty rate decision and his expressed wish to extend it to State awards was about as stupid a thing as he did in the campaign.
Personally I hope the Liberals don’t get the message and keep trotting out the campaign lines designed for their core constituency in the leafy western and riverside suburbs.
that will keep them in opposition for a while.
Oh I agree treating associations as people is silly (be they corporations, activists or unions) if they are truly acting on behalf of their members with their donations / advertising then they could get their members to do it (which would likely be easier for unions and activist groups than corporations for obvious reasons). But legally speaking we do and that’s all the high court cares about.
The high court let the developer ban stand because it’s on donations and not speech and we’re not yet that far down the money = speech rabbit hole. An actual ban on political advertising targeted at a specific group would be much much harder to get by the court.
I would caution against predictions of Lib Doom on a foreseeable basis. This election result could simply be ‘it’s time’, or it could be any number of factors, including one George Megalogenis identified that voters are happy to vote Liberal in good times, but in hard times vote Labor. I don’t think it’s a case of the Lib messages failing to resonate, just that they aren’t resonating now, but could well do so in the future when Labor fixes the mess the Libs have left.
Elfy, I take your point. Anyway, McGowan is going to get a chance, very early to show that he’s got a pair. If he’s not prepared to increase the royalty on mining companies he will have no right to complain about any debt that Barnett may have created. We shall see.
Though I would have thought that if legislation defined a “foreign” corporation as one with shareholders that are more than 50 per cent foreign (which would catch Rio and BHP), it would be very hard for the High Court to go behind that.
bemused @ #85 Sunday, March 12, 2017 at 9:22 pm
Agree is unlikely, which was my point, its a remarkable achievement. These are the Victorian seats:
Seat 2016 L/NP TPP
Chisholm 51.24
Dunkley 51.43
La Trobe 51.46
Corangamite 53.13
Indi 54.4
Deakin 55.68
McMillan 56.03
Casey 56.06
Flinders 57.77
Aston 58.59
Wannon 58.96
Menzies 60.56
Higgins 60.69
RHWombat
Is it not standard practice to insist on spray precautions for all contacts with measles patients? Otherwise you will have the nurses responsible for determining who was born before 1966 and who wasn’t.
My understanding is that the new senator, after visiting an area where immunisation is less than the level required for herd immunity, is a significant risk to adults born after 1966, the immuno-compromised, infants under 15 months and the children of negligent parents. Sorting out who from whom is too difficult and universal precautions should be applied.
wrong thread, sorry
Hilarious. You can bet that if the preference deal with PHON had born fruit Cormann would be all over the media today claiming credit. Instead it was nothing to do with him, nothing to see here etc.
Frickeg
Sunday, March 12, 2017 at 7:45 pm
Elaugaufein, I share your incredulity, but it appears Labor really is well-positioned in Pilbara. Apparently the Shooters who got 10% directed preferences to Labor. The point is the current preference count is a real one based on the primaries we’re seeing, so there’s some serious conservative leakage going on somewhere, perhaps in response to Grylls’ mining tax.
The swing in Wa not only represents the success of the Labor campaign, conducted over many months. It also reflects the rejection of the Lib/ON deal by WA voters. The Right treated the electorate with contempt and it has earned them a stunning rebuke. If the Libs persist in affiliating themselves with ON, a similar result will be felt at the next Federal election.
The Lib MPs who lost their seats yesterday are be well aware of this. They have privately said as much to me.
We are seeing the denouement of the politics of fear, revenge and spite, as first practiced by Howard and then reprised by Abbott, Dutton and Turnbull. The Liberals thoroughly deserve this. Having inflicted various agonies on the public, the Liberals now face being consumed by a monster of their own invention.
Antonbruckner11
Sunday, March 12, 2017 at 9:44 pm
Elfy, I take your point. Anyway, McGowan is going to get a chance, very early to show that he’s got a pair.
This is wrong. Labor made a commitment at the election to not increase this tax. They should not break their word. The iron ore miners pay an ad valorem royalty (I think it’s 7%) of the fob value of their production. This is payable by all the producers. This was introduced to replace the volume-based charges that had earlier applied.
Apart from this, if WA did increase its royalty-take, the extra value would simply be transferred to other jurisdictions by means of the GST allocation. You’re saying a new Labor government should break its promises in order to improve the budgets of the other States. This will not happen. It will absolutely not happen….not at all.
Confessions
Sunday, March 12, 2017 at 9:40 pm
The spectators have failed to make the most important observation about this election. ON and the Libs, by “dealing” with each other, publicly affiliated with one another. Unable to back out of this, they both tried to variously disavow and defend it for 5 weeks…5 weeks in which these two parties effectively campaigned against themselves. Implicitly, they campaigned for Labor.
Excellent result for Labor. A debacle for the Libs. They will know what they must do – reject ON – but their own supporters are divided between those who detest On and those who welcome them. The Liberals have been well-rewarded for their extraordinary cynicism. Beautiful!
The most amazing thing for me was the spectacle at polling places of Libs and ON campaigning together, standing beside each other, mingling their visual materials together, sharing the campaign space.
They could hardly have done more to repel voters.