Two weeks out from election day, there is still not a great deal to report – which I guess is instructive in and of itself, a low-key campaigning presumably being advantageous to the party with the giant majority.
• Joe Spagnolo of the Sunday Times reports Liberal leader Libby Mettam has promised to reverse the government’s upper house reforms and reinstate the old rurally weighted system of three metropolitan and three non-metropolitan regions returning six members each, arguing that “the mining and pastoral, agricultural and south-west regions are the backbone of the West Australian economy where the wealth of the state is generated”. While this will undoubtedly be popular in regional areas, implementing it will require the concurrence of an upper house elected under the new system, which is likely to provide representation for a number of small parties who would not have won seats under the old system, together with natural opponents in Labor and the Greens.
• The Liberal candidate for Kimberley, Darren Spackman, “resigned” this week at the direction of Libby Mettam, though the closure of nominations means he will remain identified as the Liberal candidate on ballot papers. Spackman made headlines earlier in the week over a Facebook post from 2022 in which he described a break-in at his Kununurra hotel as a “welcome to country”. Mettam at first went no further than characterising this as a poor choice of words, but then gave Spackman his marching orders when he subsequently asserted that “ten years ago I would have said hang the c…s”. This was despite the overall thrust of his comments being that his position had softened over time, as he had come to see that young offenders were in “survival mode”. Presumably Mettam had the salty language in mind when she said “these are not the values of the Liberal Party”, having not deemed the post itself a sacking offence.
• Joe Spagnolo in today’s Sunday Times reports Labor has “written off Nedlands, Carine and Churchlands, and expect to lose Warren-Blackwood and Kalamunda” – the latter being the one surprise of the list, since Labor won it in 2017 and hold a post-redistribution margin of 15.1%. Labor is also “nervous about losing seats like Kingsley, Scarborough, South Perth, Albany, Geraldton and Kalgoorlie”, which again sounds unremarkable with one exception, that being Kingsley, which was likewise won in 2017 and has a margin of 16.9%.
• A leaders’ debate will be conducted tomorrow evening by 7News, but at state level especially, these almost invariably go unnoticed by the public at large. Some manner of verdict will be reached by a selected audience of seven traditional Labor supporters, seven traditional Liberal supporters and seven who are undecided.
Still no WA polls? 🙁
Here’s something spicy:
https://dlp.org.au/democratic-labour-party-not-running-in-western-australian-election/
It’s paywalled, but it looks like the W.A. Opposition leader wishes to scrap the reforms to the state Upper house and go back to the old system.
{My quick comment: If someone could possibly get into this article and provide some more detail during the week, would be great. When Victoria changed their Upper House, I believe a referendum clause was inserted in order to protect the legislation}
Link: https://thewest.com.au/politics/wa-election-2025/wa-election-2025-liberal-leader-libby-mettam-vows-to-restore-representations-in-regions-to-upper-house-c-17802057
Hugh Dolan, the lead candidate of the “OMG kiddies!” party, ran in NE Metro last Vic election for the DLP (the version of the party that kinda sorta exists), so I’m guessing he shifted west and didn’t tell the dream believers in WA he was coming. He also ran for Jacqui Lambie in the 2016 federal election (senate, Vic).
I’m assuming that’s the DOLAN, H. It could also be the weird capitalisation of sov cits (you can’t copyright the capital letter version of their name because of the Magna Carta – that’s why they don’t have to pay child support or observe restraining orders). Half the “kiddies!” ticket is named like that.
While I’m at it, I’m guessing MIDDLETON, A is Andrew, who has run for a few no-chance fringe far-right parties in the recent past.
Nadia
“ It’s paywalled, but it looks like the W.A. Opposition leader wishes to scrap the reforms to the state Upper house and go back to the old system.”
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I’m shocked! Shocked I say, to hear that the WA Liberals want their gerrymander reinstated.
Will do a before work prepoll tomorrow there was a poll a couple of weeks back which showed basically what is described on here as far as labors seat numbers.
Real interesting one is housing,rent increases and homelessness do voters rank this as the state government has done stuff all on public housing me thinks if there is a larger than expected swing against labor this will be the issue and that will be bad news for fed labor.
Will Albanese visit at all he has to ya think!
It’s probably obvious, but I predicted a re-elected ALP state-government to me mates about 30 minutes after the Newspoll was released, as the – – – – predict an ALP win, the polls predict an ALP win outside the margin of error, and the economy predicts a narrow ALP win and approval also predicts a narrow ALP win in 2PP, along with a favourable pendulum for the ALP.
WA Election 2025: Liberal candidate Thomas Brough referred to medical tribunal over misconduct complaint
West Australian mon 24/2.
Number is 4 candidates in strife for coalition in two weeks or so .
Interesting that Labor might be feeling nervous about Kingsley. I still think Labor will win Kingsley, and 16.9% would be an enormous margin to screw up. But the nervousness Spagnolo mentions does match the “vibe” around here.
There were houses putting up posters for Scott Edwardes, the Liberal candidate, well ahead of the election. Long before any went up for Jessica Stojkovski (the Labor candidate). Her posters only started appearing in front of houses in the last two weeks. Now that I’m finally starting to see the Stojkovski posters, she’s wearing a green jacket that makes her look more like a Greens candidate. Seems to downplay the Labor affiliation. Made me pause enough to think “huh, they seem worried”.
I’ve just got my Day 1 voting leaflets – 3 from Labor, including one that’s an anti-Liberal scare campaign leaflet that barely identifies itself as being from Labor (got to read the small print and check who E. Whiteaker is). Labor’s gone hard negative, which could suggest Labor actually is scared about the seat. Labor finally put out a leaflet that names this suburb too. The downside of having an electorate named after a single suburb is that every “Jessica Stojkovski: doing what’s right for Kingsley” slogan makes it seem like she doesn’t even care or know about about your actual suburb. I haven’t seen the Liberals make that mistake in their marketing. The Liberals did put out one “tough on crime” leaflet that just made Scott Edwardes look angry & aggressive, and they seem to have reigned that in since.
I’ve been getting tons of phone polling here in Kingsley. I guess that must be one of the parties, because I don’t think I’ve seen any public polling that correlated with the questions I was asked. Always the same pollster, automated phone poll with a male voice, “a chance to win a $1000 Coles or Woolies voucher”, if that helps anyone identify the pollster. Also whichever pollster it was is employing both voter recall (“do you remember how you voted in the last election, between Labor’s Mark McGowan and the Liberal’s Zak Kirkup *stifled laugh*”) and asking for voter provided 2PP preference leanings, instead of relying on previous election preference flows.
Just a single leaflet today from the Liberals, projecting calm confidence, and with one pitch: “Are you better off after eight years of Roger Cook and Labor?” The Liberal leaflet contains full printed how to vote preferences, unlike the 3 Labor leaflets. Labor has opted for “scan the QR code to find out how to vote”.
If a Liberal Candidate having her car stolen while putting out signs by three kids and then used to ram raid a bottle shop in Carnarvon doesn’t indicate that Labour has lost control of crime in the Gascogne and further North, I don’t know what would.
Several electoral cycles have passed since I last voted in person, let alone taken a proffered HTV at a polling booth, so I was intrigued to note that not all HTVs registered with the WAEC are on behalf of candidates.
For example, my electorate of Vasse (home to Libby “The Impossible Dream” Mettam) has HTVs registered on behalf of the six candidates and/or their parties. But there’s also one from Rob Bakes (on behalf of Vote Climate One, which ain’t from WA) and another from ARPA (who appear to be Christian anti-vaxxers).
The most entertaining one has been lodged by “Put Labor Last”, who seem to be keen on firearms and fishing and stuff. Logic doesn’t seem to be their strong suit though; they recommend preferencing SFF fourth in the LC, while suggesting that Libby be placed last—after Labor—in Vasse.
How many of these get to be seen by punters other than at EVCs is probably a moot point.
FUBAR says:
Tuesday, February 25, 2025 at 11:11 pm
Good to see the racist Liberal crime dog whistle getting a good hard blow.
If the Liberals were serious about crime prevention they would do a better job vetting their candidates