Western Australian election minus one week

More candidate trouble for the Liberals, a largely uneventful leaders’ debate, and an unconvincing straw poll of early voters.

Highlights of another dull old week on the Western Australian campaign trail:

• In an echo of the Queensland election, the Liberal candidate for Albany, Thomas Brough, has placed the issue of abortion on a campaign agenda that his leader would have preferred be kept free of it. Appearing alongside Libby Mettam at an announcement of a promised expansion of a local hospital, Brough – himself an emergency room doctor – responded in the affirmative to an enterprising ABC reporter’s question about whether abortion laws should be reviewed, offering that “babies born alive should not be left to die”. Mettam subsequently issued a statement that such a review was “not part of the WA Liberals’ plan”. Brough had already established his conservative credentials last year when he criticised a colleague on Albany City Council for supporting the Albany Pride Festival, saying “the coalition of the LGBTQIA+” encompassed “minor-attracted persons”, a comment Mettam rated as “bizarre”. It was also reported earlier in the week that Brough had been referred to the State Administrative Tribunal over claims of professional misconduct.

• Dylan Caporn of The West Australian reports Monday’s leaders debate was “awarded to Mr Cook narrowly over Ms Mettam by a tailored group of 25 voters”. However, the consensus of the paper’s journalists was that Mettam did slightly better out of the occasion, owing to a combination of low expectations, Labor’s sensitivity on the performance of the health system, and Cook saying his government put “Labor first” before correcting himself to “health first”.

• Media reportage has provided few if any indications of what sort of a result the parties are expecting, and nothing in the way of real opinion polling since the Newspoll at the start of the campaign. The West Australian did have a straw poll this week conducted at early voting centres on Monday, an exercise that distinctly failed to prove its worth when the Herald Sun tried it in Daniel Andrews’ seat ahead of the 2022 Victorian election. Jessica Page of The West Australian relates that 49% out of 302 voters who offered a response said they had voted Liberal in “seats which were shock losses in 2021”, though one of them seems to have been Kingsley, a normally marginal seat that Labor won in 2017.

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.

42 comments on “Western Australian election minus one week”

  2. Cook saying his government put “Labor first” before correcting himself to “health first”.
    _____________________
    Let the cat out of the bag there.

  3. Taylormade,

    I think you’ll find that WB referred to “an unconvincing straw poll”, rather than an unconvincing attempt to grasp at ditto.

  5. The West Australian reports that Opposition Leader Shane Love is wondering which office he will have in Dumas House, the Government office block overlooking the city, after the Nats and Libs win the election on Saturday.

    Sadly the article is paywalled. I could do with a laugh today.

  6. My impressions from within the Curtin federal boundary .
    1. It will be instructive to see how the three community- selected , professional women in Nedlands, Churchlands and Cottesloe do on Saturday, and what this might herald for “our Kate” Chaney . They have all run prominent campaigns and given adequate voice in the local Post newspaper .

    2. The contrast between Churchlands and Nedlands by the actions of the Labor party to the expected movement back to the conservative side is interesting. In my electorate , Katrina Stratton abandoned her seat for the safety of the Leg Co and the party appears to be running dead . Only today did I finally see one corflute for the new candidate, and nothing so far in the mail box. On the other hand , with the military precision that might be expected of a Duntroon graduate, liberal candidate John Huston’s face finds its way into corners of even the quietest streets of our quiet suburbs . I have had at least 8 mail outs . On the other hand in Churchlands , Christine Tonkin battles valiantly against the Basil/Media West/ West Australian bulldozer ..and claims every new Basil Zempilis sign brings her more volunteers!

    3. Perhaps the most interesting seat here may actually be the Liberal’s safest. For the last few years the issue of over development and high rise has been raging in Western suburbs but no where stronger than Cottesloe’s beach front. Before the mild mannered Dr Honey was pushed out of his seat in preselection, even he expressed some sympathy for the over shadowed and hemmed in . The attitude of prospective new member Sandra Brewer , former director of the Property Council, remains ambiguous. Here, the community independent and local GP, Rachel Horncastle appears to be running the strongest campaign of the the three independents in these seats ,and while an upset is unlikely her 2CP count at the end of count might be interesting to observe.

  7. My prediction for the election is Labor being returned with a reduced but still crushing majority I don’t think the Liberals will recover to even their 2017 position of 13 seats. The only seats they are close to certain to regain are Churchlands, Nedlands, Warren-Blackwood, Carine and Bateman. Seats on the 9-14% swing range I rate them about a 50-50 chance in there are 8 such seats so my median guesstimate is they’ll win about 11 seats, worst case scenario is 7 seats best case 15 seats. The Indy challengers in the western suburbs of Perth could be dark horses. Labor + Greens will likely have a majority in the upper house.

  8. If any party has demonstrated they take the electorate for granted it’s the Liberals putting up such a raft of mediocre, talentless and offensive candidates, particularly in what, for them, should be winnable seats.

    It’s classic behaviour of the self-assured born-to-rule set.

  9. Will be very interesting this Saturday if there is a backlash against the homeless disaster that state labor and the feds have bought upon WA.

    If there is in this poll it will be in spades federally.

  10. Yes dear. Here, have a lollipop and go and read your little pamphlet. Look, it’s even got pictures, you like pictures don’t you dear.

  11. From the ground here in WA (I’ve been out at pre-poll all week), it is looking like a reasonable swing back to the Liberals, but probably not enough to trouble the government’s majority. I predict that 10-15 Legislative Assembly seats will go back to the Liberals and a couple back to the Nationals. I also get the feeling that One Nation’s vote is on the way up compared to last time, but probably not to the vicinity of 10% that they’ve occupied before.

    Prediction for the lower house:
    Labor 39, Liberal 15, National 5

    Probably nobody will ever win a single-party majority of the Legislative Council ever again thanks to the timely one-vote-one-value reforms put through in the last term – and I suspect that even if the Liberals somehow managed to win a majority in the lower house, they would find their attempts to return to the previous regional gerrymandering stymied by a lack of control of the upper house.

    Prediction for the upper house:
    Labor 15-16, Liberal 12, Greens 4-5, One Nation 2-3, Nationals 1-2, Legalise Cannabis 1

  12. I think the election in W.A. is going to be a lot tighter.

    W.A. Labor is now talking about closing down coal mines by 2030.
    This is “Zac Kirkup” language.

    I sense trouble.

  13. nadia88

    The investment Labor has made into community engagement to develop the Collie transition plan has been extraordinary. I wouldn’t be led by the nose by an ABC radio story that juxtaposes a couple of interviews and suggests they’re equally shared in the community.

  14. Nadia

    Have you picked up specific backlash, or opposition lines, on the matter you quote?

    And are there other reasons you think it is going to be tighter than predicted?

    Presumably, like the rest of us, you lack the much sought-after polling evidence.

    Certainly interested to hear more of your views on this, and if you have local contacts.

  15. Gonna post another seat by seat prediction not only bc it’s 1 week to the election but also bc I felt like my last prediction 3 weeks ago was all over the place and inconsistent (especially when I considered Murray Wellington as a flip over seats like Albany or Darling Range)

    Again, at minimum, I expect Labor to hold around 40 seats with around a 14-16% swing towards the Coalition.

    SEAT COUNT (Post Redistribution for reference)-
    ALP- 54 (53 seats + Oakfield)
    LIB- 2
    NAT- 3 (I’m counting Mid West here)

    SEAT COUNT (AFTER ELECTION)-
    ALP- 41 (-13)
    LIB- 12 (+10)
    NAT- 6 (+3)
    OTH- 0

    SEAT CHANGES-
    – Nedlands, Churchlands, Carine, Scarborough, South Perth, Bateman, Dawesville, Darling Range, Kalamunda, Kalgoorlie flip to LIB from ALP
    – Warren-Blackwood, Geraldton, Albany flip to NAT from ALP
    – Mid-West gain for NAT

    SEATS TO WATCH-
    – Riverton
    – Bicton
    – Murray-Wellington
    – Jandakot
    – Hillarys

  16. Bluedgeoned Westin
    Why do you think Darling Range will change. I have been pre polling and the vibe for Labor is quite positive. Hugh has been an extremely hard working member with great recognition. The Liberal candidate isn’t well known, he’s not a local and most of his support team seem to be family and friends.
    While the area was traditionally Liberal the growth in this area is phenomenal and it is mostly young working families. Labor is not popular in the more rural areas Serpentine, Jarradale because of the approval of Alcoa but no one I speak to thinks the Liberals would stop the mining anyway. Have not yet seen the greens or nationals candidates, they haven’t even got supporters at the polling booth to hand out flyers. One nation may do better than expected, the guy is personable and thinks he can change the party from within.

  17. I think the Libs better concentrate on winning back the opposition first, rather than being in government. Goiran, Collier and their fundamentalist Christian ‘Clan’ gutted the party from within. Was always going to be three terms minimum for the Labor government. The WA libs are just completely void of any experience and talent – guess that happens when you win 2 seats across the whole state. Having said that, I feel a bit of a backlash at ground level here in Perth. The Libs could win 15 or so seats this time round.

  21. Pretty weird from a Premier leading his state in one of America’s closest allies, regardless of what you think of JDV.

    Not designed to make Albanese’s life easier, that’s for sure.

  23. I mean, I might well have given the same answer. . . but I’m not the Premier of a state!

    Not that it will cost Cook any votes.

  24. @Assantdjsays: Tuesday, March 4, 2025 at 1:09 am
    I used The Tally Room and Anthony Green’s WA election guide as reference for what seats the Coalition could gain, Darling Range has been listed on both of these lists as a key seat.
    https://www.tallyroom.com.au/59237
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/wa/2025/guide/preview

    In addition, it’s a traditional Liberal seat and Hugh Jones was elected in the McGowan landslide so it’s hard for me to judge whether he’s able to build up a personal vote (same situation in Albany and Geraldton)

    This is in contrast with Murray-Wellington where Robyn Clarke was elected back in 2017 and could have built some personal vote in her electorate since 2017 or in Riverton (where I used to live near) where I knew what happened there locally and know Jags Krishnan at least has close links with the Indian community. I’ll take your words into consideration and might move Darling Ranges from a Liberal flip into “Seat to Watch” territory just bc the situation there seems sorta similar to Riverton (popular local MLA + Liberal candidate mostly unknown)

  25. Bludgeoned Westie says:
    Riverton (popular local MLA + Liberal candidate mostly unknown)

    only popular for 1/3 of the electorate based on the demographic satistics…..
    Jags gonna getem voted out though the prospect of AST is nauseating

  26. Darling Range is an odd one out, because Labor won it in 2017 but then lost it in a by-election, so it went into 2021 with a Lib incumbent and didn’t get an absurdly huge swing like some outer suburban seats did. It’ll get a smaller swing back to the Libs to compensate for that. Plus, it’s less traditionally Liberal than it used to be – it’s getting pulled into the Perth metro area by population growth in Byford. Murray-Wellington is similar, with all its growth happening in suburban Bunbury.

    Country seats: Albany, Kalgoorlie and Geraldton are all under the expected swing, so those MPs would want to have gotten themselves known around the traps. Kalgoorlie is extra weird because of Kyran O’Donnell (Lib MP 2017-21) running as an independent.

    Warren-Blackwood is a near-certain loss to Labor, but I wonder if the Libs could nab it instead of the Nats. The south-west isn’t somewhere the Nats traditionally do well – they won Blackwood-Stirling in 2008 as a merger of a Lib and Nat seat, where the Lib retired and the Nat (Terry Redman) was sitting MP for Stirling (in the Great Southern, which has always been bulletproof for the Nats). The old Stirling is mostly in Albany or Roe these days and the Nats lose whatever personal vote Redman built over 16 years, so the Libs might be a chance. They’re starting from 22% behind, so it’s a roughie.

    Back in Perth, Riverton is a better chance than it looks – from 1989 to 2013, it was almost always within 2% of the statewide result. In 2017 it suddenly got much more Liberal compared to the state – it still swung to Labor, just by less than the outer suburban seats that drove the swing that election. (A redistribution also helped the Libs, which is now being reversed.) If it comes back to somewhere near the state average, there could be more like a 10% swing here. Scarborough is probably similar – Innaloo was a Labor seat in the early 2000s on similar boundaries, so Labor can win in this part of Perth.

    Down the dark red end of the pendulum: Secret Harbour, Butler, Southern River, West Swan and Baldivis are all newly-developed outer suburbia that usually decides close elections, so all these seats having margins over 30% is wild. West Swan is safe for Rita Saffioti because she’s the transport minister who got the Ellenbrook line built, but the rest are gonna get swings above 20%. There’s gonna be some major shuffling of margins as the 2021 weirdness wears off.

  27. Bop

    I believe Spencer-Teo is from the river side of Leach Highway in Riverton where the Liberals’ best result in 2021 was 50-50 TPP at Shelley primary school.
    That’s an area where Mike Nahan said he hardly used to campaign and when he saw the early numbers on election night guessed what might be coming.
    Pretty sure those areas will go blue again.
    Dr Jags has certainly won the sign and letterbox drop war in my area.

  28. Vote killer below in the Morley electorate.

    Sell of the public sector union dominated monopoly regarding this job for life rabble…

    ‘Students told to stay home from school as 4200 Perth homes and businesses were still without power’
    In the latest update on Wednesday morning, Western Power said there power outages were still impacting 4200 buildings.

    “The areas most impacted include Beechboro, Hocking, Thornlie, Balga, Balcatta, and Craigie,” they said.
    Caleb Runciman
    The West Australian
    Wed, 5 March 2025 9:38AM
    Comments

  30. Libby Mettam must have money to burn! Today we received the third flyer in as many weeks from her in our corner of the Vasse electorate. There’s been zip from anyone else. Surely that’s not just about shoring up the Liberal vote in the LC?

  32. BTSays says:
    Monday, March 3, 2025 at 9:40 pm
    ..
    Have you picked up specific backlash, or opposition lines, on the matter you quote?

    And are there other reasons you think it is going to be tighter than predicted?

    Presumably, like the rest of us, you lack the much sought-after polling evidence.

    Certainly interested to hear more of your views on this, and if you have local contacts.
    ================
    Hey BT Says,
    Apologies for not getting back earlier. Been a bit flat stick over here in Brissie.
    No I don’t have any local contacts in W.A., and yes I was hoping for some more polling out of W.A. in the lead up to this election too!

    OK, per W.A.
    I look at what comes out of the mouths of politicians.
    Prem Cook and some of his ministers have engaged in a bit of “wobble speak” with regard to the future of the Collie Coal Mine.
    I realise Collie is not the be all and end all, but mining in W.A. is a big industry which props up the state gov’t, and to be quite frank, W.A. mining props up the federal coffers too (I’m the first to acknowledge that, as a mere poster from QLD). When pollies engage in “wobble speak” on important issues, it triggers questions among other groups (ie: voters) of “what do you really mean” & “who’se next”.

    And an update today, Prem Cook had a dig at the U.S. VP. Suggests that he feels confident he has the “election in the bag”. Voters don’t like hubris though. His comment today appeals to a miniscule subset of the voting population. Majority will think – who is next in the firing line.

    The Libs won’t win, but the margin will be a lot lower than the 56-44 poll which was done a month or so ago. I’m guessing it will be a much closer final 2PP, say 53 to 47, in the ALP’s favour, when it’s all done and dusted. Maybe a notch lower. We’ll see on Saturday. My read.

  33. > The Libs won’t win, but the margin will be a lot lower than the 56-44 poll which was done a month or so ago. I’m guessing it will be a much closer final 2PP, say 53 to 47, in the ALP’s favour, when it’s all done and dusted. Maybe a notch lower. We’ll see on Saturday. My read.

    ——————————————————————-

    No way it’s going down to 53-47; 56-44 is already pushing it. It will be a comfortable win for the ALP-WA. Nothing suggests that it will close to within 53:47.

  35. Nadia88

    Thanks. I think I see your logic and plausibility, perhaps caveated by fewer items of evidence than sometimes 🙂

    I would be a fool not to take you seriously, given your past record elsewhere in the country, including predicting the Lib win in Prahan etc. the other week and the Queensland numbers before that.

    Anything like 53-47% would be seen as at least a pyrrhic victory for Libby Mettam and the Coalition after last election.

    I did also think that, from what I can see from a long way away, Mettam is in the public eye a good deal and not doing a lot wrong – people also like a spirited fighter against the odds – compared to pre-campaign when she probably struggled to be noticed. This alone is probably inevitably narrowing the polls somewhat further given the large Labor head start, giving credence to your prediction.

    Not long to wait now.

  36. He was never Mark McGowan (and to his credit never tried to be) but is Roger Cook starting to look a bit out of his depth and / or unserious in the eyes of some groups of voters, or is that stretching things way too much?

  37. @ Nadia88

    With regard to Collie, there isn’t actually any wobble. A little election driven guilding of the lilly aside, Labor and Liberal are on pretty much the same page on Collie. I’ve been to a copule of industry functions where Steve Thomas (Shaddow Member for Energy) has spoken, and have been around the industry long enough to have heard Mike Nahan’s thoughts on its future, back when he was the Liberal’s Energy Minister in 2016.

    Disclosure: I’ve had significant professional involvement over 20 years at all three of the coal fired power stations at Collie.

    Even if they don’t broadcast it, there has long been bipartisan acceptance that coal mining & coal fired generation at Collie is coming to an end, sooner rather than later.

    Both coal mines have been economically disasterous for their owners, and one of which is only continuing to operate becuase the state government is propping it up with an open chequebook. They are both appraoching the end of their economic lives.

    Muja is at the end of its econoimc life, and Bluewaters has been an engineering and financial lemon since day 1, the two major contracts for its output are ending this year, and the customers have confirmed they are not renewing them, which will likely result in them going under. Collie A is in good shape, but its too small to support either of the existing mines without significant additional government support.

  38. BTSays says:
    Thursday, March 6, 2025 at 12:50 am

    Your use of the term Pyrrhic victory is incorrect. I suggest that the term moral victory is more appropriate.

  40. Coming of a win of this size in 2021, with a 2PP and seat margins this high… especially given the pretty ordinary campaign the Liberals have run (from what we see over here) … the idea of 53-47 is pretty mind-boggling. 56-44 feels much more like the floor, than ceiling – but WA is generally mysterious to me, so who knows.

    There will be some genuinely wild swings, but I expect the results will be pretty uneven.

  41. FUBAR

    “Your use of the term Pyrrhic victory is incorrect. ”

    True, it wasn’t the right word. When I was first taught the phrase when I was younger, I was taught its meaning incorrectly to be not a victory, but like one because of being surprisingly better than expected etc. and I’ve been confused with it ever since!

  42. Regarding Grimade’s personal insights into the collieries, I suppose what really matters is the perception rather than the reality when it comes to impact on VI.

    I’m not saying Nadia’s perception was the right one necessarily, but it would be interesting to know how the changes are being taken by the general populace, rather than by ‘specialists’ like Grimade who can see past the headlines and understand the financials.

    Or if people are even registering at all. . .

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