Click here for full display of Western Australian state election results.
Live commentary
9.43pm. Early days in a very slow count, but the disendorsed Liberal candidate is looking competitive in Kimberley (part of a pattern of big swings against Labor in regional areas).
9.40pm. More TCP counts now unlocked, as far down the alphabet as Scarborough.
9.12pm. A lot of seats (though not all) between A and K have had their TCP numbers unlocked.
9.02pm. The WAEC has unleashed its first two-candidate preferred numbers, for the exquisitely uninteresting seat of Armadale. A good occasion to remind you all that my projections are based entirely on my pre-determined estimates of how preferences would flow.
8.30pm. Something else I’ll stick my nose in about: amid a result that’s surprising on the up side for Labor (or do I mean on the down side for Liberal), do keep in mind that we will see a flood of early votes coming in from around 10pm. When this happened in New South Wales, Labor lost the majority that everyone was projecting early in the evening. And another thing: if you’re enjoying my live results (or anything else here), please consider a donation through the “become a supporter” button at the top of the page.
7.51pm. Something I’ll stick my nose in about: there is a result in Fremantle for the Fremantle Early Polling Place which is fairly spectacular for independent Kate Hulett. But over 9000 votes were cast at that booth, and there’s only 635 of them here. So I imagine what we’re seeing here is election day results, to which the much larger amount of early votes will be added later. But the swing is based off a historic result that makes no distinction between them. Still, it’s obviously interesting that there’s a booth where Hulett is on 38.2%.
6.36pm. In short, mobile polling booths — aged care facilities and such — are reporting their results.
6.28pm. My system has successfully processed the first result – mobile voting from Scarborough – which is always a relief.
6pm. Polls have closed. I’m not going to be providing running commentary on the results, but I may pop in from time to time to explain technical details of what’s going on with the results.
Preview
This post will be used to provide a discussion forum for today’s Western Australian election, and as a launching pad for the live results feature linked to above. It will be the first workout of my new three-candidate model for projecting results at a general election, which received some useful stress testing at last month’s state by-elections in Victoria. My back-room involvement with Nine’s television coverage means I’m unlikely to have much to offer in the way of supplementary commentary this evening, but hopefully my results projections will speak for themselves. I had some further thoughts on the matter in a paywalled article in Crikey yesterday. Yesterday’s post reported on the only public polling to have emerged since the start of the campaign – today’s newspaper’s offer little in the way of further intelligence on what might be expected this evening, although Tom Rabe of the Financial Review reports a view in both camps that the polls’ implication of around 11 seats for the Liberals and Nationals combined is “at the lower end of potential losses for Labor”.
The Western Australian Electoral Commission acknowledges a likely feature of tonight’s counting that has become familiar to election watchers across the land: a lull in proceedings between 8pm, by which time most of the election day booths have reported their results, and at least 10pm, which is at long as it takes for most of the early polling places to process their many thousands of votes. The WAEC relates that 557,693 out of 1,868,946 enrolled voters have cast votes at early polling places, which I actually make to be down a little on 2021. There is no data that I’m aware of on postal votes — those that have been received will also be counted this evening. Only first preference above-the-line votes will be counted for the Legislative Council, the process for which will drag out until at least the end of the month.
Some other peculiarities of tonight’s proceedings are worth noting. This is the first Western Australian election at which early votes are ordinary rather than declaration votes, meaning the results category of “Early Votes (in Person)” has been abolished. The early polling place locations around the state will all be open today as well, and the results reported for them will include both the early and election day votes. Early votes cast out of district are now classified as absent votes, which are still declaration votes and will thus not be counted this evening. This is particularly significant in the case of Kalamunda, Forrestfield, Butler and Baldivis, which do not have a dedicated early polling place. Voters in these seats will doubtless have cast absent votes in neighbouring electorates in very large numbers, none of which will be counted this evening. All of which has made life complicated for those of us who create historic datasets allowing for swing calculations and booth-matched projections of the results.
Another unusual feature of the WAEC’s procedures is that the notional two-candidate preferred counts are kept under wraps until the commission is satisfied it has picked the right candidates, which seemed to start happening on a large scale at around 7:30pm in 2021. This means that the various media outlets’ results projections, including my own, will be based on speculative preference estimates for much of the night. My system is geared to be rather conservative when when going off preference estimates, and I’m guessing it will lag behind other media outlets in calling results.
Hi William,
Firstly do you ever get to sleep more than an hour or two each night?
Secondly are you able to give a prediction for total party seat tallies when all is said and done?.
Judgement day.
Synergy and Western power are a mess late swing will keep it a respectable loss.
Good test of those two opinion polls out yesterday as well.
*crosses fingers for Labor losses on the lowest end*
Cook is a genuinely good guy, and I hope he gets rewarded.
Murray-Wellington will also have many of its votes actually cast at the Mandurah early polling place as declaration votes, because the early polling place in M-W was unwisely placed in Australind, which is at the southwestern tip of the electorate.
For many voters in places like Pinjarra, Waroona, Yarloop and Yunderup, Mandurah was simply much closer, so thousands of them have voted there.
Good on the nine network for using someone of William Bowe’s capability to do the number crunching.
Last federal election the seven network coverage were, about mid broadcast, predicting the coalition to win about (from memory) 15 to 20 more seats than the 58 they needed up with. They (Seven) have a history of this in their recent election night broadcasts.
Check out the views of ex-Liberal senator and power broker about the appalling state of their party in the West Australian.
I get the feeling the Liberals will underperform even their own modest expectations. I’d be surprised if we see more than 11 non-Labor members of the lower house elected tonight.
@pied piper
Temporary power outage issues happen all the time. It’s not going to make even a minor dent. Labor will still sweep the floor this time around.
Granny Anny
In their election preview both Noel Chrichton-Browne and Brian Burke predict the Liberals to do better than many pundits suggest.
Burke going for 19 seats!
NCB’s review of the Liberals includes the allegation than there are “14 Clan members, associates or fellow travellers” on the Legislative Council ticket. So much for the new broom.
Reckon Labor to lose maybe 13 seats
Some not won by libs and nats.
Cook is a very good Premier leading a competent government which has continued the McGowan legacy.
The Liberals are bereft of talent, inevitable after years of Clan control.
Support for Mettam from her party has been tepid (wrong gender and not Zempilas).
The Nationals as usual are a waste of space.
Apart from loyalty of family and friends, there are no reasons to vote for the conservatives or the vacuous Greens.
Any movement back to “normal” at this election will be a test of media influence as much as anything else.
Going by polling trends, you can add at least 1% to the predicted 57-43 to
58-42 as a minimum. That’s about an 11% swing to LNP. LNP would need a uniform swing of 23% to gain government.
MY PRE ELECTION COUNT
CERTAIN ALP: 37
CERTAIN LIB: 5
CERTAIN NAT: 4
IN DOUBT: 13
SEATS CERTAIN TO FALL (4)
Carine, Churchlands, Nedlands
Warren-Blackwood
LIKELY TO FALL (4)
Bateman, Geraldton, Scarborough, South Perth
50/50 (5)
Riverton, Kalamunda, Kalgoorlie, Dawesville, Kingsley
LIKELY LABOR (4)
Darling Range, Bicton, Pilbara, Hillarys
Good starting list Luke, I think Scarborough and South Perth might be worth putting in the 50-50 category. I would consider Kalgoorlie, Kalamunda and Riverton (particularly Kalgoorlie) as more likely to fall than them. Kingsley is leaning Labor to me.
I’m not sure where to put Murray-Wellington, probably slightly Labor leaning but not enough to be Likely Labor.
I don’t really know enough about the electorates to make exact seat predictions, just that I’m going to guess that Labor ends up with at least 40.
Hi William
When I click on the “here” symbol in the above “WA election live” commentary, I get the WA results page but if you then click on “Election Preview”, you get the Queensland election preview for 2024. Just noting.
I would think ALP will lose south Perth. Hearing much discontent in voter land over the motor racing proposal for Burswood.
Labor to win an easy majority (no great shock there) but anyone who thinks the result will have any federal implications is kidding themselves, the WA Labor party is a very different beast to their federal counterparts and the people know it.
I’m interested to see if the Nationals outperform their polling now they’re standing in seats like Swan Hills.
Hard to tell what’s going to happen with the Liberals and we’ll have to wait and see if they ditch the god botherers.
Thanks John – I always forget that. Fixed.
G’day all!
My knowledge of WA state politics isn’t much, so I’m not qualified to make any decent prediction on tonight’s outcome.
I guess it’s safe to say that the Cook Government will be reelected, with a reduced majority, but how reduced that majority is, we’ll find out tonight.
Roger Cook strikes me as a solid sort of Premier, and his comment about Vance the other day wouldn’t have hurt him too much either with progressive type voters.
The Liberals surely have to win something in the realm of 17-20 seats, as a platform for 2029, and no doubt the much hyped Basil will be their next leader, assuming he wins Churchlands.
Rodger Cook was the health minister who was dumped during Covid because McGowan didn’t rate him (like most of his colleagues). He’s only leader because of the factional balance within the state labor caucus and not merit or skill.
If the lib and nats get within striking distance for 2029 at this election he can expect a challenger for the leadership.
I was given the instruction to “just number one above the line” at my local polling booth and saw other people receive the same instructions. If this was widespread I suspect there will be a high exhaust rate for minor groups below 2% of the council vote.
Imacca: South Perth was probably gone anyway (it’s one of those bedrock seats the Libs have no excuse not to win). I wonder what effect the proposed speedway has in Victoria Park, particularly if it flips to a ALP/Grn contest.
A few seats I’ll be keeping a lazy eye on:
Kalgoorlie: potential four-way mess designed to harass William’s shiny new 3cp display, with Libs, Nats and ex-Lib MP Kyran O’Donnell all in the field.
Fremantle: as above, with either the Greens or Kate Hulett a chance to make the top two.
Bassendean: another independent (local mayor) in a safe Labor seat.
Albany and Geraldton: in the danger zone for Labor. Albany might be saved by the controversial Lib candidate. Geraldton was previously held by a Lib who defected to the Nats, so it’s not clear who’ll challenge Labor.
Warren-Blackwood: Labor will lose it, but who to? The Nats got handed what was then Blackwood-Stirling on a plate in 2008 because Paul Omodei angrily retired, but the south-west isn’t normally strong for them. The Greens might do well too.
Landsdale: yeah it’s on a 25% margin, but I was going through there last week and there’s a lot of signs around. In a close election it’d be a seat that decides the result.
Churchlands: should be the very first seat the Libs win back, but… Basil. This isn’t actually a sure thing. Cottesloe and Nedlands are possible Lib/Ind contests too.
Maylands, Perth, Vic Park: possible ALP/Grn contests. Maybe Bibra Lake too, although that won’t be close.
I was curious to see if there’s any chance of the Greens having a pulse in Legislative Assembly contests again, and I find it a strange choice that there’s barely any information about who any of the Greens candidates actually are – even for their supposed target seats in the Legislative Assembly, with most having a blurb that could be any Greens candidate in the country.
Rebecca @ #23 Saturday, March 8th, 2025 – 5:22 pm
Honestly in this election it’s probably too difficult for the Greens to have any target seats other than Fremantle and Perth.
I had a look and these are the seats where the Greens got at least 10% of the vote.
Bicton: 10.0%
Churchlands: 10.5%
Cottesloe: 12.7%
Fremantle: 18.6%
Kimberley: 15.0%
Maylands: 16.1%
Mount Lawley: 11.1%
Nedlands: 13.6%
Perth: 16.0%
South Perth: 10.4%
Vasse: 10.4%
Victoria Park: 12.6%
Warren-Blackwood: 13.4%
Most of these are marginal between Labor and the Liberal/Nationals.
But some seats may arise as targets for the 2029 election for them at least, especially since they’re polling at 10-11%, up from the 7% they got in 2021.
Hi William
You’d better have another look at it. I’m still getting QLD review.
Your summary results page is excellent, backed by the detail on each seat. it’s so useful.
Bec’s a pretty strong candidate in Albany, has deep local roots in the town and her whole family have longstanding volunteer connections over many decades. Whereas the fruit loop ED doctor is just a johnny come lately gronk who uses his council position to beat up on the vulnerable and the weak.
The fact that the Teal Party doesn’t run a candidate in Perth demonstrates that they are anti-Liberal.
Hi John – it should change if you do a hard refresh (CTRL+F5 in Windows).
Oh. Maylands would also probably be a viable Greens target as well, they have tended to go well there for the past few elections.
Just voted at Highgate Primary (Perth). Looong line, and not even a hint of democracy sausages – apparently they were sold out by lunchtime. I’ll have to go down in the morning for the federal election.
Most of the Greens advertising seems to be either for the federal election, or against fracking in the Kimberley. The Perth Voice has had big ads for John Carey, the Lib, and even no-chance upper house BTL candidate Steve Walker, but I haven’t seen one that’s just “Hi, I’m Simone Springer, vote for me”. Nothing wrong with campaigning on fracking, but the Kimberley is 3000 km away. Surely they could find an issue a bit closer to home.
Bird of paradox says: Saturday, March 8, 2025 at 6:38 pm
My condolences for missing out on Democracy Sausage, you missed out on such a good treat.
Bird of paradox says Saturday, March 8, 2025 at 6:38 pm
Not that it will do you any good, but Manning Primary School still had them at 2pm.
My predictions:
ALP – 39
LIB – 13
NAT – 7
LIB gain from ALP: Churchlands, Nedlands, Carine, Bateman, Scarborough, South Perth, Riverton, Dawesville, Kalamunda, Kingsley, Jandakot
NAT gain from ALP: Albany, Geraldton, Kalgoorlie, Warren-Blackwood
NAT win: Mid-West (2PP should be NAT vs LIB here)
Not one for predictions really but Anton’s list looks credible if there’s a half-way decent return to politics as usual.
A bad day for the Tories would mean missing out on any or all of Albany, Dawesville, South Perth, Kalgoorlie, Riverton and Geraldton. A really bad day if they miss out on Churchlands, which looks like wishful thinking no matter how much of an empty shirt Zempilas is.
The only real post-election question will be does Mettam do well enough to make her want to retain the leadership and give her a buffer to fend off Kerry Stokes’ handpuppet?
In reality, though, she’s probably done a Dalkeith deal to hand over after the election just to get the West to stop running ‘give it to Baz’ stories.
Edit: perhaps the bigger question mark hangs over Shane Love.
Hale boys – tough enough for leadership?
Lars
Fair question. ‘Glass jaws’ springs to mind.
basil Zemoilas is the star candidate? Couldn’t they find an empty chair.
Rewi
Don’t have an opinion on Shane Love other than he’s a Nat with all that involves but I hope he holds his redrawn seat against the turncoat.
Labor calls them rats.
Huge : I was told the same thing in Swan Hills and had to read the instructions on the ballot paper to check whether I could number more than 1 above the line.
Rewi @ #40 Saturday, March 8th, 2025 – 8:23 pm
lol nice
After the last couple of days I’m not so sure of Darling range. Not because the Libs have a good local candidate but because one nation were very well received and they are preferencing Liberals. Whilst handing out today they were heard to say, we are all working together. Labor was on its own, Greens a no show at pre polls and again today at at the booth I was on. Very little traction for Nationals.
I’m a hoping and a praying, Hugh Jones has done a great job as a local member, the disquiet was around, guns, sheep exports and be blamed for inflation.
Kirsdarke
Cheap lols I’m afraid, which is why I deleted it.
Greetings all, hope you’ve been well! Daylight saving makes WA election night start so late…
@Rewi
Ah, whoops, sorry.
I’m in S.A. and I know the outcome over there, drinking wine late into the evening may be counterproductive, but, Hurry Up you guys over there, what!!??
Kirsdarke
All good. If William has time and sees fit he might wave his magic wand and make it all vanish into smoke.
Steve Thomas just uttered the immortal phrase “I’m a country member”!