DemosAU has the first poll of state voting intention in Western Australia since the March election, showing Labor leading 56-44, compared with 57.1-42.9 at the election. The primary votes are Labor 41% (41.4% at the election), Liberal 30% (28.0%), Nationals 6% (5.2%) and Greens 13% (11.1%). Roger Cook is rated positively by 35%, neutrally by 38% and negatively by 27%; Basil Zempilas scores 30% positive, 37% neutral and 33% negative; and Cook leads 47-34 on preferred premier. Forty-three per cent regard the state as heading in the right direction, compared with 40% for wrong direction. The poll was conducted November 10 to 26 from a sample of 1012.
More of the same then.
WA Labor being in a strong position even if it slowly eases off McGowan levels, and the Libs will be in disarray with even Stokes getting sick of Z one day.
Even the sillies in the financial pages have been trying to say that Iron Ore will come off when a mine in Guinea is finished, but the counter is that maybe, at some point in the future, until then, WA should continue riding that wave.
If there’s any downside I can smell from over east, it is whether Cook really has a mission and a passion like McGowan did.
On these numbers the L/NP look like they’d just flip Pilbara and Dawesville.
Still though, early days.
Kirsdarke, what about South Perth?
Daniel T @ #3 Wednesday, December 3rd, 2025 – 10:09 pm
Eh, probably lineball. It’s held 51.6-48.4 and the swing is only 1.1%.
There’s also the fact that they have to do a redistribution every election so we’ll see how South Perth handles that, probably by early 2028.
https://demosau.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/WA-Poll-Nov-2025.pdf
Link to the actual poll, not the paywalled West article (cheers to Nadia in the other thread).
Kirsdarke: South Perth is just about redistribution-proof. It’s got the Swan or Canning rivers on three sides and Curtin Uni / Tech Park on most of the fourth. Losing a slice of Kensington to Vic Park might shave a bit off the margin (2017 cut the Lib margin by 1.4% when it went the other way) but that’s not the main issue – the fact Labor hold the seat at all is astonishing. 2017 was a similar election to 2025 by statewide 2pp (well, compared to the one in between at least), and the Libs held the seat by 7% then. Its difference to the state 2pp has gone from 12.6% to 5.5% over eight years. A bit of that would be a sophomore swing for Geoff Baker, but he’s pretty low-profile – there’s something genuinely changing in this part of Perth. (My memory of the area is going there to visit very old relatives in the 90s – apparently it’s less of an open-air retirement village than it used to be.)
Bird of paradox @ #6 Wednesday, December 3rd, 2025 – 11:27 pm
Interesting, thanks for the info on that.
This tracks with my sense of the mood here in WA. Government hasn’t had a really big misstep blow up in their faces this term, the Armadale line of Metronet is back up and running, and the Cockburn-Thornlie link is online.
The West Australian has been trying to land blows on the Government, but I get the sense that nobody outside the die-hard Liberal/National/One Nation crowd is really paying attention to them. Basil struggles to land a blow in Parliament as well, and he’s not particularly well-liked by the public (comes off as arrogant and out-of-touch).
Interesting that they didn’t poll specifically for One Nation primary, given how well they are travelling federally…
Vague thoughts while looking at the pendulum…
Pilbara and Kalgoorlie are probably gone in 2029, especially if One Nation have a good election. (Obviously the federal election a year earlier will be a guide to that.)
Collie-Preston will probably stay Labor while they’re in government, then be one of the seats that puts the Libs in power in 2033(ish) and is hardly ever won by them again. (See Morwell in Vic.)
Freo is obviously a chance for Kate Hulett if she runs again, but will she? (She didn’t end up running for Freo council.) She might also end up elected to the federal seat in the meantime. Apart from that the Greens might have a shot.
Bateman and Dawesville join South Perth in the “how the hell is this a Labor seat?” category. Three seats the Libs have to win in 2029, and if they don’t, that election will have been just as much of a waste of time as 2025 was. Kingsley and Riverton aren’t quite in this category as they’ve at least been won by Labor before (also Scarborough – Innaloo is a rough predecessor and Gallop won it in 2005).
Forrestfield is surprisingly marginal for a seat Labor has held in opposition (2008). Until recently it was the armpit of Perth with absolutely useless public transport – now it’s got a shiny new train station thanks to Metronet. (Let’s politely ignore the fact that project was actually started by Barnett – all PT improvements are part of Metronet, OK? 😛 ) It’s still the sort of gross outer suburb One Nation might do well in.
Speaking of Metronet, now that it’s built and mostly working, there’s a clutch of outer suburban seats that helps Labor in. Darling Range (Byford extension), Butler and Mindarie (Yanchep extension), Southern River and Jandakot (TCL), West Swan and Swan Hills (Ellenbrook line). All of these are outer suburban mortgage belt seats that tend to swing hard at change-of-govt elections – they should be on the Libs’ target list in 2029 but won’t be.
On the blue team: Adam Hort seems quite sensible for a Lib, I hope he stays so. Huston and Brewer are whinging nimbys who get their face in the Subiaco Post complaining about the new ferry stop at Matilda Bay or development along the Fremantle line. I’ve heard very little from Liam Staltari (isn’t he supposed to be some kind of party machine man?) and absolutely nothing about David Bolt. As for Basil… ehh, spend ten minutes on the Perth subreddit and you’ll find plenty of stories waaay too defamatory to repeat here.
Has anyone done the maths on the length of new public transport rail built (or electrified) in Perth, in say. the last 10 years (under Lab or Lib combined really don’t care).
I know there are physical differences between the east and west coasts (clay vs sand for one); but how long has say Melbourne been talking about an airport line, whereas Perth just went ahead and did it? Or the Thornlie–Cockburn Link, which to me looks a bit like the start of some loop of rail in the suburbs?
I don’t know, at least when it comes to rail, WA seems to have a bipartisan get shit done attitude. Lets hope we can get some densificiation around those shiny new stations now.
@Bizzcan:
It’s about an extra 72km in the last 10 years between the Airport line, the Ellenbrook line, the Thornlie-Cockburn link, and the Byford and Yanchep extensions.
It was also about that much when they built the Mandurah line in the first place almost 20 years ago.
Metronet was hardly bipartisan.
The WA Liberals have long been bloody awful on public transport (up to and including the Barnett Government and its Ellenbrook farce).
WA Labor has an extraordinary record on public transport by any measure: Burke reopened the Fremantle line, Dowding-Lawrence built the Joondalup line, Gallop-Carpenter built the Mandurah line, and McGowan-Cook did Metronet. The state Liberals in all that time did bugger all.
It’s still so funny to me that seats like Bateman and South Perth, where Labor barely bothered to run candidates a decade ago, are now multi-term Labor seats. I can see an indie giving Labor a scare in Freo again but unless something has dramatically changed I don’t see a sign of the Greens having a lower-house pulse again – there’s a reason why they ran quiet to assist an indie last time.
@Bird of Paradox + @Kirksdale
South Perth looks certain to be under quota and will need extra voters from the Victoria Park electorate. I would estimate the margin will be around
2.5-3% in ALP’s favour for the next election.
Corleone
“If there’s any downside I can smell from over east, it is whether Cook really has a mission and a passion like McGowan did.”
Totally agree. There needs to be a grand plan for Perth’s growth into the third big city and an economy that can do well without mining. The problem is very few people want it to grow eastward so it’s either densify or keep growing north-south. This new plan to increase density around selected train stations is a great thing.
Rebeccasays:
Friday, December 5, 2025 at 12:19 pm
Metronet was hardly bipartisan.
The WA Liberals have long been bloody awful on public transport (up to and including the Barnett Government and its Ellenbrook farce).
WA Labor has an extraordinary record on public transport by any measure: Burke reopened the Fremantle line, Dowding-Lawrence built the Joondalup line, Gallop-Carpenter built the Mandurah line, and McGowan-Cook did Metronet. The state Liberals in all that time did bugger all.
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I agree the Ellenbrook and Mandurah lines are massive Labor achievements; but it would be remiss of me to ignore that the Airport line started under Barnett, which is something to really wave over those disorganised Victorians.
Not sure the rail system is a core topic, but this is clearly a Labor thing, with the Libs playing catch-up since 1979.
And every stage represents a different Labor Era – Burke who gets unfairly slighted, and Carmen too, with the original Freo reopening, then electrification, then Joondalup.
Then the Gallop era with the heroic Alannah Mactiernan who used to sit in Peter Newman’s lectures and took enough of it in to build the Mandurah and Thornlie lines, through the city as should always have been planned (unlike Court Jr who just wanted it to run a side route).
And now the McGowan/Cook era with Yanchep, Ellenbrook, Byford, Cockburn via Thornlie and even a small extension of Midland line. I wasn’t sure about Rita first up and was surprised they didn’t give Alannah a second go, but she has delivered.
And McGowan was around to collect on the Airport/High Wycombe line which seems a bit unfair on the Libs, but if they had got to it sooner they might have been there when it opened. It is there own loss that they opposed Ellenbrook only to have it built anyway.
Finally, there is still room on the whiteboard for a line across the northern suburbs from Morley to Joondalup though it remains to be seen if the people of Perth have the appetite for more of them.
To me the next real priority is high speed rail from Perth, or at least Mandurah, to Bunbury. And yes, Labor have floated that previously.
Highly aspirational, but I wouldn’t say no to at least a “higher than freeway speed” rail down through Busselton to Margaret River.
@Bizzcan:
The problem with extending metro-style rail outside of the metro area in Western Australia is that there is a HUGE gap between the population of Perth and the population of the next largest cities – Bunbury would be next, with at most 80,000 people in its urban area. Busselton is even smaller at 40,000 or so.
Compare that to around 2,400,000 in the Perth metro area. That sort of gap between biggest and second biggest is actually quite unusual in the world, and presents significant challenges for extending public transport services to regional centres of population.
Compare this to New South Wales, where there’s some 350,000 people in and around Newcastle, another 325,000 or so around the central coast, and another 280,000 around Wollongong. It’s easier to do rail out to those places when there are enough people there to make the economic case work. Victoria is a little harder than New South Wales, with 180,000 in Geelong and about 100,000 each in Ballarat and Bendigo – but this is still an easier ask than sending rail out to Bunbury, Busselton or, heavens forbid, Albany in WA.
Ticktocksays:
Saturday, December 6, 2025 at 11:01 am
@Bizzcan:
The problem with extending metro-style rail outside of the metro area in Western Australia is that there is a HUGE gap between the population of Perth and the population of the next largest cities – Bunbury would be next, with at most 80,000 people in its urban area. Busselton is even smaller at 40,000 or so.
Compare that to around 2,400,000 in the Perth metro area. That sort of gap between biggest and second biggest is actually quite unusual in the world, and presents significant challenges for extending public transport services to regional centres of population.
Compare this to New South Wales, where there’s some 350,000 people in and around Newcastle, another 325,000 or so around the central coast, and another 280,000 around Wollongong. It’s easier to do rail out to those places when there are enough people there to make the economic case work. Victoria is a little harder than New South Wales, with 180,000 in Geelong and about 100,000 each in Ballarat and Bendigo – but this is still an easier ask than sending rail out to Bunbury, Busselton or, heavens forbid, Albany in WA.
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Oh I get all that, I’m just saying that I’d rather take a quick train to a weekender in Margaret River rather than driving or an uncomfortable bus.
Train travel over coach travel? No contest, IMO. But as to those “uncomfortable” buses? Two coach companies currently have a total of thirty-seven services each way every week between Perth and Busselton.
How that breaks down between those unable/unwilling to drive, or residents vs. visitors, let alone the business case for rail, I knoweth not. But demand there evidently is.
Having taken the coach buses down south a few times myself, they’re definitely not the most uncomfortable ride in the world, but they’re still not as comfortable as the Australind train from Perth to Bunbury. I can see the appeal of being able to take the train down south for sure, it is purely the economic case that sadly does not stack up due to the highly centralised population.
Ticktocksays:
Sunday, December 7, 2025 at 2:57 pm
Having taken the coach buses down south a few times myself, they’re definitely not the most uncomfortable ride in the world, but they’re still not as comfortable as the Australind train from Perth to Bunbury. I can see the appeal of being able to take the train down south for sure, it is purely the economic case that sadly does not stack up due to the highly centralised population.
+++++++++++++
Disagree, only because in 1995 you would have said the same about Mandurah. Labor were bold when the time came and built the train all the way to Mandurah in one go, and their instincts were right.
The coast is growing, we have Dawesville on the coast or Pinjarra inland that are already populated and set to take off, there is no reason why the South West can’t target itself to be as big as the Sunshine Coast or the Illawarra.
Perth is only going to get hotter so people with the luxury of choice will continue to settle the coast. Bunbury and south has cooler climate than Perth, which will be a selling point.
A genuinely fast train to Bunbury, if it could do a bit over an hour from Perth, will have similar appeal to the Mandurah line. But it would need to be capable of 180km/h or more.
@Corleone:
I would have been four years old in most of 1995, so I doubt it.
I live in Mandurah (and I was previously from Bunbury), so I have a few notes:
1. Mandurah (I live here) is significantly closer to the centre of Perth (~75km) than Bunbury is to the centre of Mandurah (~100km).
2. The area between the centres of Perth and Mandurah is (and was even in the 90s) more built-up than the area between Mandurah and Bunbury is.
3. Putting train stations in Halls Head/Erskine/Falcon/Dawesville would make sense in terms of the population that exists in those areas, however there is a problem – continuing the current terminus of the Mandurah line at Mandurah station further south presents serious engineering challenges, likely requiring a tunnel under much of central Mandurah, something that would be expensive and complicated by the local geology (not very suitable for tunnelling). A more likely “Metro” rail route to Bunbury would branch off from the Mandurah line where it departs the centre of the Kwinana Freeway (just north of Kwinana station) and from there proceed down the Forrest Hwy into Bunbury. The other option would be to further expand services along the route of the Australind, via Pinjarra.
You’re right that Labor was correct be bold and go to Mandurah, and it was a decision I backed wholeheartedly at the time – I’m not convinced the same case stacks up for extending metro rail to Bunbury, especially not by extending the terminus south from Mandurah station.