WESTERN AUSTRALIAN ELECTION 2017

Murray-Wellington


Margin: Liberal 12.0%
Region: South West
Federal: Forrest (56%); Canning (44%)

RESULTS AT 2013 ELECTION
HISTORICAL TWO-PARTY RESULTS
PREVIOUS ELECTION RESULTS MAP

Candidates in ballot paper order

DANIEL RADLEY
Flux the System


CALLUM BURWOOD
Greens


PAUL GILLETT
Nationals


MURRAY COWPER
Liberal (top)


ROBYN CLARKE
Labor (centre)


MARK McCALL
Shooters Fishers and Farmers


ROSS SLATER
One Nation (bottom)




Murray-Wellington covers rural territory immediately to the south of the Perth metropolitan area, encompassing most of the Shire of Murray in the north (outside of a small part of Murray on the fringe of Mandurah), and the Wellington district shires of Waroona and Harvey in the south. The electorate has existed either as Murray-Wellington or Murray since self-government was established in 1890, the former name having prevailed since 2008. A separate electorate of Wellington existed from 1890 to 1911, 1962 to 1983 and 1989 to 1996.

Labor has only been competitive in the three seats so named during Murray's periods in existence from 1989 to 1996 and 2005 to 2008, when it included urban territory in Mandurah. Keith Read won it for Labor by 161 votes in 1989, at the same time that his father, John Read, lost the neighbouring seat of Mandurah. It was recovered for the Liberals in 1993 by Arthur Marshall, former tennis champion and father of Colin Barnett’s high-profile chief-of-staff Dixie Marshall, who moved to Dawesville in 1996. John Bradshaw held Murray-Wellington from 1983 to 1989 and again from 1996 to 2005, and held Wellington in the interim.

Murray had a notional Labor margin of 0.7% when re-established in 2005, but a 1.5% swing to the Liberals decided it in their favour by 198 votes. The Wellington end of the electorate was at this time attached to Collie to create Collie-Wellington, which Mick Murray retained for Labor due to the party's overwhelming strength in Collie. The one-vote one-value redistribution in 2008 solidified the electorate's current identity as the fairly safe Liberal seat of Murray-Wellington, with the 2013 redistribution effecting little change, and the latest redistribution none at all.

Murray-Wellington is currently held for the Liberals by Murray Cowper, whose parliamentary career began with his narrow victory in Murray in 2005. A former Australind police sergeant, Cowper attained cabinet rank as Minister for Corrective Services, Training and Workforce Development in June 2012, but was relegated to the back bench after the Barnett government's re-election March 2013. In September 2016 he moved the spill motion against Colin Barnett's leadership, after publicly stating the government was “bleeding out” under his leadership.

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