Roe

Margin: Nationals 10.6%*
Region: Agricultural
Federal: O'Connor
* New electorate

RESULTS AT 2013 ELECTION
PREVIOUS ELECTION RESULTS MAP

Candidates in ballot paper order

GRAHAM JACOBS Liberal (top) PETER STACEY Shooters Fishers and Farmers TONY FELS Independent EKETERINA ZACKLOVA One Nation (bottom) PETER RUNDLE Nationals (centre) SIMONE MCINNES Greens BRADLEY WILLIS Labor CATHIE KELLY Australian Christians

Roe has been created in the latest redistribution to accommodate most of abolished Wagin, which encompasses strong Nationals territory in the southern Wheatbelt and provides 61% of its voters, and a 750 kilometre stretch of the state's southern coast inclusive of Esperance and Hopetoun, formerly in the abolished seat of Eyre. It will be contested by the Liberal member for Eyre, Graham Jacobs, whereas the Nationals member for Wagin, Terry Waldron, will retire. Roe was formerly the name of an electorate from 1950 to 1983, which was held by the Country Party until 1974 and the Liberals thereafter, and again from 1989 to 2008, when it was held by the Nationals from 1989 to 2005, and by the Liberals for one term following the retirement of Nationals member Ross Ainsworth.

The successful Liberal candidate in Roe at the 2005 election was Graham Jacobs, who moved to Eyre when the seat was abolished in 2008. Jacobs was twice elected with narrow margins against Nationals candidates, of 3.6% in 2008 and 0.4% in 2013. Noted as a social conservative, Jacobs moved a spill motion against Troy Buswell after the chair-sniffing story broke in April 2008, and two months later resigned from the front bench position he had gained in January. He was made Water and Mental Health Minister after the 2008 election victory, but was dumped in a reshuffle in December 2010, ironically to accommodate the return of Buswell.

Roe will be contested for the Nationals by Peter Rundle, a Katanning farmer and chairman of the Great Southern Development Commission.