Overview

A new electoral system

The election for the Legislative Council will inaugurate a new system, the last significant vestige of rural vote weighting in an Australian parliament having been abolished courtesy of Labor's historic double parliamentary majority. The previous system was based on six regions that divided seats equally between the metropolitan area and the rest of the state, notwithstanding that the former is home to roughly three-quarters of the population. Under the new system, a single statewide election will return an entire complement of 37 members, up from 36 under the previous system.

Electing the upper house “at large” brings Western Australia into line with New South Wales and South Australia, leaving Victoria's as the only system with regions returning smaller numbers of members with higher quotas for election. However, the new system differs from the other at-large models in that the entire chamber is to be elected every four years, rather than having staggered eight-year terms. This results in a distinctly low quota for election of 2.6%, which compares with 4.5% in New South Wales, 8.3% in South Australia, and 14.3% under the previous system, which replicated half-Senate elections in electing six members per region.

The new system duly allows ample opportunities for small party representation while doing away with the group voting ticket system, which produced a particularly perverse outcome in Mining and Pastoral region at the 2021 election, when Wilson Tucker of the Daylight Saving Party was elected from 98 first preference votes. As was done when the Senate system was reformed in 2016, this has been complemented by the introduction of optional preferences, with voters required to number at least one box above the line or at least 20 below.

Electoral history

As is often the case under rural malapportionment, the principal beneficiary of the old system was the Nationals, and the conservative side of politics by extension. From the introduction of proportional representation in 1989, the Liberals and Nationals had majorities between them from 1989 to 1996, encompassing one term in opposition and one in government, and through the Barnett government's time in office from 2008 to 2017, as well as having exactly half from 1996 to 2001. By contrast, Labor and the Greens were only able to win half the seats between them when Labor was elected in a landslide in 2017, with parties of the right winning the other half.

The scale of Labor's win in 2021 handily accounted for the obstacle of malapportionment, with Labor coming close to winning five of the six seats in East Metropolitan and South Metropolitan, also winning four in North Metropolitan and Mining and Pastoral and three in Agricultural and South West. With a commanding majority of 22 seats out of 36, Labor was able to recast the system in its preferred image, despite Mark McGowan having assured regional voters before the election that upper house reform was “not on our agenda”.

Labor's weakness in the chamber has a long history, owing to a property qualification on voting that persisted as late as 1963, followed by a system of rurally malapportioned provinces in which two members served staggered six-year terms. The introduction of proportional representation in 1989 was accompanied by non-staggered four-year terms for both houses, while maintaining the peculiarity that election results for the Legislative Council do not take effect until the following May 21.

Party representation

While Labor's clear majority has made the matter of largely academic interest, there have been several changes to the party composition of the chamber since the 2021 election. One of the Nationals' three seats was lost when South West region member James Hayward resigned from the party in December 2021 after being charged on child sex offences (an appeal against the conviction was upheld in February 2025, and the charges subsequently dropped). It was restored when he was convicted in August 2023, resulting in a countback in which the seat was filled by Louise Kingston, then lost again when Kingston quit the party in June 2024.

Another saga involving a South West region seat unfolded when Labor veteran Alannah MacTiernan retired in February 2023. The resulting countback would ordinarily have elected the fourth candidate on the Labor ticket, John Mondy, but he was unwilling to abandon his successful Bunbury signwriting business to serve half a parliamentary term. There was no such reluctance on the part of the fifth candidate, Ben Dawkins, but he was facing court at the time for breaching family violence restraining orders and had duly been suspended from the ALP with expulsion pending. He duly took the seat as an independent, reducing Labor to 21 seats, and avoided jail when convictions were recorded against him in June 2023. Dawkins became One Nation's sole member of state parliament in February 2024, but resigned from it in December, three months after failing to win a position on its ticket for the election.

Legalise Cannabis lost one of its two members in May 2024, when Sophia Moermond quit the party after managing only fifth position in the party's preselection. Moermond said she believed this was due to her having addressed a Let Women Speak rally organised by gender-critical activist Posie Parker, the Melbourne leg of which sparked the controversy surrounding Victorian Liberal state parliamentarian Moira Deeming, prompting a public rebuke from the party's other member, Brian Walker. Daylight Saving Party member Wilson Tucker also became formally independent when the party's registration lapsed in August 2023.

Candidates

Labor candidates

Labor's complement of 22 members after the 2021 election included five who are vacating seats at the coming election, together with Alannah MacTiernan, whose South West region seat was lost to the party when she retired in February 2023. Sue Ellery (South Metropolitan), Martin Pritchard (North Metropolitan), Sally Talbot (South West) and Darren West (Agricultural) are retiring of their own accord, while Kyle McGinn (Mining and Pastoral) unsuccessfully sought preselection for the new federal seat of Bullwinkel after recognising he lacked the support for a winnable position on the ticket.

The West Australian reported in June 2022 that a factional arrangement structured preselection around blocks of seven, in which two seats went to the United Workers Union sub-faction of the Left, two went to the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union sub-faction, and the other three went to the Right. With Labor on track for perhaps fourteen seats, ten of the incumbents are in positions of greater or lesser security, with another five unlikely to win re-election. Another incumbent, Stephen Pratt (South Metropolitan), will run for the lower house seat of Jandakot. Four non-incumbents hold competitive or better positions, tenth being occupied by Katrina Stratton, who won the lower house seat of Nedlands in 2021.

At the head of the ticket is Jackie Jarvis, a former Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development manager and co-owner of the Jarvis Estate winery in Margaret River, who was elected from third on the South West ticket in 2021. A member of the UWU Left, she replaced South West colleague Alannah MacTiernan as Agriculture Minister when she announced her retirement in December 2022, further taking on the forestry and small business portfolios.

Matthew Swinbourn is a former lawyer and industrial officer with the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, a Left union that has lately formed part of the Right-dominated Progressive Labor grouping. He was elected from third on the East Metropolitan ticket in 2017 and 2021, and has held parliamentary secretary positions since the 2021 election.

Stephen Dawson is a former ministerial staffer who was elected as lead candidate on the Mining and Pastoral ticket in 2013, 2017 and 2021. A member of the AMWU Left, he served as Environment Minister during Labor's first term from 2017 to 2021, moving to mental health, Aboriginal affairs and industrial relations after the 2021 election, and then to emergency services and innovation in December 2021.

Kate Doust has been in the Legislative Council since 2001, holding first or second position on the South Metropolitan ticket over six elections from 2001 to 2021. She is the wife of Bill Johnston, outgoing senior minister and member for Cannington, and shares his power base in the Right faction Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association. Doust has spent the last term on the back bench, having previously held parliamentary secretary and shadow ministry positions from 2005 to 2017, serving as Legislative Council President from 2017 to 2021.

Pierre Yang is a Chinese-born former lawyer and Gosnells councillor who was elected in South Metropolitan region from third on the ticket in 2017 and first in 2021. A member of the UWU Left, he was promoted to parliamentary secretary in December 2022.

Samantha Rowe was elected from second position on the East Metropolitan ticket in 2013, 2017 and 2021, having previously been business development manager at the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia. A member of the Right-aligned Australian Workers Union, she has held parliamentary secretary rank since Labor came to power in 2017. Her sister, Cassie Rowe, has held the lower house seat of Belmont since 2017.

Alanna Clohesy has held a seat in East Metropolitan region since 2013, being elected from top position on the ticket in 2013, 2017 and 2021. A member of the AMWU Left, she has served as President of the Legislative Council since the 2021 election, having preivously held parliamentary secretary rank through the government's first term. She was a staffer to factional colleague Senator Louise Pratt before entering parliament, and was the party's state president from 2010 to 2014.

Ayor Chuot is a South Sudanese-born former fashion model and administrator at Edith Cowan University. A member of the UWU Left, she was elected from third on the North Metropolitan ticket in 2021.

Andrew O'Donnell is the highest ranking non-incumbent on the ticket at number nine. A staffer to Balcatta MP David Michael, O'Donnell was preselected with the backing of the Right faction Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association.

Katrina Stratton is a former social worker and AMWU Left member who became Labor's first ever member for Nedlands at the 2021 election, winning the traditional blue-ribbon seat by 2.8% with a 10.8% swing.

Not counting Stratton, the second-highest non-incumbent on the ticket is Lauren Cayoun, the party's assistant state secretary and a former Belmont councillor and senior policy adviser to Mark McGowan. Cayoun is aligned with the Right faction Australian Workers Union.

Klara Andric is a UWU Left member who was elected from third position on the South Metropolitan ticket in 2021, having previously been director of party fundraising arm Labor Business Forum.

Another newcomer is Parwinder Kaur, a biotechnician and associate professor at the University of Western Australia. Kaur is aligned with the Right, specifically with the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association.

Two UWU Left-aligned incumbents elected from low-order positions in 2021 hold the precarious fourteenth and fifteenth positions: Sandra Carr, a former school teacher who became the first Labor candidate ever to win election from third position in Agricultural region, where Labor had traditionally struggled for a second seat; and Dan Caddy, a former ministerial adviser elected from fourth position in North Metropolitan. Still less enviably placed are Peter Foster, an AMWU Left member elected from third in Mining and Pastoral, at sixteen; Lorna Harper of the UWU Left, elected from fourth in East Metropolitan, at eighteen; Rosie Sahanna, unaligned but associated with the Maritime Union of Australia, elected from fourth in Mining and Pastoral, at nineteen; and Shelley Payne, UWU Left-aligned and elected from second position in Agricultural, at twenty-one.

Liberal candidates

The Liberals continued to use the existing six Legislative Council regions in structuring their preselection process, with candidates chosen in bands of six with one nominee for each region, ranked according to the party's vote share averaged over the 2017 and 2021 elections. Seniority is duly granted to the nominees from North Metropolitan, the only one in which the party returned two members in 2021, who take the first and seventh positions. Two of the party's seven incumbents are retiring, both having served since 2005: Peter Collier from North Metropolitan, who led the party in the upper house from 2013 to 2021 and again since February last year, and Donna Faragher from East Metropolitan. The other five have won comfortable positions on the party ticket.

The ticket is nonetheless headed by a non-incumbent in Simon Ehrenfeld, managing director of an industrial and mining services firm. Ehrenfeld has emerged in recent years as a major player in branch politics in the northern suburbs, playing a key role in Vince Connelly's preselection win over incumbent Ian Goodenough in the federal seat of Moore.

In second position is a still more significant factional player in Nick Goiran, the most influential figure in the state party's religious conservative tendency. Goiran has served in South Metropolitan since 2008, having earlier been associated with the party now known as Australian Christians (his mother, Madeleine Goiran, is the party's candidate for Thornlie). Goiran's alliance with former Senator and federal government minister Mathias Cormann formed the cornerstone of the “Clan” faction, which was embarrassed when an extensive internal discussion thread from WhatsApp was leaked to the media in 2021. He was among the minority who stood by David Honey when Libby Mettam challenged him for the leadership in January 2023, and was subsequently relegated to what passed for the Liberal back bench, returning in December as Shadow Attorney-General.

At number three is Steve Thomas, elected from top of the ticket in South West region in 2017 and 2021, having earlier held the abolished lower house seat of Capel from 2005 to 2008. Thomas became upper house leader and Shadow Treasurer after the 2021 election, supplemented by the deputy party leadership and the energy and industrial relations portfolios when Libby Mettam became leader in January 2023. He was dumped from his leadership roles and Treasury in February 2024, his dealings with Brian Burke having embarrassed the Liberals as they sought to exploit his ongoing lobbying activities, while retaining energy and industrial relations.

With the retirement of Donna Faragher, the leading position allocated to East Metropolitan goes to the non-incumbent Phil Twiss, general manager of a control room design firm and the unsuccessful second candidate on the party's ticket for the region in 2021. Twiss once ran as an Australian Christians candidate and has maintained a penchant for socially conservative pronouncements on social media.

The candidate from Agricultural region is Steve Martin, a farmer and former Wickepin Shire councillor who entered parliament in 2021. Martin was allocated housing and forestry in the shadow ministry and further gained planning when he became deputy leader in February 2024, emerging as the only plausible contender for the latter role after Steve Thomas resigned.

Another new arrival from 2021, Neil Thomson, is the lead nominee from Mining and Pastoral region. A former ministerial chief-of-staff, Thomson was allocated the planning portfolio in the shadow ministry post-election, further gained environment after Libby Mettam became leader in February 2023, and exchanged planning for Treasury when Steve Thomas lost the latter in March 2024. He went to the back bench in November 2024 after moving an unsuccessful party room motion calling for Basil Zempilas to take over from Mettam as “campaign leader”. Thomson had also stood by David Honey as Mettam mobilised his challenge against him in January 2023.

The lowest-placed incumbent is Tjorn Sibma, who was only the second favoured choice of the North Metropolitan preselectors. A former Defence Department analyst, Howard government media adviser and Barnett government policy adviser, Sibma was elected from third position on the party's ticket in 2017 and from second in 2021. Noted as a moderate, Sibma was shortly elevated to the shadow ministry after the 2017 election, presently holding the portfolios of justice, defence industry and Metronet.

Positions eight through twelve likewise go to the second choices from the respective regional preselections. Eighth position goes Michelle Hofmann from South Metropolitan, a solicitor and ally of her regional colleague Nick Goiran. Hofmann's report into the state party's 2022 federal campaign as chair of its campaign committee drew a response from Senator Dean Smith, a figure in the rival Liberal Reform Coalition grouping, that was hostile enough for the state council to pass a censure motion against him.

Next along are Michelle Boylan from South West, a Harvey Shire councillor and the party's candidate for Murray-Wellington in 2021; Anthony Spagnolo from East Metropolitan, a former adviser to federal government minister Mathias Cormann and unsuccessful candidate for Riverton in 2021; Kathryn Jackson from Agricultural, managing director of a town planning support firm; and Dean Wicken in Mining and Pastoral, a former staffer to federal Durack MP Melissa Price.

In the event of the Liberal vote approaching 40%, the upper end of the third band will come into contention. Yet more reported allies of Nick Goiran occupy the thirteenth and fourteenth positions, the former being Amanda-Sue Markham, a clinical nurse at St John of God Health Care and the third choice from North Metropolitan. Markham attracted headlines as candidate for Victoria Park in 2021 when she declined to distance herself from views of a distinctly Old Testament character expressed by her husband, a Presbyterian Church pastor. Next along is Ka-Ren Chew, a founding partner of law firm Success Legal.

Nationals candidates

None of the four members who have held the Nationals' three seats since 2021 are on the ticket for the coming election. Martin Aldridge announced his retirement ahead of the preselection round in June 2024, and Colin de Grussa announced his withdrawal on the day of the vote, recognising that he lacked the support for a winnable position. Having filled the vacancy arising from James Hayward's conviction (later overturned) in August 2023, South West region member Louise Kingston managed only the unwinnable fifth position in the preselection vote and quit the party shortly after, accusing leader Shane Love of bullying and harassment. She will contest the election as part of the Vote Independent WA ticket.

The fresh complement of candidates is headed by state party president Julie Freeman, a Mullewa farmer and school teacher; Rob Horstman, Shire of Northampton deputy president; Julie Kirby, former state party director and chief operations officer for a packaging company; and Heidi Tempra, a Manjimup school teacher. Josh Zimmerman of The West Australian reported a view in the party that Shane Love wanted candidates associated with his Mid West electorate to boost his chances of re-election there.

Greens candidates

The Greens went from four seats to one at the 2021 election, a severe electoral punishment for a drop in their vote share from 8.6% to 6.4%. Absent the vagaries of a region-based system, they seem certain to do better this time, being assured of at least two seats even if unable to improve on their diminished vote share in the face of the Mark McGowan juggernaut in 2021. The party could win as many as five seats if it matches its 14.3% vote share for the Senate in 2022.

The ticket is headed by the sole incumbent, Brad Pettitt, who entered parliament at the 2021 election after serving as Fremantle mayor from 2009, to which he was directly elected on three occasions. In second position is Sophie McNeill, a former Middle East correspondent for the ABC. At number three is Tim Clifford, who served a term in East Metropolitan region from 2017 until his defeat in 2021, and has since worked as campaign manager for the Wilderness Society. Next along are Jess Beckerling, executive director of the Conservation Council; Diane Evers, member for South West region from 2017 to 2021; and Clint Uink, a Koreng Noongar man and Greens Institute campaigner.

Other parties

Legalise Cannabis won seats in East Metropolitan and South West by the grace of the group voting ticket system, scoring double the seats of the Greens from a third of their vote. The member for South West, Sophia Moermond, broke with the party in May 2024 and will run on the Vote Independent WA ticket. Heading the Legalise Cannabis ticket is East Metropolitan incumbent Brian Walker, a practising general practitioner, followed by Melissa D'Ath, a Margaret River councillor, and Craig Buchanan, a Rockingham councillor and research officer to Walker.

One Nation emerged empty-handed in 2021 after winning three seats in 2017, their vote share crashing from 8.2% to 1.5%. The party gained a member in February 2024 when it enlisted Ben Dawkins, who ran as a Labor candidate in 2021 but had broken with the party by the time he filled Alannah MacTiernan's vacancy in March 2023. However, he was overlooked for a position on the One Nation ticket when its candidates were announced in September, and resigned from the party three months later. The ticket will instead be headed by Rod Caddies, the head of the party's state organisation, who candidly told The West Australian that the make-up of the ticket was a matter for him. Caddies expressed a view that Dawkins had not “lived up to the professionalism of what I would expect”. Second on the ticket is Phil Scott, who has worked in “insurance underwriting, market research and logistics” and was the party's candidate for South Metropolitan in 2021. Third is Indian-born Parminder Singh, who ran as an independent in Agricultural region in 2021.

The three incumbents who broke with their original parties are all seeking re-election under a joint Vote Independent WA ticket (pictured left from top to bottom): Sophia Moermond, formerly of Legalise Cannabis; Louise Kingston, formerly of the Nationals; and Ben Dawkins, of Labor as of the 2021 election and later briefly of One Nation. The latter is now known to his public as Austin Trump, a name he has adopted so as to campaign as “Aussie Trump”.

Lead candidates of other minor parties include Maryka Groenewald (right top) of Australian Christians, who is the party's state director; mining engineer Ryan Burns (right centre) of the Libertarian Party; and Kelmscott real estate agent Stuart Ostle (right bottom) of Shooters Fishers and Farmers. The other registered parties are Sustainable Australia and Stop Pedophiles! Protect kiddies!, the latter being how the Democratic Labor Party has chosen to brand itself after federally inspired laws prohibiting minor parties from having Labor or Liberal in their names. Wilson Tucker, was famously elected to a Mining and Pastoral region seat for the Daylight Saving Party in 2021 off 98 first preference votes and a tight network of preference harvesting, was in talks to run with the DLP, but broke ranks when the new name was adopted and will now bow out of politics.