Antony Green's Election Blog

Initial Analysis of Preferences at the 2017 Western Australian Election

With the WA Electoral Commission (WAEC) finalising preference counts in lower house seats, it is now possible to assess the impact of Green and One Nation preferences on the election result.

My analysis suggests that the much discussed preference deal between the Liberal Party and One Nation delivered little for the Liberal Party other than limit damage that might have occurred had One Nation followed its previous tactic of directing preferences against sitting members.

The attention gained by One Nation in the campaign may have had the side effect of increasing Green preference flows to Labor, with Green preference distributions running about 10 percentage points stronger towards Labor than at previous WA elections.

(This post is based on preference distributions so far published. As at close of business on Tuesday 21 March, these are available for 42 of the 59 lower house electorates. I will update this post as further counts are completed.)

2017 WA Election Results - Detail on Future Updates

UPDATE Sunday 19 March: The preference distributions for 21 electorates have been published. In the 14 electorates where the Green candidate was the last excluded, preferences are splitting around 80% towards Labor, around 10% up on the flow at the 2013 election. In the three electorates where One Nation has been the last excluded candidate (Butler, Kwinana, Warnbro) the One Nation preferences are flowing 56% to Liberal, only slightly better than the even split at recent Federal elections.

From tonight the ABC WA Election results site will no longer use the WA Electoral Commission's electronic feed to update lower house results.

Following the start of preference distributions on Saturday, the lower house results on the ABC site will be finalised over the next week by manual data entry.

The ABC will continue to use the Legislative Council feed for a few days as input to my Legislative Council calculator, but there are limitations to the data in the LC feed.

Gosford, Manly and North Shore By-election - 8 April

I have published background material on the Gosford, Manly and North Shore by-elections at the ABC's election website.

These by-elections will be the first electoral test for new Premier Gladys Berejiklian.

The Manly by-election has been caused by the retirement of her predecessor Mike Baird. Berejiklian's cabinet re-shuffle created the second vacancy in North Shore when dumped Health Minister Jillian Skinner announced she would leave parliament.

The third by-election is for the Central Coast seat of Gosford where Labor's Kathy Smith has been forced to retire through ill health. Gosford is the state's most marginal seat, but Labor should be able to hold the seat as a mid-term swing towards the government seems unlikely.

Labor will not contest either Manly or North Shore. Labor has not finished second in Manly since 1988 and the Greens have finished second to the Liberal Party in Manly at the last two elections and in North Shore at the last three.

The challenge to the Liberal Party is likely to come from Independents harnessing annoyance at the government's attempts to merge local councils. This is especially the case in North Shore, but the government may be saved if multiple independents nominate and split the anti-government vote.

Nominations close on Thursday 23 March and polling day is Saturday 8 April. I'll provide a full results service on the night of the by-election.

 

WA Election - Highest Legislative Council Results for One Nation and the Greens

The two tables below report strongest polling places for One Nation and the Greens. The first table shows all polling places where One Nation's votes was above 15%, and the second table where Green support was above 15%.

The table includes the region, electorate, polling place, first preference votes and a percentage of first preference votes.

The Role of One-Vote One-Value Electoral Reforms in Labor's Record WA Victory

Saturday’s Western Australian election has delivered Labor its biggest victory in the state’s history.

Labor is set to win 41 of the 59 seats in the Legislative Assembly, a party record 69.5% of seats in the Assembly.

The result breaks a record for Labor that goes all the way back to 1911, the first WA election won by the Labor Party.

In 1911 Labor won 34 of the then 50 seats in the Assembly, 68% of seats. Labor failed to pass 60% of seats again until Saturday night.

Labor has recorded more than 55% of the two-party preferred vote in the state, a post-war record for the party. It is a better result than the estimated 54.6% achieved by Brian Burke on Labor’s election to office in 1983.

Mark McGowan’s victory is also greater than recent landslide victories for the Liberal and National Parties.

WA Election - Update 15 March

Of the four electorates in doubt when counting resumed this morning, two have been won by the Labor Party - Kingsley and Murray-Wellington.

Labor now has 40 seats, the Liberals 12, Nationals five with two that I am leaving in doubt for the moment, Joondalup and Kalgoorlie.

I expect that Joondalup will fall into the Labor camp on Thursday while the Liberals are stil the most likely winners in Kalgoorlie.

So Labor is still on track for a record 41 seats.

WA Election - PM Results Update 14 March

 This is an update of the seats that started Tuesday as still in doubt.

WA Election - AM Update 13 May

An afternoon flight back to Sydney on Monday prevented me posting but here are a few comments on the results as at the end of Monday.

The ABC election website will continue to be updated from the WA Electoral Commission's feed of results. There were some problems on Monday when the WAEC were only reporting first preference updates, but they are now keeping the first preferences and notional distribution counts in step.

WA Election Update - Sunday 12 March

Counting continues for the WA election and latest updates can be found on the ABC's election page.

On Sunday 12 March the WA Electoral Commission (WAEC) is counting Legislative Council pre-poll votes and any outstanding polling place results for both chambers. The only Assembly votes being entered today are leftovers from Saturday night.

The WAEC has decided not to re-do indicative preference counts from Saturday night where the wrong final two candidates were chosen. As outlined later in this post, in these seats either the result is pretty clear from first preferences, or the final determination of candidates is being left the the formal distribution of preferences.

Below are some notes on the results as they stand on Sunday afternoon.

The Growing Bias Against Perth and the South West in WA's Legislative Council

When Western Australians vote for a new Legislative Council (upper house) on 11 March, the regional structure of the chamber means that 10% of the state's population will elect 33% of the MLCs.

The WA Legislative Council is the last state chamber to retain a significant 'malapportionment', where the votes of electors in different parts of the state carry different weights.

Voters in Mining and Pastoral Region carry six times the weight of voters in Perth, while voters in Agricultural Region have four times the power of voters in Perth.

These weights have grown over the three decades the current regional structure of the Council has been in place, and all demographic trends point to these weights increasing in the future.

Queensland State Redistribution - Draft State Electoral Boundaries Released

I've published detailed analysis of Queensland's proposed electoral boundaries, released this week.

You can find detailed analysis of the new boundaries at the ABC elections page.

The redistribution increases the number of seats from 89 to 93. In summary the major political changes produced by the new boundaries are -

• Labor loses a seat with the abolition of Mt Coot-tha. It gains the new seats of Bancroft north of Brisbane and Macalister and Jordan to the south. The boundary changes to the LNP seats of Mansfield and Mt Ommaney tip both seats on to the Labor side of the electoral pendulum. Labor held Pumicestone goes in the opposite direction in becoming a notional LNP seat.
• The LNP gain the new seat of Hill, which partly replaces the Katter's Australian Party seat of Dalrymple. The LNP also gain Ninderry on the Sunshine Coast and Theodore and Bonney on the Gold Coast. It notionally loses Mansfield and Mt Ommaney on the new boundaries but notionally gains Pumicestone.
• The Katter's Australian Party seat of Dalrymple is abolished.

Other changes to boundaries and electorate names include -

• The southern seat of Beaudesert become less urban and is renamed Scenic Rim.
• There are major changes at the northern end of the Gold Coast. Albert is abolished and three new seats are created, Bonney and Theodore on the Gold Coast and MacAlister around Beenleigh.
• Taking in the rapidly growing Springfield area, there is a new seat called Jordan between Logan and Ipswich.
• In Brisbane the seats of Ashgrove, Mt Coot-tha and Indooroopilly are reformed as two seats called Cooper and Maiwar. Brisbane Central is re-named McConnel and Ferny Grove and Everton are drawn into the Brisbane City Council area. Yeerongpilly becomes Miller and Sunnybank is re-named Toohey.
• East of Brisbane Cleveland is re-named Oodgeroo.
• There is a new seat called Bancroft based on Deception Bay near Redcliffe. Kallangur becomes Kurwongbah, Pine Rivers becomes D'Aguilar and Glass House becomes Tibrogargan.
• There is a new seat called Ninderry located in the Sunshine Coast between Maroochydore and Noosa.
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More detail at the ABC elections site.