![Mark McGowan casts his vote on Saturday.](/content/dam/images/g/u/w/1/w/0/image.related.afrArticleLead.620x350.guw49b.png/1489294299989.jpg)
The Labor party has ended an eight and a half year drought and will govern Western Australia after a massive swing against Colin Barnett's Liberal government.
The ABC and Sky called the election for Labor less than two hours after polls closed.
The Liberals were on track to suffer the biggest ever swing against a sitting government in WA at 16 per cent, with its primary vote sinking to 31.1 per cent. It was predicted to have 11 seats, while Labor was on track to claim 41 seats, or roughly double the number of seats it won in 2013.
The work starts now. pic.twitter.com/cNU3UZc65L
— Mark McGowan (@MarkMcGowanMP) March 11, 2017
![Pauline Hanson declared the preference deal with the Liberal was a mistake.](/content/dam/images/g/u/u/z/m/j/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1489289516921.jpg)
The WA election was being watched as a test case for the rise of protectionist politics and the resurgence of Pauline Hanson's One Nation. But a controversial preference deal between the Liberals and One Nation has back fired, with supporters of both parties upset and some One Nation candidates quitting in protest.
WA's message to PM:
— Bill Shorten (@billshortenmp) March 11, 2017
1. Hands off penalty rates
2. No more deals with One Nation
Support for One Nation sat at about 4.6 per cent, about half as much as forecast in polls in the past few weeks.
The WA Nationals vote held up at 5.3 per cent, a swing against it of 0.7 per cent but WA Nationals leader Brendon Grylls was in a tight race to retain his Pilbara seat.
The Greens vote increased 0.5 per cent to 8.8 per cent.
![The PM stayed well clear of the WA election; he's speaking with the Betoota Advocate at The Old Fitzroy Hotel in ...](/content/dam/images/g/u/w/1/2/8/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1489274925632.jpg)
One Nation was not expected to win a lower house seat but the surprisingly low vote is likely to blunt its march in to Western Australia. The ABC predicted One Nation may only pick up one upper house seats.
A controversial preference deal between the Liberals and One Nation was expected to deliver One Nation three upper house seats and therefore the balance of power. But the party suffered a major backlash from its supporters as well as some candidates.
Senator Hanson told Channel 7 Mr Barnett should have quit before the election.
"He should have stepped aside. It is like when you have milk in your fridge and it is starting to go sour you throw it out and that's what they should have done with Colin Barnett," Senator Hanson said.
In a gracious concession speech, Mr Barnett congratulated Mr McGowan and blamed the loss on the "time factor". Mr Barnett, who was re-elected, wanted a third term as premier.
He said his heart went out to the Liberal members that had lost their seats.
"Politics is a brutal harsh business," Mr Barnett said.
Mr McGowan thanked former prime minister Bob Hawke and opposition leader Bill Shorten and mentor Kim Beazley.
He said he would govern for all West Australians, no matter who they voted for and where they lived.
Mr McGowan, a former navy lawyer who lives in the working-class suburb of Rockingham with his wife Sarah and their three school-age children, said it was time "for a fresh approach" and that he would put WA jobs first.
"The work starts now," he told supporters.
The swing against the Liberal party was across the board, 10.3 per cent in city areas, and particularly severe in country regions. In some seats the Liberal primary vote collapsed by between 20 per cent to 30 per cent.
The massive loss of Liberal seats wiped out a number of cabinet ministers.
In the bellwether seat of Wanneroo local government minister Paul Miles lost his seat with a 20.5 per cent swing to Labor. Mr Miles's primary vote collapsed 25 per cent.
Environment minister Albert Jacob, and one of the up and coming members of the Liberal government, suffered an 11.7 per cent swing against him in his seat of Burns Beach, which will hand the seat to Labor.
Labor needed an additional 10 seats and a 10 per cent swing to prevent premier Colin Barnett securing a third term.
Among the predicted 40 seats Labor are expected to win were Bunbury, Collie-Preston, Darling Range, Forrestfield and Southern River.
The Liberals have held Darling Range since 2005 but has suffered a swing of about 20 per cent, with the seat falling to Labor.
The Liberals preference deal with One Nation has backfired with support for the Liberals plunging in regional areas while support for its maligned alliance partner the WA Nationals has held up.
Before the polls had even closed the Liberal knives were out for the controversial One Nation preference deal.
Retiring Liberal MP, Kim Hames, a former deputy leader, said following the move he felt the reaction from Liberal voters who were upset and decided not to vote for the party.
The Liberals agreed to preference One Nation ahead of its alliance partner, the WA Nationals, in the upper house in exchange for One Nation to preference the Liberals before Labor in the lower house.
Dr Hames said the preference deal was "not a good move".
"I think that is a big lesson for everybody," Mr Hames said on Channel 9.
Not only the pref deal but voting with the LNP in the Senate has damaged PHON #wavotes @abcnewsPerth @AntonyGreenABC @abcperth
— Rod Culleton (@SenatorCulleton) March 11, 2017
Southern River MP Peter Abetz, who has lost his seat, blamed the party's inability to sell the partial privatisation of the electricity distribution network Western Power.
"I think the sale of Western Power was an issue that a lot of people felt uncomfortable with," he told Channel 9.
"I believe as a Liberal party we didn't sell the benefits and the reasoning for the partial sale of Western Power to Australian super funds and mum and dad investors well enough. I am not sure whose fault that is specifically but certainly as a government as a Liberal team we certainly didn't do that job well."
Federal finance minister Mathias Cormann, who helped put together the Liberals controversial preference swap with One Nation, defended the decision the deal.
"Our research shows that if anything our primary votes post the [PHON] deal improved slightly," Senator Cormann said.
"Our primary vote was very low before the deal, very low, and it has not had an impact on our primary vote at all. And as happens when you get closer to the election, our primary vote recovered somewhat."
Mr McGowan is the state's longest serving opposition leader to contest the premiership in 40 years and has promised to slash the public service, including culling top earning bureaucrats by 20 per cent.
He has also promised to set up a commission of inquiry into the Barnett government's spending, tear up contracts for the Perth Freight Link and attempt to redirect $1.2 billion in Federal funding for the project to his public transport initiative Metronet.
Mr Barnett, the state's second longest serving Liberal premier, will be credited for one of the biggest transformations of Perth and regional towns in the state's history.
He entered his campaign for a third term fighting a strong mood for change with the economy spluttering amid a post-mining boom slump.
WA has the highest unemployment rate in the country and jobs and job security was a key issue for voters, particularly in outer metropolitan suburbs.
The election has Federal ramifications, with prime minister Malcolm Turnbull trailing 45-55 in the national polls and NSW and Tasmania likely to be left as the only remaining states the Liberals govern.
The WA election was closely watched as a possible test case for the conservative politics and how to manage the rise of populist protectionist political movements occurring around the globe.
It also represented the first test of the strength of a resurgent Pauline Hanson's One Nation party and is the first election in Australia since Donald Trump was elected US president in November.