The teals and the heartland (WA edition)

As I pointed out in my preview on Friday, there was no doubt about the outcome of the Western Australian state election. The best the opposition could expect was that it would get back to something like the starting line prior to the 2021 election, before it suffered a swing of 14.1% and lost twelve of its already depleted stock of seats. In fact it has failed to do even that.

The ABC this morning still lists nine seats as doubtful, but none of them look really knife-edge so I’ll just assume that they’re going to be won by their current leaders. (As will become obvious, it makes no real difference if a couple of them shift with late counting.*) On that basis, the opposition has picked up eight seats (five Liberal and three National) and a ninth Labor seat has fallen to an independent, producing a total of 45 Labor, seven Liberal, six National and one independent.

That’s a government majority of 31, still one of the largest in the state’s history. The swing to the opposition (two-party-preferred) was about 12.5%, which in any other context would be a huge achievement. But not only did this leave the opposition’s vote still about a point and a half below the 2017 mark of 44.4%, it also failed to bring in a proportionate number of seats. The pendulum had eleven seats that would have gone with a uniform swing of that size, but four of them held on and only one (or two counting the independent) from above that level changed hands.

The independent victory in Fremantle – or at a minimum near-victory; it’s one of the seats still doubtful – is particularly interesting. Kate Hulett, who is leading my one-time colleague, Labor minister Simone McGurk, is a “Teal”, backed by Climate 200 and the “Voices4Freo” community group. Her 28.7% of the primary vote puts her well ahead of both the Liberals (16.8%) and Greens (15.9%), the first time that the Teals have achieved anything like that in a Labor seat.

Nonetheless, the main game for the Teals is still competition with the Liberals, and the rest of the country will be looking at Western Australia for clues as to how they will fare in the upcoming federal election. More generally, the Liberal Party’s fortunes in its heartland should tell us something about the prospects of its overall election strategy. (Compare what we learned a couple of years ago from its performance in Victoria.)

The Liberal heartland in Perth consists of the area immediately north of the Swan River and west of the central city, plus a smaller area south of the Swan on either side of the Canning River. That includes the state seats of Scarborough, Churchlands, Cottesloe, Nedlands, Bateman and South Perth, of which the first four cover the federal electorate of Curtin, historically safe Liberal but won in 2022 by Teal Kate Chaney.

Those six seats swung to the Liberals by an average of 5.6%, or less than half the state average. With that they held Cottesloe and won back Churchlands and Nedlands, but all only narrowly. All three had Teal candidates, who scored votes ranging from 9.9% in Nedlands to 28.8% in Cottesloe. The other three are still on the doubtful list, but Labor is ahead in all of them.

Contrast with the eleven outer suburban seats of Baldivis, Butler, Dawesville, Kalamunda, Mandurah, Mindarie, Oakford, Rockingham, Secret Harbour, Swan Hills and West Swan. There the average swing to the Liberals was 16.7%. But unfortunately for them, there was a shortage of marginals in that area; only Kalamunda appears to have fallen, with Dawesville also on the doubtful list.

In the remainder of the metropolitan area, with 28 seats (the inner and middle suburbs outside the Liberal heartland), the average swing was 11.5% to the Liberals, and they picked up just one seat, Carine. (Riverton should also have fallen according to the pendulum, but its swing was unusually small at 5.0%; the fact that it is adjacent to the heartland area might have something to do with that.) The opposition’s biggest gains came in the rural and provincial parts of the state, where an average swing of 13.2% netted them four seats.

So despite the unusual circumstances of Western Australia, this is largely a familiar story. There are potential gains for the Liberals in the outer suburbs; to that extent, Peter Dutton’s strategy is well founded. But they are hard work, and there are not enough of them to carry elections on their own. Middle suburbia is where most of the action is.

And in its former heartland, more recently colonised by the Teals, the Liberal Party is still badly on the nose. Whether or not the Teals can hold their ground and even expand their reach remains to be seen, but they will see the Western Australian result as a hopeful sign.

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* I’m mostly using William Bowe’s table of swings and projections, cross-checked against results from the ABC.

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UPDATE, 13 March: Labor has now taken the lead in Fremantle, so the Teal (or at least Tealish) independent looks like missing out, although it’s still on the doubtful list. The ABC has taken Dawesville off the doubtful list but otherwise there are no significant changes; 46-7-6 looks the most likely outcome.

FURTHER UPDATE, 25 March: Counting for the Legislative Assembly is finally complete, with the expected result: 46 Labor, seven Liberals and six Nationals. The final seat, Kalamunda, was won by the Liberal candidate (after a recount) by just 82 votes. New Liberal leader (and former lord mayor of Perth) Basil Zempilas therefore becomes leader of the opposition, despite his underwhelming performance in winning his seat of Churchlands with a swing of just 2.3%.

Counting for the upper house is not expected to be completed until the second week in April. According to Kevin Bonham’s analysis, Labor is on track to win at least 15 of the 37 seats, as against ten Liberals, four Greens, two Nationals, one each to One Nation, Legalise Cannabis and Australian Christians, and three still doubtful. We’ll have another look at that after the final shape is clear.