The first-term Liberal-Nationals government led by Premier Colin Barnett has been comfortably re-elected with an increased majority in today’s Western Australian state election.
The ALP appears to have lost 6 seats to the Liberals: Forrestfield, Morley, Balcatta, Joondalup, Belmong, and Perth. Pilbara has gone to the Nationals leader Brendon Grylls. The Liberals have retained all of their seats. The Labor-held seats of Albany, Collie-Preston and Kimberley are not yet decided.
The Liberal Party appears likely to have 32 seats, the Nationals 8 and the ALP 19. Four seats remain in doubt so this may change.
The Liberal Party’s primary vote has increased 8.8% to 47.1%. The Nationals are up 1% to 5.9%. The ALP primary vote fell 2.4% to 33.4%, not quite as bad as the 32% predicted in yesterday’s Newspoll.
The Greens vote is down 3.6% to 8.3%. They appear set to lose all their seats in the upper house.
Measured by the two-party-preferred vote, it is a significant defeat for the ALP. The coalition parties have approximately 57.5% of the two-party vote to the ALP’s 42.5%. There has been a swing of 6.3% against the ALP.
- Listen to ALP Opposition Leader Mark McGowan concede defeat (15m)
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- Listen to Coalition Premier Colin Barnett claim victory (6m)
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OMG you are good, this was a quick post!
Re-elected comfortably with 6 seats, eh? I suspect this post was a tad pre-emptive. Understates the outcome in a rather too understated fashion, yes? It’s far more than 6 seats, and was predicted ahead of time to be in the landslide category, which in the event it was.
I suppose it all depends on one’s choice of words. I try to avoid histrionics on this website.
It was an easy win and it is a landslide. There are still a couple of seats where the final result isn’t clear so my midnight listing of seats seems reasonable. There now seems to be general agreement that the government will have 40 seats to 19 for the ALP.
The two-party-preferred vote is the best comparison of election outcomes. At 57.5%, the coalition has had a smashing victory. In terms of seats, if the Gillard government won the equivalent of 19 out of 59, it would be reduced to 48 seats to the Coalition’s 102.