WA state election 2025: How it all went down on election night as Labor wins historic third term

Thank you for joining us for this election night, where the Liberal party result has been described as a ‘disaster’ by senior party figures.

Premier Roger Cook and his wife Carly after the victory speech. Credit: Trevor Collens

Labor has retained government in Western Australia, with Roger Cook leading his party to a historic third consecutive election win.

The result maintains Labor’s strong grip over the state and gives Cook a mandate to pursue his nearly $6 billion in promises, including controversial projects like the $217.5 million Burswood street circuit and $107 million electric ferry network on the Swan River.

Please come check out our site tomorrow where political reporter Hamish Hastie and journalist Jesinta Burton will provide more analysis of the numbers and the impacts Labor’s emphatic win will have on this state.

Roger Cook addressed the party faithful after leading Labor to a third consecutive election win in Western Australia this evening. You can watch his speech below here:

Hold up.

The pre-polling votes have started coming in for Churchlands and now Antony Green has changed his mind.

He believes Basil Zempilas will win, since he’s had such a strong result for votes cast before the polls opened today.

Federal Liberal Andrew Hastie labelled the WA Liberals’ result overall a disaster.

“We didn’t get the swings where we would have expected,” Hastie said.

He said the federal Liberal candidates in the upcoming federal election would have a big fight on their hands.

“Seat by seat it’s been very lumpy,” he said.

Re-elected Labor MP Reece Whitby has delivered a scathing assessment of Basil Zempilas’ impact on the Liberals’ campaign.

Speaking from the premier’s Medina election party, Whitby said Zempilas was his mate after working with him for years while they were both reporters at Channel Seven, but he did not help the Liberals this campaign.

“You had two leaders of the Liberal Party, not one, and I think this election, you’ve had the Baz effect,” he said.

“I think he’s a very polarising figure. He’s a mate of mine. I used to work with him at Channel Seven.
He’s a good bloke to hang out with and have a beer, and was great in his role as a sports reporter but for some reason, he’s polarising the community.”

Whitby said Labor used this polarisation to great effect during the campaign.

“Normally, you don’t talk about your opponents. You just ignore them. You don’t name them. Never name your opponents. And Baz, after all, was simply a candidate.

“But obviously, he was a polarising figure.”

Premier Roger Cook has begun his victory speech with a compliment to Libby Mettam, who he had spoken to a short time earlier.

“[Mettam] offered her congratulations to our WA Labor team for being elected to form a new government and wished us well,” he said.

“I congratulated Libby on the tireless work she put into this campaign on the campaign trail.

“And, look, she’s a decent person who, like most of us who go into public life, does it for the right reasons.”

Meanwhile, Liberal leader Libby Mettam arrived at her party’s gathering in Cottesloe shortly after 9.10pm, taking to the stage to confirm she had congratulated Cook on what she conceded was another emphatic win for the WA Labor Party.

While admitting the result was not what she and her team had hoped and worked for, Mettam vowed to take stock of the lessons learned.

“Is this what we have been working for? Absolutely not,” she said.

“The rebuild of the WA Liberal Party continues.”

The Member for Vasse branded the night one of reflection, but declined to be drawn on what she believed went wrong for the campaign or whether she would remain the party’s leader.

“I had given it my all,” she told the press.

The seat of Churchlands is proving a minefield - with preferences favouring Labor and therefore prominent Liberal candidate Basil Zempilas looking like he might lose this race.

Zempilas, who is sitting on the Chanel 7 panel as the numbers come in, said he’s still seeing a narrow pathway to victory.

Basil Zempilas.Credit: Colin Murty

“I think I can get there, it’s certainly not done and dusted.”

Down at the Labor HQ, supporters cheered when the ABC’s Antony Green said he believed Zempilas would lose.

“Did everyone see the result for Churchlands?” Police Minister Paul Papalia yelled to the crowd to racus applause.

“Christine Tonkin, champion.”

Cottesloe Liberal Party candidate Sandra Brewer — who was all but guaranteed to secure the safest Liberal seat in the state — has just fronted supporters at a gathering in the party’s affluent western suburbs.

“For me, this is a dream,” Brewer said.

“A descendant of convicts, a daughter of a dairy farmer, a girl from Bunbury Catholic College and a student of UWA.

Newly elected Liberal for Cottesloe Sandra Brewer gives her victory speech.Credit: Colin Murty

“What an absolute dream to be chosen by the people of the Cottesloe electorate to be their representative in the state parliament of Western Australia.”

After embracing her husband Ralph and her three sons, the former Property Council WA executive director vowed to work to ensure the party reengaged younger voters.

Brewer was almost guaranteed a seat in parliament after securing preselection over ex-Liberal leader David Honey in Cottesloe, a blue-ribbon seat the party held with a 7.4 per cent margin.

While the Liberals look set to retain it, teal independent Rachel Horncastle has caused some grief — recording a strong result which cost Labor half of its vote.

Horncastle is sitting on 31.2 per cent of the vote with just over 15 per cent of the ballots counted, a 15.9 per cent swing away from Labor and a 0.5 per cent swing away from the Liberals.

In what is a shocking night for the Liberals, another bit of salt in the wound is the fight its star candidate Basil Zempilas is facing.

Zempilas’ first preference votes are down on 2021 numbers with 40.6 per cent of the vote while Labor’s Christine Tonkin copped a 10.5 per cent hit but much of that has gone to the teal-style independent Lisa Thornton who has received 15.9 per cent of the vote.

Zempilas will likely win the seat in the end but his margin is tracking at just 1.2 per cent.

The former Channel 7 personality and Perth Lord Mayor injected a little fire into this campaign –something that has been missing from the Liberals for years – but with that he collected plenty of controversy.

He is loud and out and about, while Labor’s Christine Tonkin had been quiet presence in Labor’s enormous backbench.

Basil Zempilas campaigning with his 95-year-old mother Jessie.Credit: Basil Zempilas

Brad Pettitt and his Greens team are in high spirits at the Hyde Park Hotel in Northbridge as they wait for confirmation of what they are expecting — four seats and the balance of power in the Legislative Council.

“It’s early days yet,” Pettitt says in a function room crowded with supporters, “but it is tracking well.

Happy campers tonight.Credit: Mark Naglazas

“We are well above where we were at the last election — into double figures.

“With double figures we are assured of four seats and taking the balance of power. If it keeps going in this direction I will be a very happy camper.”

Another target seat for the Liberals, Bateman has been retained by Labor MP Kim Giddens.

Like the other formerly blue ribbon seats Labor’s losses have not fully translated to the Liberals with candidate Nitin Vashist also recording a loss of 1.1 per cent.

Nationals real estate agent Donna Gordin received 6.6 per cent of the vote while the Greens candidate Juanita Doorey has received a boost of 2.8 per cent.

Bateman was another shock win for Labor in 2021 with MP Kim Giddens winning it off retiring former Liberal treasurer Dean Nalder with a margin of 6.7 per cent.

The seat was also one of the first the Nationals announced it was running in with a metro candidate in Gordin.

Vashisht is a director of NAV Accounting and has served on the Liberals state executive.