Anthony Albanese will be wishing he called an April poll after all following this dream result in WA
The Prime Minister may be regretting his decision to postpone his calling of the election after Premier Roger Cook and Labor delivered an emphatic result across metropolitan Perth, with the Liberals failing to claw back ground in former stronghold seats.
We thought the Liberals would never deliver a worse result than we saw in Western Australia in 2021. We may have been wrong.
The Liberals should emerge with more seats than the two they held in the 2021 bloodbath, but this is arguably a much worse result for the party.
Unlike 2021, there’s no Mark McGowan. There’s no Covid. The 2021 vote was almost a war-time election, with West Australians behind their closed border smitten with the government that they believed were keeping them safe.
This time, the Liberals were up against a Labor government seeking a third term, which was running a groaning health system, in the middle of a cost of living crisis, and with a deeply unpopular Labor government in Canberra. The Liberals didn’t repeat the mistake of Zak Kirkup four years ago when he conceded the election weeks ahead of the vote.
Yet one after another, the former Crown Jewel seats that were expected to turn blue again have stayed red.
Most worrying for the Coalition, the state seats corresponding with the marginal Labor-held Federal electorate of Tangney - Bateman, Bicton and Riverton - all set to remain in Labor hands.
Those results will encourage Labor MP for Tangney Sam Lim that he can defend that marginal seat.
The next-most marginal Labor-held seat in WA, Pearce, has similarly enjoyed a strong result for Labor. The state seats within Pearce, namely Butler, Wanneroo, Mindarie and Joondalup, have all been comfortably retained by the Cook government.
There are also mixed signals out of the seats within the new Federal electorate of Bullwinkel, which is also considered a must-win for the Coalition. Labor enjoys a strong lead in Swan Hills, Kalamunda is too close to call, and Central Wheatbelt has been comfortably retained by the Nationals.
There has been some better news for the coalition in Curtin, although the results in the blue-ribbon state seats within the electorate have not been as emphatic as many Liberals had expected.
Western Australia has shaped as a key battleground dederally since Labor’s gains in the state in 2022 helped Anthony Albanese secure a majority government.
The Coalition realistically needs to win at least three more Federal seats to claim government
On a state level, Churchlands, Nedlands, Bateman, Carine, South Perth, Kalamanda, Mount Lawley, Hillarys, Dawesville, Murray-Wellington, Jandakot and Scarborough had all been firmly Liberal seats before they were lost over the course of 2017 and 2021.
Only Carine has been confirmed as a Liberal gain so far. The Liberals won’t win Bateman, South Perth, Mount Lawley, Hillarys, Dawesville, Jandakot or Scarborough.
No-one privately expected the Liberals to win. But there was an expectation that the Liberals would gain enough seats to become a viable opposition and maybe be in a position to challenge the Labor behemoth in 2029.
That now looks like wishful thinking..
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