Election 2025: Liberals ‘anxious’ of losing key WA seat of Forrest

The Liberals have held the West Australian seat of Forrest for more than 50 years. This year it could fall to a teal independent.

Forrest Liberal candidate Ben Small. Picture: NewsWire / Gary Ramage

You can now listen to The Australian's articles. Give us your feedback.

You can now listen to The Australian's articles.

A blue-ribbon West Australian Liberal seat held by the Coalition for more than 50 years is at risk of being lost to the Climate 200 teal independent, forcing the party to funnel resources into maintaining the electorate when it hoped to be flipping seats in the state.

While the teals had originally planned to only bring down the margin of Forrest – in WA’s South West region – before seeking to win the seat in the following election, polling commissioned by Simon Holmes a Court’s Climate 200 revealed a tight contest between independent Sue Chapman and Liberal candidate Ben Small.

When asked who would receive their first preference if the election were held today, about 20 per cent of the almost 1000 constituents surveyed earlier this month said they would choose Ms Chapman, while 34 per cent chose Mr Small – a former WA Liberal senator.

However, on a two-candidate preferred basis, the polling showed Ms Chapman ahead of Mr Small 51 per cent to 49 per cent.

The polling, which the Coalition has previously criticised for the way it asks voters questions, also showed 27 per cent of undecided voters preferred Ms Chapman, compared to less than 18 per cent who indicated they were leaning towards Mr Small.

While Forrest withstood Labor’s wipe-out of WA blue-ribbons seats including Pearce, Hasluck, Swan and Tangney in 2022, the electorate still recorded a swing to Labor of more than 10 per cent, leaving the once-safe seat in play for the 2025 election with a margin of just over 4 per cent.

Compounding the risk of the Liberals losing the electorate, former Forrest MP Nola Marino announced last year she would be retiring after having held the seat for more than 15 years.

Liberal MPs familiar with the electorate told The Australian the party was “anxious” about holding Forrest, a sentiment that was reflected by Peter Dutton deciding to visit the seat in the first week of his campaign and announce millions of dollars in funding to upgrade the local airport.

“It’s definitely a cause for concern,” one Liberal MP said.

“We’re not alarmed yet, but we’re anxious.”

Labor’s reticence to announce a candidate until recently had also increased the risk of the Coalition losing the seat to Ms Chapman.

“Labor running dead has not helped,” a Liberal MP said. “It really causes us trouble if they get third [on the ballot]. By doing nothing, they’ve forced us to focus on Forrest and spend money there, rather than where we’d like to, like Pearce or Tangney.”

Ms Chapman, who has been working as a surgeon in the South West for years, confirmed that Climate 200 had helped her run “a fantastic campaign”, which included a blitz of door knocking and meetings with constituents who she said had “never heard from their local member before”, given the seat had always been so safe for the Liberals.

“I wanted to show that we could do something differently, and that we could do it together as a community,” she said. “The growing local support behind the campaign is my motivation.”

Mr Holmes a Court’s Climate 200 is providing funding, polling and election support for 35 teal MPs and candidates, including Forrest, Curtin, Fremantle and Moore in WA. In addition to defending its incumbent seats, including Kate Chaney’s seat of Curtin in Perth, Climate 200 had stated its top targets were the Liberal-held seats of Bradfield and Wannon, and Nationals seats of Cowper and Calare.

The cashed-up political activist group has strategically backed candidates in Coalition seats where MPs are retiring or have defected to the crossbench, including in Forrest, McPherson, Lyne and Grey.

The Liberal Party, which is pouring resources into seats lost to the teals in 2022, is most hopeful of winning back Curtin, Goldstein and Kooyong. All three seats are expected to come down to the wire.

Ms Chapman said it was “gratifying” to see Mr Dutton make such an early stop in Forrest, but said people were ready for change in the face of challenges such as the lowest rate of rental affordability of all regional areas in WA.