WA Labor vastly outspent Liberals on way to landslide state victory

The spending breakdown showed a disproportionate focus by the Liberals on published advertisements, a medium that was all but abandoned by Labor.

WA Premier Roger Cook celebrates his landslide 2025 election win with his family.

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Spending data from the recent West Australian state election has highlighted the massive gulf between the Labor and Liberal parties in both resources and strategy.

Disclosures filed this month with the WA Electoral Commission in the wake of the March state election shows Roger Cook-led Labor outspent the Liberals at a rate of almost three to one as it secured the second-biggest win in the party’s history and a third straight term in power.

And the breakdown of that spending showed a disproportionate focus by the Liberals on published advertisements, a medium that was all but abandoned by Labor.

The March election was a disaster for the WA Liberals, with the party winning just seven of 59 lower house seats. The party only narrowly won back the status of opposition from the Nationals thanks to a close win in the seat of Kalamunda.

While Labor was always expected to hold on to government given the scale of its record-breaking 2021 win, the Liberals had been hoping to return to double-digit numbers, which could have put them in a position to challenge Labor in 2029. The result proved to be a portent for the May federal election, with the Liberals losing further ground in a state it had initially expected would ­deliver it further seats.

The data shows the Liberals were comprehensively outspent by a party that has been riding high in WA for several years.

Labor’s total spend of $10.9m vastly outweighed the $3.8m spent by the Liberals.

The election was also held in the knowledge of an impending federal election, with the Liberals at the time considered a much better shot of challenging Labor for government.

The seat-by-seat breakdown of the election spending shows that both major parties made significant investments in seats that they went on to lose. The Liberals spent more than $75,000 in each of the seats of South Perth and Scarborough, former blue strongholds that were ultimately retained by Labor.

New deputy WA Liberal leader Libby Mettam with new WA Liberal leader Basil Zempilas. Picture: Colin Murty

More than $50,000 was spent on campaigning in another 13 seats the Liberals failed to regain.

The party’s third-most expensive campaign was in the Pilbara, where Liberal candidate Amanda Kailis fell 207 votes short of unseating Labor incumbent Kevin Michel. The Liberals spent more than $85,000 in the seat, compared to almost $60,000 by Labor.

One of the Liberals’ most surprising spends was in Mark McGowan’s old seat of Rockingham, which was won by the then-premier in 2021 with a whopping 82.8 per cent of the primary vote. The Liberals spent almost $67,000 in the seat, more than it invested in seats that it ultimately won such as Murray-Wellington ($45,525) and Kalamunda ($52,031). Despite this, Labor’s Magenta Marshall retained Rockingham with a margin of more than 23 per cent on a campaign that cost the party $36,332.

It is understood the relatively high spending in Rockingham was driven by the strong fundraising efforts of the Liberal candidate for the seat, Hayley Edwards.

More than 15 per cent of the Liberals’ spending across the direction went towards published advertisements, compared to just 2.6 per cent by Labor.

The greater focus on that medium is believed to reflect the Liberals’ focus on metropolitan seats with a strong community paper – namely Churchlands, Cottesloe and Nedlands – and regional seats with their own local papers.

Labor’s disclosures showed how the party spent large sums trying to save some of the seats it lost, particularly in regional WA.

The almost $126,000 spent in Albany was the second-biggest outlay on any seat in the state, but Labor’s Rebecca Stephens lost the seat that had been held by the party since 2001 to the Nationals’ Scott Leary.

A six-figure sum was also spent in Geraldton, where Labor incumbent Lara Dalton lost emphatically to Nationals candidate Kirrilee Warr.

Labor’s poor showing in regional WA, where it lost four seats in total, is understood to be a key area of focus for the party’s post-election review.

Some inside Labor have also questioned if the party should have spent more on the campaign in Churchlands, won by the Liberals’ new leader Basil Zempilas.

Incumbent Labor MP Christine Tonkin spent $37,046 in her attempt to retain the seat, compared to the Liberals’ $93,428, with Mr Zempilas only winning the seat by fewer than 650 votes.