WA election: Liberals’ own polling predicts a 20-seat Labor landslide

Liberal Party internal polling is showing a statewide swing against the Barnett government of about 14 per cent.

West Australian Labor Opposition Leader Mark McGowan could be set for a 20-seat landslide, according to Liberal Party polling. Picture: AAP

Liberal Party internal polling is showing a statewide swing against the Barnett government of about 14 per cent, a result that would hand the Labor Party more than 20 extra seats and make Mark McGowan premier in a landslide election victory next month.

The polling explains the West Australian Liberals’ desperation to do a preference deal with a ­resurgent One Nation ahead of the March 11 state election.

Senior Liberals believe the deal could save a few seats from being claimed by Labor. Liberal Party sources have told The Australian that recent internal polling had shown a two-party preferred vote of 57 per cent for Labor to the Liberal-National alliance’s 43 per cent. This is worse for the Liberals than a Newspoll survey published last month which showed Labor leading by 54 to 46 per cent.

If Labor wins 57 per cent of the statewide vote, and assuming the swing was uniform, it would lead to the loss of key seats held by ministers including Treasurer Mike Nahan in Riverton, Health Minister John Day in Kalamunda and Environment Minister Albert Jacob in Burns Beach.

A number of senior Liberal sources said several seats were ­already considered “gone”. These included Belmont (held by the Liberals on a margin of 1 per cent), Forrestfield (2.2), Perth (2.8), Swan Hills (3.7), Morley (4.7) and Bal­catta (7.1). The notionally Liberal seats of West Swan and Collie-Preston are also considered likely to be won by Labor.

Other seats under serious threat as part of the anti-government mood are Mount Lawley (8.9), Kalamunda (10.3), Joondalup (10.4), Southern River (10.9), Wanneroo (11.0), Burns Beach (11.3), Bunbury (12.2) and Riverton (12.7).

A ReachTel poll commissioned by Labor in recent weeks showed an 18.1 per cent swing against the Liberal Party in Joondalup, held by backbencher Jan Norberger. ­Another seat named by some Liberals as risky was Jandakot, which is held by Emergency Services Minister Joe Francis on an apparently safe margin of 18.3 per cent.

At last year’s federal election, some booths in Jandakot (which is located in the Labor seat of Burt) swung to the ALP by more than 20 per cent. Liberals are more hopeful of retaining the seat of Bicton (10.0 per cent).

Analysts say a swing towards Labor is inevitable after the Barnett government won the 2013 election easily when the resources boom was in full swing and West Australian voters were angry with the unstable federal Labor government. Labor needs to win an extra 10 seats to form government in the 59-seat lower house, which opposition leader Mark McGowan has repeatedly claimed will be a difficult task.

Last month’s Newspoll showed support for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation has soared to 13 per cent across Western Australia. The Liberal Party’s primary vote slumped to just 30 per cent — its worst result ever recorded in Newspoll. Labor’s primary vote also went backwards, from 41 per cent to 38 per cent.

This week the Liberals agreed to direct preferences to One ­Nation above the Nationals in the upper house. In return, One Nation will preference the Liberals above the Labor Party in all of the 35 lower-house seats the party will contest.