WA state election 2021: Perth’s golden triangle looks to fall to Labor in surprising seat distribution

Labor’s return to power was no surprise but seat by seat this election revealed some of the biggest surprises in WA’s political history.

Liberal strongholds have fallen, pushing the party into the political abyss, while several Labor seats have blown pollster predictions apart in what was the party’s best result in Australian history.

WAtoday has looked at the vote count as it stands at the end of election night and picked the seats where we got the biggest surprise outside of the headline-making defeats in Dawesville, Riverton, Scarborough and Hillarys.

Liberal legacy crumbles in western suburbs

Bill Marmion looks to lose the seat of Nedlands.Credit: Philip Gostelow

In elections past, regardless of the winning party, Nedlands was always locked up by the Liberals early on.

This year, however, longstanding member and former Barnett government minister Bill Marmion is actually trailing his Labor opponent Katrina Stratton thanks to a 9.5 per cent swing against him.

To remind our readers; this is a seat that includes the suburb of Dalkeith, which has a median annual income of $200,000 according to the last census and counts Gina Rinehart as one of its residents.

Likewise, South Perth has always been a beacon of blue but the swing has hit it hard and with the retirement of popular local member John McGrath, Labor’s Geoff Baker has romped it home over lawyer Ryan Chorley with just under 50 per cent of the primary vote.

One of the most marginal seats yet to be called by pollsters is Churchlands, where incumbent member and shadow treasurer Sean L’Estrange is trailing Labor’s Christine Tonkin by just 0.4 per cent. In any normal year, Churchlands would have been called for the Liberals within minutes of polls being closed.

Shadow treasurer Sean L’Estrange.Credit: Peter de Kruijff

Slightly further north the Liberals’ Tony Kristicevic looks likely to lose his seat of Carine to teacher Paul Lilburne. With 51 per cent of the vote counted Labor has received a 13 per cent swing, putting Mr Lilburne ahead with a 2.8 per cent margin.

Labor landslides

One of the wildest aspects of this election is the margins with which Labor candidates now hold their seats.

Armadale MP Tony Buti.Credit: Facebook

Mark McGowan officially holds his seat of Rockingham with the greatest margin of any sitting member with 87.4 per cent of the two-party preferred vote. Perhaps what is even more astonishing is that McGowan took 82 per cent of the primary vote - a 20.5 per cent improvement than in 2017.

By the end of counting on Saturday night, the seat of Southern River recorded the biggest swing to Labor with a whopping 26.4 per cent, taking incumbent Terry Healy’s margin to 34.2 per cent. In 2013 Labor lost this seat with a margin of 33 per cent.

That Labor primary vote increase was seen right across previously safe seats with Armadale’s Tony Buti experiencing a 6.2 per cent swing to take him to 72.9 per cent of the primary vote.

McGowan’s most trusted lieutenants such as Paul Papalia in Warnbro, Rita Saffiotti in West Swan and Reece Whitby in Baldivis will all finish their counts with more than 80 per cent of their electorates’ votes.

Oh no, Freo

The only Labor seat to experience a swing against it was in Child Protection Minister Simone McGurk’s seat of Fremantle.

By the end of the night higher primary votes for the Greens and the Socialist Alliance as well as the introduction of the Liberal Democrats and No Mandatory Vaccination party to the ticket had eaten away at McGurk’s 23 per cent two-party preferred margin by 7.7 per cent.

Ms McGurk also recorded the lowest primary vote increase for a winning Labor seat at 4.6 per cent.

The result will be an interesting one for Labor to dissect. It was a target seat for the Liberals who were keen to point out McGurk’s failings around the tent city homelessness issue and the Greens, who plastered billboards around the city pointing out Labor’s weak climate change policies.