WA election night live

19

10:47pm – I’m going to call it a night. One final point to note is that the ABC upper house results page has just flipped the final seat in Mining and Pastoral from One Nation to the Shooters.

10:35pm – South West (33% counted):

South West is currently electing two Labor MLCs and one each for Liberal, Nationals, Greens and One Nation. This is a loss of two Liberal seats to One Nation and the Greens.

While the current calculator is giving one of the seats to the Greens, Tom’s probabilities actually suggest there’s a 72% chance that seat will go to the third Labor candidate, and the Greens’ Diane Evers only has a 28% chance. I presume this is because the Greens are less than 1% ahead of Labor when Labor is knocked out and elects the Greens.

10:31pm – South Metro (32% counted):

Antony’s calculator is currently gifting three seats to Labor, two to the Liberal Party and one to the Liberal Democrats. This is a gain of one for Labor and the LDP, and a loss of one for the Greens and the Liberal Party.

The LDP result is not particularly robust: Geeklections gives the LDP only a 70% chance of holding that seat, with most of the remaining possibility going to the Daylight Savings Party.

The Greens also finish the count on 0.95 quotas, just behind the second Liberal: if the Greens vote increases in later counting they could come back and win.

10:28pm – North Metro (32% counted):

North Metro is currently producing a result of 3 Liberal, 2 Labor, 1 Greens. This would be a drop of one seat for the Liberal Party and one extra seat for the Greens.

This result isn’t vulnerable to small changes flipping the result. It is possible that, if the third Labor candidate overtook Family First, they would win the final seat instead of the Greens.

10:24pm – Mining and Pastoral (5% counted):

This is the least reliable, since the vast majority of votes are yet to be counted. Labor and the Nationals are each on track to win two seats, with the Liberal Party and One Nation each winning one. This is a gain of a seat for Labor and One Nation, and a loss of a seat for the Liberal Party and the Greens.

The margins of victory are not particularly tight, and the vote would need to shift quite a lot to produce a different outcome. But considering only 5% is counted, this is quite possible.

10:21pm – East Metro (28% counted):

Currently the seats are splitting three Labor, one Liberal, one Greens, one Fluoride Free WA. This would be a loss of two Liberal seats to the minor parties.

On the current vote, Tom Clement gives the Greens and Fluoride Free roughly 85% chance of winning their seats. There are some narrow paths to victory for the second Liberal candidate or the first One Nation candidate.

10:19pm – Let’s run through each upper house region in turn.

Firstly, Agricultural (35% counted):

Currently the seats break down as two Labor, two Nationals, one Liberal and one Shooter. This is a loss of one seat for the Liberal Party and a gain of one for Labor. At the moment it appears that the Shooters have a buffer of about one-fifth of a quota over One Nation, so this could change if One Nation’s vote grows in late counting.

10:10pm – At this point we know most of what we will know tonight regarding the lower house. By my count Labor has won at least 38 seats. The Liberal Party is on 11, and the Nationals are on five.

I have five seats listed as undecided. Kalgoorlie is very messy and we don’t even know which candidates are the top two, so it’s not possible to conduct an indicative preference count. The preference count has barely started in Pilbara, so it’s not clear if that seat will stay with Nationals leader Brendon Grylls, or flip to Labor.

There are three seats which are conventional Liberal vs Labor races. Labor is leading with 51% after preferences in Murray-Wellington and leading by a handful of votes in Jandakot. The Liberal Party is narrowly ahead in Geraldton.

9:31pm – It’s clear that the Western Australian upper house crossbench will be very diverse – Antony’s calculator (now with errors fixed) is giving seats to One Nation, the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers, Fluoride Free WA and the Daylight Savings Party. It seems unlikely that Labor and Greens will reach a majority, but they won’t face a solid conservative bloc with an upper house majority.

9:23pm – Since there’s some problems with the ABC’s upper house results, I’d suggest looking at Tom Clement’s Geeklections site. Tom is taking the raw election results and running many simulations based on the preference tickets, and he is currently projecting the most likely outcome of 12 Labor, 9 Liberal, 5 Nationals and 3 Greens – which would leave Labor and Greens two votes short of a majority. But Tom’s website does more, showing the chances of each party winning in each region.

9:13pm – The upper house numbers are very confusing – it appears two seats actually going to the Shooters are being credited to Daylight Savings. But it’s worth noting that both Daylight Savings and Fluoride Free are currently projected to win seats. One Nation is currently leading for only one seat.

8:57pm – We’re starting to get some small numbers in from the upper house. Antony Green’s preference calculator gives the final seats to the Shooters in Agricultural and One Nation in the South West. In both regions, the calculator gives Labor an additional seat. It also appears that Labor and the Greens could win four seats between them in the East and South Metro regions – in both regions the combined Labor/Greens vote is over four quotas in the lower house, and is sitting at a similar level in the small number of upper house votes counted so far. It also appears likely that Labor or the Greens will gain a seat in the North Metro region. If the left wins an additional seat in all six upper house regions, that would give Labor and the Greens a majority.

8:21pm – I count 14 seats Labor has gained from the Liberal Party: Balcatta, Belmont, Bunbury, Collie-Preston, Darling Range, Forrestfield, Joondalup, Morley, Mount Lawley, Perth, Southern River, Swan Hills, Wanneroo and West Swan.

Labor is also leading in Burns Beach and Geraldton, and Kalgoorlie will take days or weeks to decide.

8:10pm – It’s too early to draw any conclusions about the upper house, but it’s interesting to look at lower house votes by upper house region. One Nation is polling less than half a quota in North Metropolitan and South Metropolitan (although they wouldn’t have run in every seat). One Nation is on about 60% of a quota in the East Metro and South West regions, and about three quarters of a quota in Mining and Pastoral and Agricultural. It suggests they are likely to pick up two seats, but none of those figures are conclusive enough to call any seats.

8:03pm – It’ll be interesting to see how the swing to Labor varies across the state – there was a theory that the party was performing better in the marginal seats. I’d like to wait for more preferences to be counted and to ultimately judge on the two-party-preferred swing, but Labor has definitely gained larger primary vote swings in more marginal Liberal seats. The Labor vote is up on average by 11.7% in Liberal seats with margins under 12%, compared to 7.85% in the other Liberal seats and 10% in Labor seats.

7:47pm – The Liberal Party has suffered a massive collapse in Bunbury – the ABC currently has it on 32%.

7:41pm – Sorry, this website is struggling with the traffic now. Been meaning to make some technical updates but house-moving has gotten in the way. I was just writing something about how interesting Kalgoorlie is – we really won’t know who will come in the top two until the count is finished, with One Nation preferences deciding who out of Liberal and Nationals will go on to face Labor.

7:27pm – The trend at the moment suggests that Labor is on track to gain all of the Liberal seats held on margins of less than 11%. Labor is recording large enough swings to win in Balcatta, Belmont, Collie-Preston, Forrestfield, Kalamunda, Morley, Perth, Southern River, Swan Hills, Wanneroo and West Swan, although in some cases this is based off a single strong booth. We have no results from the other three Liberal seats held by margins of under 11% – no seat in this range has a swing small enough to allow the Liberal Party to hold on.

7:16pm – We don’t have enough booths to call them yet, but it looks likely that Peter Abetz has lost in Southern River.

7:13pm – After five booths, it looks likely that Labor has gained Balcatta (7% margin). It also appears that Forrestfield is likely to fall.

7:06pm – Let’s discuss Collie-Preston. It’s an unusual seat, with extremely pro-Labor Collie paired with other pro-Liberal towns. The redistribution redrew the seat into a notional Liberal seat, after Labor’s Mick Murray was narrowly re-elected in 2013. We don’t have many booths yet, but it appears that there has been a small swing to Labor and a large swing away from the Liberal Party, which should be enough to re-elect Murray (which would count as a Labor gain).

7:02pm – We’re seeing sizeable samples from numerous country seats which is starting to give us an idea of support for One Nation. They’re on 13.6% in Kalgoorlie, 10.6% in Central Wheatbelt, 9.2% in Collie-Preston and 9.3% in Geraldton. If the party polls around 10% across the non-metropolitan region they’ll be a contender to win seats in each region – a full quota is roughly 14.3%.

6:59pm – We’re seeing a big drop in support for the Liberal Party in Geraldton, with that vote moving to One Nation and Labor. We don’t have a preference count there, since Labor came third last time, but it could well be in play.

6:50pm – Four early booths in Kalgoorlie suggest a significant drop in the vote for both the Nationals and the Liberal Party. The Nationals hold the seat with a 4.1% margin over the Liberal Party. Sitting Nationals MP Wendy Duncan has retired, and Labor appears to be performing quite well in a seat which used to be Labor heartland.

6:45pm – Central Wheatbelt is held by the Nationals by an 8.8% margin over the Liberal Party. It appears that there has been a drop in the Liberal vote and a strengthened Nationals vote, with One Nation polling a distant second, based on six polling places.

6:00pm – Polls have just closed in Western Australia. I’ll be posting results updates here, as well as contributing to the Guardian’s live blog. Don’t expect much for the next half hour.

The exit polls point towards a 12% swing to Labor, which would likely give them a majority.

It’s 9pm in Sydney where I am – I expect we should have a reasonably clear idea of who is winning (or if it’s very close, we’ll know that it’ll be very close) by around 7:30 WA time, and around 9pm WA time we’ll start to see a slowing down of the lower house results and the first upper house results. I expect the results will dry up by 11pm-midnight WA time, so for those of us on the east coast it could be a late night.

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19 COMMENTS

  1. This is an incredible result. There will be blood on the floor at Menzies House on Monday morning. I don’t think anyone saw this coming.

  2. WA election result breaks the mould on a number of patterns.

    Electorate is extremely volatile – Liberal Party found out and ALP is on notice – the electorate givethand the electorate taketh away
    Populism without political infrastructure doesn’t cut it. Note to One Nation
    Big money doesn’t necessarily buy results – Nationals battled their way through and may survive unscathed
    Greens are not going away – kept their vote when a big awing was on to the ALP
    Ele toral system in the Upper House needs to be reformed in line with the Senate

  3. Three observations on WA.

    (1) With four year terms, the sense that a government has been in for a long time starts to build up even in a first term, and by the end of two four year terms a government will have been in power for the equivalent of almost three three-year terms.

    (2) Australians’ bullshit detectors are still pretty good, and One Nation won’t do well so long as their leader is playing footsie with cranks like the anti-vaxxeers, and they have candidates who have taken kooky positions in the past (eg creation of an all-white province in South Africa).

    (3) In the context of his failed bid for the ALP leadership in WA last year, Stephen Smith was quoted as saying, among other things, that “… a Newspoll which suggested Mr McGowan would lead Labor to victory in the election was not credible. ‘No-one believed the 42 per cent Newspoll figure,’ Mr Smith said. ‘The last time Labor had a primary vote of 42 at state or federal level in Western Australia, Bob Hawke was prime minister.’. Well, 42.8% is what’s showing on the ABC computer this morning.

    The last point has a broader relevance: politicians are pretty bad at predicting the shape of politics even 12 months out. The Queensland ALP must already be cursing their decision to move back to full preferential voting, which at this point looks likely to assist the LNP substantially.

  4. Trying to understand the surprisingly high (c. 4.4%) vote for the Liberal Democrats in South Metro. The only thing I can see is that it is the only region in which the LDP appear ahead of the Liberals on the ballot paper.

    The LDP actually got 3.43% in the Senate vote in WA in 2013 when they were second on the ballot, They dropped to 1.81% in the 2014 re-run when they were in column J, but still listed earlier than the Liberals. But they were down to 0.79% in 2016 when listed towards the end of the ballot, two columns after the Liberals.

    I’d have thought the current configuration would be most like the 2014 re-run, so the current outcome still seems odd if mistaken identity is the main factor. Possibly their genuine vote is higher too, considering they are at 1-1.2% in the other metro regions, but still leaves a lot to explain.

  5. Alaric, I’m trying to make sense of it as well. The WAEC did introduce a new printing system at this election, which meant that the ballot paper was folded outwards when it was received. South Metro is the only region in which the Liberal Democats appear in the first 12 and the Liberals do not. The Liberals are way down the ballot, so this may well have meant that the Lib Dems were the only ones on the side of the paper that people saw first.

  6. This is a weird result for the greens. On the current figures they’ve increased their numbers in the upper house but both their sitting members have lost their seats.

  7. Vote in Bunbury terrific also over flow into collie Preston and Murray wellington….splintering of vote in Kalgoorlie and Pilbara..Geraldton swung 22% to labor

  8. Mining and Pastoral looks like one of the most interesting upper house regions, after the first four candidates have been elected One Nation are on 14.06% and are all but assured of winning, although there is a clump of parties around 5% with the Shooters on 5.74%, the Greens on 5.27%, the Nats on 5.06% and Labor on 4.96%. I’d expect as counting continues that the Labor vote will go up slightly due to the fact that remote mobile booths are counted later and tend to favour them because they are majority indigenous. That being said we will need to see how this pans out. On the numbers I put into Antony Green’s calculator, of Labor increase their vote by 0.5% and the Greens manage to stay ahead of them then the Greens should win the final seat and vice versa, although the Shooters would need to lose about 0.5% as well.

  9. Labor likely to be in final 2 in KALGOORLIE…..how ate Nat’s preference s going between lib and alp?

  10. The LNP are losing and losing big across the board. But will soon make a gain in South Australia, all because Labor has been in government within SA for far too long! Queensland might have a One Nation, Katter and LNP Coalition Government soon, once the election gets called!

    Federal – LNP
    NSW – LNP
    TAS – LNP
    NT – Labor
    ACT – Labor/Green Coalition
    WA – Labor
    QLD – Labor plus 3 Independents who are former Labor members. Next election to be called soon. One Nation, Katter and LNP Coalition might form government next.
    VIC – Labor
    SA – Labor, but will soon go LNP (Labor has been in power for far too long).

  11. @ Paul Mitchell

    I wouldn’t count on the LNP coming into government in Queensland (on their own or in coalition with ON or KAP).

    I expect the next Queensland election to be a repeat of 1998, so Labor to stay in power.

    Nationally, we do generally tend to see states swing away from the party in government federally, so it’s not suprising, however I don’t expect this current swing away from the LNP at a state level to be as bad as the Labor’s strength at a state level from 2002 to 2009.

  12. Don’t count on Labor losing in SA while there’s a Liberal federal government. Federal drag is powerful enough, before you get to the “eastern states putting SA down” politics. Labor have a knack for holding onto marginal and notionally Liberal seats in SA; Weatherill’s 2PP was lower than Howard’s in 2007 after the Ruddslide. Plus Xenophon seems more of a threat to Liberal seats than Labor seats.

    QLD is going to be tough but I see Labor pulling through as well, just like in ’98. Their best bet is to concede inner city Brisbane to the Greens; Adani will be at least as big as Roe 8 and East West Link but even then the Greens might not have enough momentum to win more than a couple of seats. Then they can run the kind of campaign that will get them PHON 2nd preferences and help them hold the seats they took in 2015. Full preferential is a stroke of genius.

    Tasmanian Labor just got rid of a scandal plague leader and the polls were already shifting in their favour.

    Vic and NSW might happen AFTER the federal election so hard to comment.

  13. SA is hard to call at this point, while polls had Labor losing last time around they managed to win on a 2PP of 47%.

    Tasmania, which would be on the same day as SA, will be close but I imagine Labor would be favourites at this point in time.

    Queensland is also hard to predict, but I’d also predict Labor as well. Ever since One Nation’s second reincarnation their preferences have been far more beneficial to Labor, I dare say gaining more working class voters and losing voters back to the LNP. As for the Greens chances of gaining Inner city Brisbane seats, it would be a tough ask, they should get into the top 2 in Maiwar, have a reasonable showing in both McConnel and South Brisbane, the latter being what should be their best seat, although Trad is far too popular. If the Greens were to win a seat in Queensland it would be Noosa, One Nation would take votes away from the Libs and Labor cementing the Greens in second, and if the LNP get a little bit too close to One Nations policies younger cosmopolitan voters would abandon the Libs in droves.

    NSW, I can’t see the Libs losing at this point in time, although bad results in the upcoming byelections could change that.

    Victoria, The current government had a serious problems gaining traction, although closer to the election voters will probably see that the government is doing a lot. My guess would be Labor-Greens minority with Labor losing Bentleigh and Mordialloc to the Libs, Northcote to the Greens although gaining South Barwon, Ripon and Bass from the Libs as well as Morwell from the Nats. I also see the Greens making big strides by coming second in Kew, Hawthorn, Malvern, Brighton, Preston and Williamstown, whilst getting close in Essendon, Pascoe Vale and Footscray. They could also make things quite interesting in Macedon, which is full of spa towns, which have large LGBTI populations, Daylesford and Hepburn Springs in particular.

  14. In Victoria if the Liberals preference the Greens above Labor (which has happened before) the Greens will pick up a lot of seats. If not they’ll just pick up the 3 inner north seats and hold on to their other 2.

    Greens should also do well in Ivanhoe; they won a single member council ward there.

  15. I can’t see the Liberals preferencing the Greens after the big deal they made about it last time. That being said I have no idea why they just run open tickets. I didn’t mention Brunswick and Richmond before because Labor should win those seats, Garrett and Wynne are very popular local MPs and whilst their running the Greens won’t win. As well as Albert Park where Foley is popular, I can’t see them jumping out of third.

  16. After the election I think Brunswick will be considered a safe Green seat as long as they run a decent candidate. Samantha Ratnam got 55% of the primary vote in her council ward.

    Plus, Jane Garrett is seen as the main right wing challenger to left wing Andrews. Not a good thing in Brunswick. Wynne fares better but is looking a bit developer friendly.

    Also both of them came extremely close to losing in 2014.

    I can’t see any Liberal held seats at risk to the Greens, so it would be in the Liberals best (strategic) interest to give them preferences and put even seats like Footscray, Preston and Williamstown in play. That dilutes resources and makes it easier for Liberals to win suburban and rural seats if Labor is explicitly campaigning to hold the inner city vote.

    As far as I’m aware the Liberals didn’t deal the last few times because they thought they were going to win easily and/or because of a deal with Labor (in return for preferences in Lib vs Nat seats)

  17. The Greens won’t win any safe Liberal seats in the eastern suburbs but will come second by the virtue of Labor running weak candidates with no funding. As for Jane Garrett she is from the Left faction, probably even more progressive then Andrews, their was talk previously in Labor circles that she would replace Kim Carr in the Senate or switch to Melton, but staying in Brunswick is Labor’s only chance of holding it.
    As for council election results, I personally doubt they have much relevance, Only because they are run on purely local issues. As well Labor, sometimes endorse candidates but not too often and the Libs don’t bother.

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