Collie-Preston – WA 2025

Something really needs to be done about the dividing of Australind into 2 districts as a former resident I can tell you that it should be in 1

I have never resided in this area, but looking purely at primary vote numbers, it seems like Balingup’s high primary for the Greens and Nationals is very out of step with the rest of the electorate. Maybe it’s better off being in Warren-Blackwood with its neighbours Nannup and Bridgetown, both of which have more similar voting patterns to Balingup than anywhere else in Collie-Preston.

@wilson i did suggest that at the redistribution but the commision went the other way

@Wilson I heard that last election a lot of locals of the Balingup area attempted to vote in Donnybrook because it’s the same local gov area and many simply had no idea it had been divided between seats

This would surely have to be the only coal mining area that is voting more pro-Labor now than it did 10 years ago?

@mostly imagine how people in Australind feel it depends on which side of the main road you live to which district your in

I believe you can technically build a second seat out of the Bunbury suburbs like Australind and Eaton but to do that you would also have to create a seat that combines the remainder of Murray Wellington and Collie Preston and I doubt the WAEC wants to deal with more regional anger after this cycle

@mostly the main problem is putting all of Australind together as I suggested you put all of Australind together with Dardanup and collie. Problem solved Murray Wellington then moves into the dawesville gap

A theoretical marginal seat which needs a 23% swing to change hands. Shows there is a long way to go for
The libs to be competitive

What effects could the end of coal fired power have on this seat and the vote in collie. If the libs brought nuclear power here could that sway votes

@John this is a Labor heartland but yes potentially.

The issue is whether the Libs are willing to sacrifice Nedlands, Churchlands, Cottsloe etc to potentially win this seat. I expect Teals do campaign against both parties since State Labor does not have a 2030 target and WA is the only state where emissions have increased since 2005.

@Nimalan that is a valid point as those seats are very important for the Liberals. I expect WA Labor to announce a 2030 target soon and the Coalition will follow suite.

It’s risky because this is a very working-class industrial seat and Collie itself has always heavily voted Labor. It’s like the Cessnock or Gladstone of WA. On the other hand, those seats Nimalan mentioned are affluent, blue-ribbon beachside seats in the northwestern suburbs of Perth, comparable to seats like Manly and Vaucluse in Sydney or Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast.

Just to give context, in 2022 (even with a progressive leader, in this case Albo, though WA did swing to Labor because of Mark McGowan, a more centrist Premier, on the state level), Collie voted heavily Labor:

Labor TPP in Collie booths:

* Collie: 67.77% (+6.98%)
* Collie Central: 68.55% (+10.75%)
* Collie North: 71.04% (+9.35%)
* Collie PPVC: 67.25% (+8.24%)

Labor won without the Collie vote

Upper house One Nation MP Ben Dawkins has repeatedly expressed interest in running for the party here, ON gets around the double digits mark here when they put in effort, perhaps lower with Dawkin’s record

How long before collie is in roe

@John if the redistribution moved it then I would say Collie-Preston will be renamed.

they have been trying for years but it keeps getting knocked back. i personally think collie should be put in with the whole of australind. that city/town basically has a line running don the main street determining what district your in

Expect this seat to be a Labor hold. But Nats to come 2nd here with a big swing to them. Favourite in 2029 to win. Similar to Morwell in Victoria.
Nationals have Cameron Parsons as their candidate.

Easy ALP hold. Nick, I would be interested to hear your rationale for how the Nats candidate will be favourite to win in 2029. Do you see a major redistribution coming? The Lib candiate polled 17% in 2017 and 14% in 2021. The Nats candidate polled 13% in 2017 and 9% in 2021.

Very committed Labor voters in Collie – I can’t see any trend toward a non-left majority down there.

As I mentioned before Collie is a lot like Gladstone: it is very working-class, blue-collar and industrial so it votes Labor but is trending towards the Coalition because Labor is focusing more on being progressive to win over city voters from the Greens.

@ huxley wa state is redistributed every election after the coal plant closes expect a lot of the unionised workforce to move. They’ve been trying to put collie in roe for years. Only a matter of time before either happens. Moving collie would allow them to unite Australians into 1 district.

WA state govt has nominated 2030 as the exit date for coal from the energy system. It won’t happen that quickly so whatever electorate the town of Collie is in, they will be voting ALP 1 for some years yet.

Unite Australians into 1 district?

Huxley collies power station is planned to close in 2027. That’s why it’s the target site for duttons nuclear reactor

I think he meant Australind. Must’ve been auto correct

The Muja power station and Bluewaters are also both in the Collie electorate. Muja is sheduled to operate until 2029 and Bluewaters is privately owned and will operate as long as it can do so profitably. Time will tell if coal will exit the energy generation mix in WA as soon as 2030.

Still thus seat will ultimately depend on redistribution and what district collie is placed in. It has a history of being placed with parts of Harvey Capel and parts in the south. The nats want it in roe.

Libs probably would have won in 2017 if not for the McGowan landslide

While collie is solidly laby but its increasing taking in more liberal voting small towns ordinarily its a marginal seat and should return now McGowan and civil are gone. I’d expect at least 1 10% swing 2025 and maybe another in 2029 especially if wa swings against albo and Dutton brings in the nuclear reactor before the decade is out

John, I helped on the campaign in 2017 in Collie Preston for the Liberal candidate. She was a good candidate and well presented but could only pull 17% of the vote against the ALP incumbent, Mick Murray. No way the Liberal party was ever going to win it in 2017. The ALP won Collie in 2001 and have held it ever since.

Why would the Nats want a heavily ALP voting town in Roe?

@ huxley
Where ever Collie goes makes a much closer race
In Roe this would maybe create a marginal seat.
I remember there used to be a marginal seat called. Sunday Esperance

@huxley yes but it was a notional liberal seat Based on 2013 results unfortunately the McGowan slide overturned that. Yes but ever since 2001 it’s only slid backwards until, 2017 it will eventually fall depending on redistribution. It was the libs not the nats I suppose because it would make both roe and the new district winnable for libs. Give it a few elections.

@mick collie in roe wouldn’t be marginal not normally anyway. Roe is normally a battle of the conservative parties and would not ever be won by labor

How many voters in Collie and also if Collie was moved into Roe would not something be moved out? What ever was moved out would have a high non Labor vote ?

My prediction lab retain in 2025 on reduced margin but expect to see Peter Dutton in collie again with x candidate and Libby mettam spruiking the coalition nuclear future. Mettam to resign as liberal leader sometime between 2025 and 2029. New leader to come from a Perth seat let’s face it she’s only leader because it s choice between her and…. none really. Maybe basil Zemplas. Dutton returns here in 2028 prior to federalelection after targeting seats of Swan hasluck pearce cowan. Dutton wind 2028 election assuming he hasn’t won 2025 election immediately starts converting old collie coal plant into nuclear plant. After the old coal plant workers move collie is less competitive for labor and Dutton and state liberal leader target collie in 2029 campaign. State libs win election maybe even this seat if not its marginal. 2033 libs win seat of collie or whatever deviation it’s called. Collie then becomes unsinkable for labor due to surrounding towns turning it into safe seat.

@mick it would never happen it’s just gerrymandered, I use to live in this area and I also opposed moving it.

Can we please not have accusations thrown out willy nilly like that? All the states and federally have independent electoral commissions for good reason. Yes, they can and do make decisions that don’t please interested parties, but to accuse them of gerrymandering is ridiculous. No wonder Ben is considering closing off comments completely.

This seat or its predecessors had the most strangest anomaly before the McGowan elections. The biggest polling booty for Labor and biggest polling booth for the Liberals across WA. And the booths were 80% plus

Collie should of course stay where it is. The nearest seats are Bunbury and Murray. I was just trying to point out what would happen if Collie was moved to Roe a what if?

This part of WA is always weird at redistributions. The Bunbury urban area is big enough for two electorates – Eaton (shire of Dardanup) and Australind (shire of Harvey) fit nicely together, basically recreating the old seat of Leschenault without the malapportionment – but then you have to figure out what to do with the rural halves of both seats, and end up with something enormous and/or incoherent. I’ve had a play with it a few times and I can’t see a neat way of doing it. It’s a good excuse for expanding parliament, which hasn’t been done in a while (2008, and before that 1983).

Collie won’t go to Roe. Having Collie and Esperance in the same seat is crazy for a start, and then where does Roe lose that much territory to? Albany and Warren-Blackwood don’t need to expand, Kalgoorlie is already enormous, and Central Wheatbelt would cause knock-on effects with Mid West (also enormous). It can’t be done without creating a very strange-looking map.

@WL I in no way accused the electoral commission of gerrymandered. I simply stated that the liberal party attempts are obvious in the wish to crack the higher Labor voting collie away from the district and put it in a very safe conservative seat to render the vote moot. This would make the future “collie” likely easily winnable while still making roe relatively safe

@mick libs suggesting was to move the 6680 electors from collie in and move 3268 electors from Narrogin and 680 electors from Williams to Central wheatbelt

To be perfectly honest putting the shire of Harvey with the shire of collie should make 1 district. The problem is getting it there

@bird of paradox I have a few ideas how to get to that. But need to wait until the new seats kick in because the official numbers are still under the old boundaries or at least the district names.

Some rough shower thoughts: if the Bunbury area ends up in two seats (let’s call them Bunbury and Leschenault), you could recreate a bigger version of the old Collie-Wellington, going further north than that seat did – up the South West Hwy from Brunswick Junction to Pinjarra. If that isn’t a quota, add in Serpentine and Mundijong from Darling Range (which will need to shrink anyway due to population growth in Byford). If it’s over a quota, slice off Binningup (to Leschenault) or some of Yunderup / Ravenswood (to Mandurah).

In the south of the old Collie-Preston, Donnybrook can go to Warren-Blackwood. If that pushes that seat over quota, send Boyup Brook to Roe. As for Capel… not sure. Whether it fits in Vasse depends on how much Busselton is growing – that seat may actually need to shrink. It could also go to Warren-Blackwood, I guess. If so, Roe would also take the shire of Bridgetown (and then fiddle with its border with Central Wheatbelt).