4 February 1989 (1989-02-04) 1993 → 25 November 1986 1979 19 seats 6 seats Start date February 4, 1989 | 25 February 1988 25 November 1986 32 seats 19 seats 31 seats 20 seats | |
Winner Peter Dowding | ||
Elections were held in the state of Western Australia on 4 February 1989 to elect all 57 members to the Legislative Assembly and all 34 members to the Legislative Council. The Labor government, led by Premier Peter Dowding, won a third term in office against the Liberal Party, led by Opposition Leader Barry MacKinnon.
The result was a major swing against the Labor Party, coming in the wake of revelations of dealings between Government and business that came to be known as WA Inc. The redistribution that took place in 1988, based upon the Acts Amendment (Electoral Reform) Act 1987 which abolished several country and outer metropolitan electorates while creating new metropolitan ones, makes it difficult to assess how Labor would have performed on the old boundaries—while it lost four seats, it gained one Liberal-held seat and won several of the new seats, so in net terms, it only lost one seat despite the massive swing and the low two-party-preferred result.