Western Australian state election, 2017

Legislative Assembly

By the morning of 12 March, two thirds of votes had been counted and seven lower house seats were in doubt, showing that the Labor Party had won at least 36 seats, well above the 30 required for a majority, which the ABC predicted to increase to 41. Meanwhile, the Liberals and WA Nationals had won only 10 and five seats respectively, with a further three expected to be retained by the Liberal Party.

The swing against the government affected traditionally safe seats. Consequently, six government ministers lost their seats in the Legislative Assembly while one lost his seat in the Legislative Council.

Seats changing parties

¹ Matt Taylor was the member for the seat of Bateman, but contested Bicton after losing preselection to Dean Nalder, the member for the abolished seat of Alfred Cove. ² Albert Jacob was the member for the abolished seat of Ocean Reef, but instead contested Burns Beach, a seat containing much of the same territory.

Members in italics did not contest their seat at this election.

Labor also retained two seats—Collie-Preston and West Swan—which were notionally Liberal-held after the redistribution. The Liberal Party retained Hillarys, which was being contested by the incumbent MLA Rob Johnson as an independent.

Legislative Council

Labor became the largest party in the Legislative Council with 14 of the 36 seats. The Labor government will therefore require at least five additional votes from non-government members to pass legislation.

On 4 April, the Western Australian Electoral Commission will conduct a recount of 2013 election results to fill two casual vacancies for the remainder of the 2013–17 term caused by the resignation and subsequent election to the Legislative Assembly of Amber-Jade Sanderson (Labor) in East Metropolitan and Peter Katsambanis (Liberal) in North Metropolitan.

Date of election

On 3 November 2011, the Government of Western Australia introduced fixed four-year terms for the Legislative Assembly, with the elections to be held on the second Saturday in March. The first election under the new law was the 2013 election. Previously, under electoral reforms of the Burke Government in 1987, four-year maximum terms were adopted for the Legislative Assembly, and fixed four-year terms for the Legislative Council.

Lower house

At the 2013 election, Labor won 21 seats, the Liberals won 31 seats and the Nationals won 7 seats. No seats were won by independents.

On 15 April 2016, the Liberal member for Hillarys, Rob Johnson, resigned from the Liberal Party to sit as an independent, leaving the government with 30 seats in the lower house.

Upper house

At the 2013 election, the Liberals won 17 seats, Labor won 11 seats, the Nationals won five seats, the Greens won two seats and the Shooters and Fishers won one seat.

Western Australia's Legislative Council is divided into six regions. Three are based in Perth, while three are rural. Each region elects six members to the Legislative Council. These areas are not of similar population sizes, with rural areas receiving from one and a half to about six times the effective membership of the metropolitan regions.

The Western Australian rural population dropped from about 12.1% to 10.7% of the state's enrolled electors after the 2008 election. Election analyst Antony Green predicted this would make it more difficult for the Liberal or Labor parties (who typically perform better in Perth than rural areas) to increase their presence within the Legislative Council.

Redistribution

A redistribution of electoral boundaries for the lower house was completed on 27 November 2015. This resulted in a net gain of one seat for the Liberal Party from Labor. The Liberal seats of Alfred Cove, Eyre and Ocean Reef, the Labor seat of Gosnells and the National seat of Wagin were abolished. Five new seats were created (or re-created): the notionally Liberal seats of Bicton (mostly replacing Alfred Cove) and Burns Beach (mostly replacing Ocean Reef), the notionally Labor seats of Baldivis (created from parts of Kwinana and Warnbro) and Thornlie (replacing Gosnells), and the notionally National seat of Roe (merging Wagin and Eyre). The Labor seats of Collie-Preston and West Swan became notionally Liberal.

Retiring MPs

Members who have announced they will not re-nominate at the 2017 election:

Liberal

John Castrilli MLA (Bunbury) – announced 14 March 2016

Kim Hames MLA (Dawesville) – announced 2 August 2014

Liz Behjat MLC (North Metropolitan) – lost preselection

Barry House MLC (South West) – announced 27 October 2015

National

Wendy Duncan MLA (Kalgoorlie) – announced 4 December 2015

Terry Waldron MLA (Wagin) – announced 25 November 2014

Electoral pendulums

The following Mackerras Pendulums work by lining up all of the seats according to the percentage point margin post-election on a two-candidate-preferred basis, grouped as marginal, safe etc as defined by the Australian Electoral Commission.

Pre-election pendulum

This pendulum takes the redistribution into account. One sitting member, retiring Wagin Nationals MP Terry Waldron, does not appear in this pendulum: his seat was combined with Eyre to form Roe, a seat with a National margin that will also be contested by Eyre Liberal MP Graham Jacobs, who is listed as the defending member below. Two Liberal members, Dean Nalder (Alfred Cove, now re-named Bicton) and Matt Taylor (Bateman), were contesting each other's seats; this is reflected below. Retiring members are listed in italics.