WA federal redistribution – final margins

On these margins bullwinkle and tangey will almost certainly be lost.. cowan hasluck Pearce and Swan to be either marginal Labor or in play at best.

I’m also gonna say Curtin as a liberal gain. By 2028 some of those seats could fall due to an ageing Labor state govt

Curtin is a liberal seat of the “small l” kind. A Dutton led LNP is not appealing to most voters there so doubt Chaney is going to lose it this election.

Tangney will probably be a Labor loss hard to see how they can hold it on that margin. Bullwinkel is a weird city/wheatbelt hybrid seat that I suspect will be picked up by the WA Nats.

@malcolm polling out of Curtin is favouring the libs support bottomed out under Morrison and big donors that deserted the party in 2022 are reportedly coming back to the party.. it also caused chancy to.backflip on her support for the live export ban.

I suspect the state election is going to deliver interesting outcomes with Independents appearing on the scene, further eroding the hold of the tired duopoly with little differentiating between them.

Not sure why the Libs couldnt preselect a woman to take on Kate chaney in curtin, their chances would be much higher that way

Beca7se liberals have a democratic vote (mostly) at the branch level to choose who they want to contest the seat. The curtain branch chose their candidate based on who they wanted. Not if they had a penis or not.

@malcom on bullwinkle yes I agree I think the combined lib nat vote will get up. Although she may not be as popular in Perth as she is in Central wheatbelt.

Not a certain +3 for the libs. . This is based on the assumption that the non liberal vote will drop greater than 3%. Tangney has most times been a ‘reliable’ liberal seat. Bullwinkel is hybrid… the Avon Valley is the least anti.labor part of Central wheatbelt. It is Possible that the Urban area of this seat moves towards Labor. Curtin there is a different dynamic involved. I picked in Victoria that seats with a + 3% margin remained and this was the case in Vic at the state level

@mick but Vic didn’t have a larger then usual swing in 2018. Plus the vis libs are totally incompetent and there were a a few factors in play in 2022 all of which are now gone.i. predicting a 7-8% retur to the libs in wa in 2025. At a state level probly 15%

@John true but i think its time to move towards community preselections as branches arent representative of voters

Then theyd have a much better chance especially in more moderate seats, a lot of the preselections for this upcoming election have been very poor

@dragons yes and how would a community preselection work exactly

@john could be a poll or community meeting but everyone in the electorate can take part? its probably difficult but its happened before i think the nationals have tried it in a few seats where they dont have enough members

@dragons yea well you’d get people who’d never vote liberals regardless picking candidates that nooone will vote for. That’s just like asking democrats to pick the republican nominee even though they don’t have any intention of voting for them at a general election

And it’s not like Labor do a rank and file preselection either it’s basically who is best connected to the unions and other vested interests

@ john… there is s liberal party faction in wa..called the clan. As far as I know they share similar characteristics to the vic liberals. As much as I hate to admit it Julie Bishop was a good operator and her influence is now no longer

WHAT A GRAND FINAL! AFTER 21 YEARS, THE BRISBANE LIONS ARE PREMIERS!

As for WA, @Mick Quinlivan “The Clan” no longer exists.

Np Sydney just sucked

@John true, Sydney played pretty bad except in the first quarter.

These boundaries benefit Labor, however while there are more Labor leaning seats than previous boundaries, they aren’t as Ruby red as they were previously, meaning if the Libs were going for a WA landslide federally like in 2010 or 2013, they could sweep all but 1 or 2 seats easily.

I mentioned elsewhere that Bullwinkel’s Labor margin is misleading. It was carved out of Swan and Hasluck – both target Labor seats in 2022, and also Burt – Matt Keogh’s strong personal vote. It also has very rural parts.

@Daniel T they only favour Labor because last time Labor did really well in WA. Bullwinkel should be a Liberal seat post-2025.

Also, @John, another big game coming up in the EPL: Man U vs Spurs. I’m tipping Spurs to win, Man United have sucked for the past few years.

I’d guess in Bullwinkel you’re going to see primaries of something around 25% each for ALP, LIB and NAT 10% GRN, 15% Other. Most Greens will preference Labor and Others should favour NAT over LIB which means under this scenario ALP and NAT should make the final 2PP and NAT wins fairly comfortably on LIB preferences.

It’ll be an interesting seat to watch because of the 3 party dynamic and that at a glance I think this is a seat where a majority of voters (~65%) are in the Perth Metro area so it’s a bit unknown how the different voter blocs will interact, like for example will Perth based LIB voters in reality preference NAT over the ALP as much as they normally would? I can’t think of another seat in modern times where the Nats are favourites in a seat that is mostly based in a major city. It’s probably part of the reason the Nats are contesting Perth seats at the state election for the first time in a very long time. That and the fact that with one vote, one value reforms to the upper house they need votes from Perth and surrounds if they want more than a couple of seats.

@Malcolm Good analysis Bullwinkel will def be close. The Nats held city seats on a state level in QLD up until the early 2000s (of course pre-LNP). Surfers Paradise was a safe Nat seat held for 21 years by premier Rob Borbidge… on the numerous occaisons both the Nats and libs ran here, the Nats outpolled. The Nats lost the seat in 2001 after Borbridge resigned. Other examples are Southport, Albert, Broadwater and Burleigh (all Nat held until 2001) and Greenslopes, Nerang, Mansfield and Aspley (all Nat held until 1989). Seems like they were most popular on the Gold Coast, maybe because it is a more conservative area? Im not sure about other states.

I could see the Nats doing well in outer suburbs of Melbourne, maybe the state electorates of Berwick, Pakenham, Melton, Yan Yean and the Narre Warrens. Here Liberal voters are more conservative and probably more aligned with the Nats’ social policy. It would be interesting to see the LNP demerge and if the Nats could still pick up urban seats.

Apparently there is polling to suggest the libs are doing well in mcewen Chisholm Astana Nd Goldstein. But dunkley and kooyoong look less likely

The Nats won’t get close to a 25% primary in Bullwinkel. WA is not like Qld where people closer to the metro have an affinity for the National party. They do not have a history for voting National in Federal campaigns so this will be a TPP between the ALP and Liberal. The last time the Nats ran in O’Connor in 2019 they polled a primary of 12.6% In the 2022 election in the neighbouring Durack the Nats candidate polled 10.1%. Mia Davies has a profile coming out the Central Wheatbelt state electorate but that will not be enought to drive the primary vote over 15% or so.

Mia Davies is the ex WA Nats leader and pretty well regarded Huxley maybe 25% is overly optimistic for them but if they’re close enough to the Lib candidate on primaries you’d think the Nat would get the bulk of preferences over the Lib.

WA produced a statewide two party preferred vote of 55-45 in Labor’s favour at the 2022 federal election. The median seats on the new boundaries are Bullwinkel and Tangney, both of which have smaller Labor margins than the statewide vote. So in actual fact these boundaries are favourable to the Liberals.

Correction: the median seats are in fact Bullwinkel and Pearce, which actually fall either side of the statewide vote. So the boundaries are basically fair.

Last I saw Mia davies and the nats were out polling the libs in bullwinkel

Tangey will likely be a Labor loss as well as bullwinkel a notionally loss. The only way I see Labor holding bullwinkel is if the nats and libs get drawn into old conflicts and allow Labor to come up the middle. Swan and Pearce could be lineball but I’d say Labor will marginally hold Pearce. Though I’d imagine they’ll lose both in 2028. Perth hasluck cowan could also be in play then too.

Do you have a reference for that polling John?

Malcolm I know who Mia Davies is – I work in the electorate. She will pull votes from the east of Bullwinkel but her old state electorate of Central Wheatbelt had only 22000 electors in the 2021 state election. I can’t see a Nationals candidate polling strongly enough closer to the metro to get a primary vote that will knock a Liberal candidate out of the 2PP.

There was some reference to internal Nationals polling in The West Australian suggesting Labor was ahead of the Nationals 52-48 on 2PP.

https://thewest.com.au/politics/federal-politics/nationals-eye-rocky-path-to-bullwinkel-victory-as-polling-puts-labor-ahead-c-15762386

The nats will have the advantage of focusing on one seat with all their resources while Labor and the liberals need to spread them to fight for almost all the Perth seats.

So it would be in libs interest to not get into a war with the nats over this seat since even if nats win it, it hurts labor

Re Bullwinkle
The Avon Valley is only a small part of this seat and the design was to eventually exclude it from this seat.which means this seat is a growth seat. With 2pp of 55/45 and 3.3% margin people assume that Labor has lost this seat in 2025 . Labor actually polled ok in U the Avon Valley.. the key to this is I think the town of Northam. There is also going to be a disparity between the growth rates of the Perth and the More rural parts of this seat. Obviously Labor will poll better in the Perth sections.
10 years ago this seat would not have been in contention.for Labor but.now I think it will be close between Labor and liberals.

With a 3.3% margin it would be 53.7/46.3 ……

@Mick Quinlivan – It is interesting that in the 80’s Northam was a Labor Town with the railways and the flour mill. My uncle was great friends with the Labor member in Northam who held it from 74 to 86. Also Bert Hawke (Bob Hawke’s uncle) held the seat from 33 to 68 including a period as Premier of WA. So Northam is probably the key of the seat.

The Perth sections of this seat are not in current growth corridors. There are some suburbs on the coastal plain but their growth is limited by the Perth Hills so while there will certainly be higher growth on the Perth side most of the urban areas in this seat are already established. At a 50/50 election the Perth areas of the seat lean Liberal and the rural areas including Northam are solid National it seems unlikely if the Labor vote reverts in WA to the norm that Labor wins, would think it’s likely either a Nationals WA or Liberal win. The Nationals say they will be standing in some Perth Hills seats at the state election so it’ll be interesting to see how they go there as it will give an indication as to their chances in Bullwinkel, while the hills are part of the Perth Metro it’s semi-rural in character.

I am not so sure that the town of Northam will be so influential in the Bullwinkel election. The 2023 population for the whole Shire of Northam is 12,193 people, not all of whom will be on the elctoral roll. How many in a Federal electorate these days? 100,000 or so? The Shire itself stretches to the east of Northam and further back west along the Great Eastern Highway toward Perth. My sense of it is that town residents however, would be pretty solid ALP voters.

Re the Nats running in the hills electorates, Lib sources tell me they are not serious about the Legislative Assembly seats – just trying to crib together enough votes for the Legislative Council to keep their presence in that chamber.

Northam hasn’t had a majority ALP vote since the 1980s. Even in 2022 Melissa Price polled 53% 2PP in Northam, and that was of course a low point. The demographics have changed since Northam elected ALP MLAs from 1933 to 1986. But you are right, it will not be decisive in Bullwinkel.
The redistribution commissioners should be congratulated in affirming the name of Bullwinkel after sadly misguided objections. They also acted sensibly in realigning the proposed Tangney-Fremantle boundary that would have left next door neighbours in Leeming in different electorates.

Northam will not be decisive as it makes up too small part of the electorate. The Avon Valley like wise is too small. For this reason the nat candidate cannot beat the liberal. But on the basis of a 10% average swing.. Labor won the 2 Northam booths narrowly and lost the prepoll 55/45 which was quite a good result. The Northam result will indicate if the alp vote is holding up or not

Does anybody know of any redistribution tools? thanks

The most basic effective method of redistribution submissions is a combination of the AEC SA1 enrolment figures plus the ABS map that overlays existing boundaries, SA2s and most importantly SA1s.