LIB 7.3%
Incumbent MP
Steve Irons, since 2007.
Geography
Swan covers suburbs in the inner south of Perth. This includes Belmont, South Perth, Victoria Park and parts of Canning and Kalamunda LGAs. Swan goes as far east as the airport and High Wycombe, and also covers the suburbs of Victoria Park, Cloverdale, Kewdale, Rivervale, Bentley, Cannington, Como and Manning.
Redistribution
Swan shifted north-east, losing Ferndale to Tangney, Langford to Burt and Beckenham to Hasluck. In exchange Swan gained High Wycombe from Hasluck. These changes increased the Liberal margin from 6.5% to 7.3%.
History
Swan is an original federation electorate. It was first held by John Forrest for the Protectionist party from 1901. Forrest was the first Premier of Western Australia and moved to federal politics in 1901. He served as a minister in various governments, including four stints as Treasurer, the last being in the year up until his death in 1918 under Billy Hughes.
The ensuing by-election was won by 21-year-old Labor candidate Edwin Corboy when the Nationalist and Country Party candidates split the conservative vote. This led to the government introducing preference voting, and he lost the seat at the 1919 election to John Prowse of the Country Party. The Country part held the seat until 1943, first John Prowse then Henry Gregory and Thomas Marwick. Marwick was defeated by the ALP’s Donald Mountjoy in 1943, and Mountjoy was defeated by the Country Party’s Leonard Hamilton in 1946.
The Parliament was expanded in 1949 and Hamilton moved to the new seat of Canning, and the Liberal Party’s Bill Grayden won the seat. The ALP’s Harry Webb won the seat in 1954 and held it for one term until 1955, when he moved to the new seat of Stirling. Richard Cleaver of the Liberals won the seat in 1955 and held it until his defeat in 1969.
Adrian Bennett held the seat for the ALP from 1969 until 1975, when John Martyr won the seat for the Liberals. Martyr was a former state secretary of the Democratic Labor Party. He was defeated in 1980 by Kim Beazley.
Beazley held the seat until 1996, when he moved to the safer seat of Brand. Don Randall won the seat for the Liberals in 1996 and was defeated in 1998. He later moved to the nearby seat of Canning and has held it since 2001.
ALP candidate Kim Wilkie won Swan in 1998. He held the seat until the 2007 election, when he was the only sitting Labor MP to be unseated, losing to Steve Irons. Irons was re-elected in 2010 and 2013.
Candidates
- Sarah Nielsen-Harvey (Greens)
- Steve Klomp (Australian Christians)
- Tammy Solonec (Labor)
- Steve Irons (Liberal)
Assessment
Swan is a seat which was held by Labor when they were stronger in Western Australia. If there is a big swing back to Labor in Western Australia, as polls predict, the Liberals could be vulnerable in Swan, but there is no guarantee of a Labor gain.
2013 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Steve Irons | Liberal | 39,972 | 48.9 | +2.4 | 49.5 |
| John Bissett | Labor | 25,037 | 30.6 | -4.7 | 30.1 |
| Gerard Siero | Greens | 9,446 | 11.6 | -0.3 | 11.2 |
| Ken Duncan | Palmer United Party | 3,463 | 4.2 | +4.2 | 4.4 |
| Steve Klomp | Australian Christians | 1,465 | 1.8 | +1.8 | 1.7 |
| Moyna Rapp | Family First | 797 | 1.0 | -0.3 | 1.0 |
| Troy Ellis | Australian Protectionist Party | 718 | 0.9 | +0.9 | 0.8 |
| Paul Davies | Rise Up Australia | 488 | 0.6 | +0.6 | 0.5 |
| Noel Avery | Katter’s Australian Party | 421 | 0.5 | +0.5 | 0.5 |
| Others | 0.2 | ||||
| Informal | 4,879 | 6.0 |
2013 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Steve Irons | Liberal | 46,246 | 56.5 | +4.0 | 57.3 |
| John Bissett | Labor | 35,561 | 43.5 | -4.0 | 42.7 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into four parts, mostly along local government boundaries. Polling places in the South Perth council area have been grouped as “west”. Those in Belmont and Kalamunda council areas have been grouped as “north-east”. Those in Canning council area, and southern parts of Victoria Park council area, have been grouped as “south-east”, with the remainder of Victoria Park council area being grouped as “central”.
The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-party-preferred votes in all four areas, ranging from 50.6% in the south-east to 68% in the west.
The Greens vote ranged from 8.9% in the north-east to 15% in the centre of the seat.
| Voter group | GRN % | LIB 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| North-East | 8.9 | 53.3 | 18,663 | 23.7 |
| West | 11.4 | 68.0 | 16,999 | 21.5 |
| South-East | 11.8 | 50.6 | 11,461 | 14.5 |
| Central | 15.1 | 52.2 | 9,825 | 12.5 |
| Other votes | 10.9 | 58.0 | 21,950 | 27.8 |
The ALP have an outside chance here. My gut feeling though is that incumbency + the beefy margin will just get the Libs over the line.
Honestly, i’d be leaning Lib here, just based off incumbency, although let’s wait and see if the polling for Labor holds up in WA and this could be a really close result.
The boundaries seem strange here. I don’t understand the logic of including High Wycombe in the electorate considering it is separated from the rest of the electorate by the airport.
GG, agreed. High Wycombe looks like a more natural fit with Hasluck.
There’s the Swan and Canning Rivers to the north-west and south-west, the Roe Highway and industrial areas to the south-east, and the airport to the north-east. There’s not quite enough electors in between all those areas, so you have to breach one of those very strong boundaries to make up the numbers.
In the circumstances, High Wycombe is a kind of a “least worst” option rather than an ideal situation.
Swan actually shed Beckenham to Hasluck, which sits within that core area you described.
Inflated lib margin………….. but don’t know if will change
Traditionally Swan is a marginal seat finely balanced between a strong Liberal majority in the west and Labor majority in the rest.
Not sure what will happen here but it’s line all based on statewide polling.
This is the one seat in Western Australia I’ll be watching intently. I think Burt and Cowan can be almost counted as Labor gains, but it seems Labor are going for this one too. It’s lineball IMO.
Yep. With a big swing to Labor in WA anticipated, Swan will come right back into play.
Sportsbet has this on a knife edge
Coalition and Labor both on 1.87
The Greens candidate seems very active and she also gets the donkey vote. Predicting good results for her, though nowhere close to winning.
Same thing that has happened in Hasluck has happened here…
Coalition 1.70, Labor 1.87
Typical pairing would be 1.87 and 1.87, or 1.70 and about 2.10.
Looks like I was right – this has updated,
Coalition 1.70 still, Labor 2.05
Coalition firming significantly
Coalition 1.40, Labor 2.60
Will update again if it gets closer.
This is a WA seat where I’d like to see a poll. Without any info however, I’d say the Libs will be better placed to hold this than Cowan.
My prediction: Not as safe as it looks, expect Labor to win back more of the eastern booths in this seat. Will be a nailbiter to the bitter end, Irons will probably squeak back in from his incumbency.