Riverton – WA 2013

LIB 2.0%

Incumbent MP
Mike Nahan, since 2008.

Geography
Southern Perth. Riverton lies on the southern side of the Canning River, covering the suburbs of Rossmoyne, Shelley, Riverton, Parkwood and Willetton. Almost all of Riverton lies in Canning local government area.

Redistribution
Riverton covers all of its 2008 territory, as well as Rossmoyne, which was gained from Bateman. Prior to the redistribution, Riverton was the most marginal Liberal seat in the state, but the redistribution increased the margin from 0.2% to 2.0%.

History
Riverton has existed since 1989.

The seat was held by Graham Kierath for the Liberal Party from 1989 until he was defeated in 2001.

Tony McRae defeated Kierath in 2001. He held the seat for the ALP for two terms.

In 2008, McRae was narrowly defeated by the Liberal Party’s Mike Nahan, losing by 64 votes.

Candidates
Sitting Liberal MP Mike Nahan is running for re-election. The ALP is running Hannah Beazley. The Greens are running Marcus Atkinson.

Assessment
Riverton is a very marginal seat.

2008 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Mike Nahan LIB 8,002 41.3 +1.4
Tony McRae ALP 7,722 39.9 -4.3
Sol Hanna GRN 2,037 10.5 +4.6
Daniel Ossevoort CDP 652 3.4 +0.4
Joy Drennan FF 548 2.8 +0.3
Christopher Boots IND 403 2.1 +2.1

2008 two-candidate-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Mike Nahan LIB 9,708 50.2 +2.2
Tony McRae ALP 9,644 49.8 -2.2

 

 

Polling booths in Riverton at the 2008 WA state election. North in green, South in blue.

Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into two parts. The north covers Rossmoyne and Riverton, and the south covers Willetton and Parkwood.

The ALP won the southern parts of the seat: 42.5% to 38.8%. The Liberal Party won the north more convincingly: 49.3% to 32.8%.

Voter group LIB % ALP % GRN % Total votes % of ordinary votes
South 38.80 42.46 10.56 10,649 60.92
North 49.33 32.80 10.41 6,830 39.08
Other votes 40.62 38.65 11.69 3,395
Liberal primary votes in Riverton at the 2008 WA state election.
Labor primary votes in Riverton at the 2008 WA state election.
Greens primary votes in Riverton at the 2008 WA state election.

10 COMMENTS

  1. Swap ‘north’ for ‘south’ in a few places there… Rossmoyne is the rich northern part near the river. 😉

  4. I think people are not taking into account positive impact the Metronet is having on Perth. Many in this electorate deal with traffic gridlock daily to get to their destination.

    I understand some strong pockets of Lib support in this electorate.

    I predict ALP gain (less then 1%)

  5. Five predicted gains for Labor when the polls show 57-43…….Is the Coalition going to poll 120% in their own safe seats??

  6. Peter: Metronet is not having a positive impact on Perth (present tense). It certainly will have a positive impact when it gets built (future tense), but it isn’t a thing yet. Plus, no matter how good it will be when it does get built, Riverton won’t be an area affected by it much. The new Thornlie-Cockburn line will directly affect the seats of Southern River and Jandakot (SE growth suburbs), where its passengers would live.

    MDM: The kind of polls that show federal Libs jerking between 51-49 to 56-44 in a couple of weeks are hopelessly unusable in WA, where the eastern states-based polling companies only remember this state exists a couple of times a year (what happened to Westpoll?). Quirks like the WA version going from 12% to 8% for the Greens make it easy to read whatever you want into it. Especially with weird regional politics like WA has, you’re gonna need better than that.

  8. Bird of paradox the last westpoll polls showed a more clear liberal advantage then newspoll. It had TPP vote for Labor down at 41%. I will leave a link. I understand that people like Mark McGowan hell I like him and I tend not to vote Labor more often then not. The 57% vote for the Coalition is very unlikely but I believe with the federal discussion around the mining tax a 55-45 coalition win seems likely since the liberal party won it at the last federal election and getting someone to vote for you on the state level who has already voted for you on the federal level is allot easier then getting someone who never voted for you to lend you there vote.

  10. In terms of 2PP polling, it could be likely that there will be a stronger swing in some rural areas of the State where the Nationals are sitting prominent members in previously unwinnable seats. The swing in Perth seats may not be so strong in some places.

    Riverton – Liberal retain

Comments are closed.