East Metropolitan – WA 2017

Can’t see this changing although the Greens could be a threat for one seat as well as One Nation, but the Greens would be more Likely.
My Guess would be 3 Libs and 3 Labor

I think there’s a decent chance of a minor party picking up one of these seats. The Liberals are definitely going to see a drop in their primary vote, but I can’t see too much of that going straight to Labor. Despite its name, a decent chunk of East Metropolitan is in semi-rural areas. Its probably also the least affluent of the three metropolitan regions in the Legislative Council. Based on the demographic profile, I would say One Nation are in with a decent shot, and maybe even the Shooters if they can get past One Nation on the primary. Greens seems unlikely.

Important to note, however, that of a lot of the Barnett government’s big infrastructure projects have been in the inner eastern suburbs – new stadium, Gateway WA, and Midland redevelopments are all in East Metro. Whether that will translate to votes is really up to how the run their campaign (and how Labor run theirs).

Post-election every lower house seat in the Region could be represented by Labor (they are at least all within the top 10 target seats) but likely upper house representation is 3 Labor & 3 Liberal. One of great quirks of multiple member electorates.

One would argue that that’s moreso a great quirk of single-member electorates.

A fourth left seat (probably Green) is perfectly possible – a 10% swing would be similar to 2001 or 2005, which weren’t massive majorities. Same goes for South Metro. It’s something Labor should be trying for, thanks to the malapportioned upper house. Hell will freeze over before Agricultural region elects less than 4 members from the right, so anything that balances that out helps ALP+Grn closer to a majority. At the very least, it’s one less random preference harvester to rely on.

Interesting little thought bubble here. I’ve always liked a 4*9 model for the upper house – merge the three non-Perth regions into one, keep the existing Perth ones. (About a quarter of WA’s population lives outside Perth, so it works quite neatly.) If a few randoms snuck in on the GTV lottery, I wonder if they could be convinced to vote for something like that, considering the smaller quota makes it more likely for them to get elected in the future.

While a 4×9 would be a fairer division of the seats on a per-vote basis, I’d have to really consider that all three of the Metro regions have way more in common than any of the regional regions have with each other.

Possibly you could divide the Agricultural region into two split between M+P and SW, and retain the three Metro regions, and have each with seven reps (so one less MLC than today). That would have to be Roe and Central Wheatbelt into SW and Geraldton and Moore into M+P. Something seems wrong though about a region including the Kimberley and still reaching the Perth Metro area.

However the net effect (moving three country MLCs to the city, and abolishing a fourth) is not going to happen.

I just ran a scenario that sees the Australian Christians take a seat in this region.

If they can hold their vote from last time, they might be able to preference-surf all the way, collecting preferences from the Shooters, most of the Druery parties once their nominated recipient (Fluoride Free) goes out, and then One Nation.

If that combo can put them ahead of the Greens, the Greens preferences will elect Labor’s #3 with a big enough Labor overflow to push the Christians past the Liberals for the final seat.

The scenario also requires the Liberal vote to be in a sweet spot – high enough for their #3 to be ahead of the Greens when it gets down to 4 candidates for 2 spots, but low enough to be overtaken by the Christians.

Alaric – this scenario is also possible on Liberal preferences, with AC beating One Nation for the last seat instead if the Liberal vote tanks enough.

With the unexpectedly high swing to the WA Labor Party, which has led to a prediction of the Labor Party winning possibly 41 out of the 59 seats of the lower house of the state parliament, and, with the WA Labor Party and the WA Greens having been given grounds and evidence to challenge in the Court of Disputed Returns, every upper house ballot paper where an above the line vote is cast for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party, and, depending on whether the WA Labor Party and the WA Greens, so challenge all of those votes in the Court of Disputed Returns, the election results for each upper house region are completely unpredictable.

Sorry, why would they be challenging in the CODR?

Because Pauline Hanson personally broke the election rules by giving published assurances that by just marking a one above the line for her party, on the upper house ballot papers, would not be preferencing the Liberal Party ahead of the Labor Party, which caused voters to so vote for her party in both houses, on the basis of that personal assurance, which contradicts the voting tickets for her party for each of the upper house regions.

It is now a matter for both the Greens Party and the Labor Party, to decide whether they want to challenge the ballot papers so marked, or, whether they want to knowingly allow rival candidates to be elected to the upper house, in contravention of the Electoral Act.

It is not that they will definitely challenge the election outcome – that is their choice, but, I believe that they could successfully challenge the election outcome for the upper house, on that basis, which could lead to a change to the election outcome for the upper house, which could result in the Labor Party and the Greens party, together, having a majority in the upper house, and, removing some of the other parties from the upper house.

We will have to wait and see what they do about the contraventions of the Electoral Act by Pauline Hanson.

And, there is the additional aspect of the effect on the early votes, which I believe are yet to be counted, as the assurances given by Pauline Hanson, were given during the early voting period, and, apparently, at least 11% of the votes cast, were cast early, with 20,000 votes apparently being expected to be cast on the Friday that was the day immediately before the polling day.

So, the early votes are also affected by the published assurances given by Pauline Hanson, that votes cast on the upper house ballot papers, by marking just a one above the line, for her party, would not be preferencing the Liberal Party ahead of the Labor Party.

So, if the early votes are yet to be counted, and, if they are found to contain upper house ballot papers marked with just a one above the line, then those, of the expected 180,000 early votes expected to have been cast, in addition to upper house ballot papers so marked on the polling day, could have a significant effect on the election outcome, for the upper house, should the Greens and/or Labor Party candidates, choose to challenge those ballot papers in the Court of Disputed Returns.

And, thus, even moreso, is the election outcome for the upper house, unpredictable, without knowing either what the Greens and Labor parties intend to do about this, or, should they challenge the results in the Court of Disputed Returns, what would be the result of such challenge(s).

“We live in interesting times”…