ALP 11.1%
Incumbent MP
Don Punch, since 2017.
Geography
Bunbury is a small seat just covering the Bunbury urban area, including Bunbury, Picton, Dalyellup, Glen Iris, College Grove, Davenport and Withers.
Redistribution
Bunbury expanded to the south, taking in areas from Collie-Preston. These changes increased the Labor margin slightly from 10.8% to 11.1%.
History
The seat of Bunbury has existed since 1890. The seat has been dominated since the 1950s by the Liberal Party, but Labor has taken the seat on a number of occasions.
Labor’s Frederick Withers held Bunbury from 1924 until 1947. He was succeded by Liberal MP James Murray, who held the seat for one term until 1950. Labor’s Frank Guthrie held Bunbury from 1950 until 1955.
The Liberal Party held the seat continuously from 1955 until 1983. George Roberts represented Bunbury from 1955 until 1962, followed by Maurice Williams until 1973 and then John Sibson until 1983.
Labor’s Phil Smith won Bunbury in 1983, and held the seat for ten years until his defeat in 1993 by Liberal candidate Ian Osborne.
Osborne was re-elected in 1996, but lost in 2001 to Labor’s Tony Dean.
Dean held Bunbury for one term, and lost in 2005 to the Liberal Party’s John Castrilli. Castrilli was re-elected in 2008 and 2013, and served as a minister from 2008 until 2017.
Castrilli retired in 2017, and Labor’s Don Punch won with a massive 23% swing.
Candidates
- Gail Jones (One Nation)
- Kelly Hibbert (Independent)
- Shane Hastie (Shooters, Fishers and Farmers)
- Tony Merrifield (No Mandatory Vaccination)
- Kieran Noonan (Western Australia Party)
- James Minson (Sustainable Australia)
- Don Punch (Labor)
- Patricia Perks (Greens)
- Dan Acatinca (Waxit)
- Matthew Foreman (Liberal)
- Codee-Lee Down (Nationals)
Assessment
Bunbury’s margin looks strong but it’s based off a very big swing in 2017. A resurgent Liberal Party would be looking to win this seat back.
2017 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Don Punch | Labor | 10,099 | 43.9 | +14.4 | 44.2 |
| Ian Morison | Liberal | 5,118 | 22.2 | -30.0 | 22.0 |
| James Hayward | Nationals | 3,162 | 13.7 | +6.4 | 13.6 |
| Samuel Brown | One Nation | 2,050 | 8.9 | +8.9 | 8.9 |
| Michael Baldock | Greens | 1,559 | 6.8 | +0.4 | 6.7 |
| Bernie Masters | Shooters, Fishers & Farmers | 804 | 3.5 | +3.5 | 3.5 |
| Anthony Shannon | Flux | 172 | 0.7 | +0.7 | 0.7 |
| Aldo Del Popolo | Micro Business | 65 | 0.3 | +0.3 | 0.3 |
| 0.1 | |||||
| Informal | 1,150 | 4.8 |
2017 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Don Punch | Labor | 14,003 | 60.8 | +23.0 | 61.1 |
| Ian Morison | Liberal | 9,010 | 39.2 | -23.0 | 38.9 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into three parts: east, north and south.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 57.9% in the north to 67.4% in the east.
The Nationals came third, with a primary vote ranging from 12.3% in the east to 14.2% in the north.
| Voter group | NAT prim % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| South | 13.5 | 65.1 | 5,743 | 23.9 |
| North | 14.2 | 57.9 | 4,174 | 17.4 |
| East | 12.3 | 67.4 | 3,830 | 16.0 |
| Pre-poll | 15.0 | 58.2 | 5,834 | 24.3 |
| Other votes | 12.8 | 57.1 | 4,413 | 18.4 |
Election results in Bunbury at the 2017 WA state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and Nationals primary votes.
The Two-Party-Preferred essentially flipped at the last election, and it will be a pretty tall order to reverse it, though I suspect many of these South-West seats aren’t as warm to the hard-border approach of the state government, perhaps a swing against the sitting member is to be expected, but still not enough for it to change hands.