LIB 12.3%
Incumbent MP
Dennis Jensen, since 2004.
Geography
Southern Perth. Tangney includes a number of suburbs on the southern shore of the Swan River and Canning River. Tangney covers most of Melville council area, the southern half of Canning council area, and a smaller part of Gosnells council. Suburbs include Alfred Cove, Attadale, Melville, Applecross, Mount Pleasant, Winthrop, Leeming, Willetton, Canning Vale, Rossmoyne and Shelley.
History
Tangney was created at the 1974 redistribution. The Liberal Party has dominated the seat, winning Tangney at all but two elections.
Tangney was first won in 1974 by 27-year-old John Dawkins, running for the ALP. Dawkins only held the seat for one term, losing it in 1975. Dawkins later won the seat of Fremantle in 1977 and served as a cabinet minister in the Hawke government and then Treasurer in the Keating government until his retirement in 1993.
The Liberal Party’s Peter Richardson won Tangney in 1975. Richardson left the Liberal Party in 1977 and joined the minor Progress Party, a libertarian pro-market party founded by John Singleton. He ran for the Senate in 1977, but failed to win a seat.
Tangney was won in 1977 by Liberal candidate Peter Shack. He held the seat until 1983, when he lost the seat to the ALP’s George Gear. Gear only held the seat for one term, before transferring to Canning in 1984. He later served as Assistant Treasurer from 1993 to 1996, and lost Canning at the 1996 election.
In 1984, Tangney was won back by Peter Shack. He held it for the next decade, before retiring in 1993.
Tangney was won in 1993 by barrister Daryl Williams, also from the Liberal Party. Williams was appointed Attorney-General upon the election of the Howard government in 1996. He served in the role until 2003, when he became Minister for Communications. He retired from Parliament in 2004.
In 2004, Tangney was won by Dennis Jensen. He is a prominent climate change skeptic, and was often the loudest voice criticising action on climate change in the Parliament. In 2006, he lost his preselection, but this was overturned after intervention by John Howard, and he was re-elected in 2007, and again in 2010.
Candidates
- Stephen Andrew Carson (Rise Up Australia)
- Dennis Jensen (Liberal)
- Wayne Driver (Palmer United Party)
- Luke Willis (Labor)
- John Wieske (Australian Christians)
- Peter Best (Greens)
Assessment
Tangney is a safe Liberal seat.
2010 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Dennis Jensen | LIB | 46,712 | 55.69 | +3.31 |
| David Doepel | ALP | 21,637 | 25.80 | -5.73 |
| Peter Best | GRN | 11,311 | 13.49 | +5.20 |
| Ka-ren Chew | CDP | 2,814 | 3.36 | +1.01 |
| Moyna Rapp | FF | 1,399 | 1.67 | +0.53 |
2010 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Dennis Jensen | LIB | 52,266 | 62.32 | +2.51 |
| David Doepel | ALP | 31,607 | 37.68 | -2.51 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into four areas. Those polling places in the Melville council area were divided into North-West and West. Those polling places in Canning and Gosnells council areas were divided into East and South-East.
The Liberal Party won a majority in all four areas, ranging from 57.2% in the east to 67.6% in the north-west. The Greens vote ranges from 11.1% in the south-east to 13.9% in the east.
| Voter group | GRN % | LIB 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| West | 13.39 | 63.54 | 20,309 | 24.21 |
| East | 13.90 | 57.22 | 17,883 | 21.32 |
| North-West | 12.80 | 67.56 | 16,306 | 19.44 |
| South-East | 11.08 | 59.93 | 11,209 | 13.36 |
| Other votes | 15.29 | 62.72 | 18,166 | 21.66 |
I’ve once voted at what I’m assuming is the big blue 71, Mt Pleasant. In a grotty old sharehouse variously inhabited by hippies, speed freaks, exchange students, a wannabe post-modern poet and me, I walked down Reynolds Rd about 5pm one warm Saturday arvo to help Mark Latham become PM. I knew Howard had probably won before I voted (with a 3 hr time difference, the famous Western Sydney had already had their say), and I knew I was living in a very blue seat. Still voted anyway. I’m bloody-minded like that. (I also voted for Brian Greig in the senate. Double dammit.)
The state election later that summer was much more interesting… three different Liberal(ish) candidates, and I met the no-chance ALP candidate’s mum at Mt Pleasant Primary (apparently he’s a good kid). That’s the only time I’ve ever voted for a tory ahead of Labor – tactical voting. I was never a huge fan of Janet Woollard (aka Mrs Lovejoy off the Simpsons), but she was best placed to beat Graham Kierath, which she did. If she’d taught her son how to drive a boat a bit better, she might still be in parliament now.
Dennis Jensen actually lost preselection twice, and had to be saved by higher-ups. He couldn’t make it past his own party branch in 2010 either, so assuming he doesn’t embarrass his party too much (Mumble had some things to say about him last week), this time will be the first preselection vote he’s won since he entered parliament nine years ago. Such a popular man.
It wasn’t Western Sydney in 2004 – it was northern Tasmania. Tasmania had already switched to daylight savings before the east coast so results started to come in from Tasmania right on 6pm in the big east-coast cities – by the time I got home from collecting corflutes from polling places at 7pm it was all over. Once Bass and Braddon had flipped from Labor to Liberal, Latham was cooked.
Yeah, I remember that one. As soon as Bass and Braddon were gone, it was clear that Labor couldn’t win. That was one of the shortest election nights I can remember.
Macca-BNE . I’d be happy to call the election now so you can plan to have a free night on the 14th of September. Real question is who is going to remain left of the speaker?
The same thing happened with Tasmania in reverse in 1993. In 1993 Tasmania was still on daylight saving after the other states had gone back to standard time, and the big swings to Labor in Tassie had already started coming through before 6pm on the mainland.
Luke Willis is listed on the WA Labor website as their candidate for Tangney.