Pearce – Australia 2016

Pearce reminds me a little of McEwen, in that it seems to be a leftovers seat from all the bits that didn’t fit in the country or Perth seats. Removing Mundaring makes it even more elongated without much east-west connection between the different parts of the seat.

Porter would probably be Premier by now if he’d stayed in WA politics.

Yep Pearce is certainly a mishmash of an electorate. It contains two disparate outer suburban corridors married with WA’s inner Wheatbelt.

If the swing is on towards Labor in WA I’d expect big swings in the outer metro which makes up the bulk of voters in this seat. The swing could be even larger in the Ellenbrook area where the Liberal margin looks inflated to me, and there are state issues such as the canned railway line that will be a factor.

I think Pearce is likely to be a tight Liberal retain but in the current political climate in WA it wouldn’t shock me to see this seat change hands.

@Malcolm I very much doubt it. For Labor to pick this up, they need to do more than just reverse the Coalition’s dominance from a high of ~ 58% 2PP. They would need to actually win the 2PP themselves and win it convincingly. ATM they are only at 50 – 50.

Avon valley almost makes this a liberal seat

Wreathy

I’m not saying this is a likely Lib loss, I’m just saying I wouldn’t be shocked if it happened. My point is there is potential for a large swing in the outer metro (which is the bulk of votes here) and depending on the extent of this it could lead to a “shock” loss.

@Malcolm if we’re talking about surprises I think Canning or Stirling would be more likely than this.

^^ I would have thought a predominantly outer metro seat is more likely to swing above the average, but yes if the current polls suggesting swings of 10% against the federal Libs are replicated on election night then we could be in for a few surprises in WA.

This seat has already swung too far already. Probably due to the loss of an incumbent. Thus, I doubt it will swing much further given Porter has had several years to establish a profile here. But hey, anything is possible.

Labor haven’t won Pearce since it was created in 1990… then again, they haven’t won the state 2pp since 1987, and that looks like happening. It’s unlikely, but I wouldn’t rule it out.

Also, Porter could get less of a sophomore swing than other people first elected in 2013 – he was state treasurer and attorney-general before he went federal, so any personal vote he has is built in already. Even though he represented a completely different part of Perth, most people in Pearce would’ve known who he is.

Considering how unpopulated the area NE of Perth is, you’re always gonna get some funny looking boundaries round here. Not only do the two Perth sections of Pearce have little in common with each other, neither do the two rural sections. There’s not much between Toodyay and Gingin.

@BoP even when Labor won the statewide 2PP it was only very narrowly – based on notional results from 1987, Pearce would still have been in Liberal hands with a ~ 3% margin.

Methinks that if the ALP really want to win this seat, they will need more than just the statewide trend to upend decades of Liberal representation – a strong local campaign and comfortably winning the statewide vote, a feat that has not occurred since 1983.

But you’re correct, all the aforementioned evidence points to it being highly unlikely – but still very possible. Although I think that the potential for surprises in WA has diminished severely – Labor had a great chance in Stirling but left the preselection far too late.

Laurie Oakes has an article in the murdoch papers referring to ALP polling which suggests a 9% swing here. Still Lib 51%, ALP 49%. I wonder….?

@Yappo I saw that. All I can say is that the WA swing has to come from somewhere. If polls are showing that Hasluck and Cowan are holding strong, it is a fair bet to assume that there are going to monumental swings in both Labor and Liberal safe seats.

Still think the Libs will hold this though, probably around a 3 – 5% margin when all is said and done.

My prediction: Easy Liberal hold.

Pearce is likely to be a marginal Liberal hold. It’s a winnable seat for the ALP but given their lack of attention to this seat, it’s clear they don’t seem to realise this.

While the margin will come down, I base my safeness of the Liberal hold on how Pearce has always been a Liberal seat, plus Porter’s high profile.

Having grown up in this area, and knowing a lot of the people, I feel this could be a real change. The NLP have done nothing but sell us out. Christian Porter is a champion at debate, the gift of the gab, but is too overly ambitious and impatient to get to the top personally. He has no real interest in the area. People are very aware of the wasteful spending of the NLP , $400 million on Centrelink fraud, which was the brainchild of Christian Porter, sending outrageous debt Invoices to single parents, with last minute appointments up to 75km away, losing their pension if they missed it. The trauma this put on struggling families is deeply disturbing. The people of this area are also aware of the $423 million given to the little known security firm Paladin, who’s HQ is a shack at the end of a dirt road on Kangaroo Island, and who’s bank account is in Singapore. $21.5 million to the Hospital on Manus Island to treat the refugees. This money was reportedly put in Trust of the Deputy Prime Minister, who in 2006 was found guilty of misappropriation of funds. The hospital was closed at odd times and giving out expired medication. Now the Government have decided to reopen Christmas Island, to treat these poor people. I wonder how many $millions that will cost, as I’m told the hospital there is very small, with only a few beds. Will they get some of the millions back, now that they’re closing the detention center on Manus Island?
$440 million to 6 NLP buddies with connections to the mining and coal industries, to protect the Great Barrier Reef? $30 million to Rupert Murdoch with no contract, for Women’s Sport.
$288,812 for Michaelia Cash’s /AWU raid tip off, her legal bill, paid for by taxpayers. $550,000 for the Registered Organization Commission investigating the case. All this spending, at the expense of our hospitals, schools, pensions, Aged Care and Nursing Homes.
Getting back to the Attorney General, Christian Porter, he and Scott Morrison have just appointed/stacked the Administration Appeals Tribunal and the Fair Work Commission with 34 ex Liberal Politicians and Staffers. All these things we read about, day after day. Meanwhile, the Chinese have built an airport on a WA station? Shweppes have all but drained the country town of Stanley in Victoria of it’s pristine ground water. AGL have been given the go ahead, fracking for gas in remote communities in the NT. Against the wishes of the people and the Traditional Owners. Fracking will pollute their ground water with toxic chemicals used to extract the gas. Then there’s Adani’s Carmichael coal mine, who has already dumped toxic sludge from dredging Abbott Point onto the Great Barrier Reef. Then drilled 7 bores into the Artesian Basin illegally. The floods recently, overflowed the holding pools, sending toxic coal sediment into the Carley wetlands endangering wildlife and washed into the sea. Scientists say this coal sediment travels up to 200 kms.
Scientists predict that Earth has about 10 years to turn around global warming. In that time, at the current rate, we will reach the 2° which will be catastrophic. However, the coal from Adani mine in Qld. has the potential to warm the Earth to the critical 2° within two years. Everyone is feeling the effects of the unpredictable weather, with some WA areas reaching unprecedented temperatures, probably not felt in air conditioned offices of Parliament. The people of York, Northam, Toodyay, Bindoon, Gingin are feeling it. They want to know why the Government is not doing anything about it. They have contributed over $3 Billion dollars, via a tax to invest in renewable Energy sources, and some of this has reportedly been used to fire up coal stations? Really? WTF? People have the internet and they have access to information. Don’t pre-judge how the people will vote. Government are supposed to serve the people, and this is clearly not happening!