LIB 13.5%
Incumbent MP
Melissa Price, since 2013.
- Geography
- Redistribution
- History
- Candidate summary
- Assessment
- 2019 results
- Booth breakdown
- Results maps
Geography
North of Western Australia. Durack covers a majority of Western Australia’s landmass, stretching from the northern Wheatbelt outside of Perth, covering the coast all the way to the Northern Territory border. Major towns include Geraldton, Broome and Port Hedland.
Redistribution
Durack expanded closer to Perth, taking in the rural hinterland parts of the seat of Pearce, including the Gingin, Chittering, Toodyay, Northam and York council areas, along with part of the Swan council area. Durack also lost fifteen council areas in the northern wheatbelt to O’Connor, including Merredin, as well as Wiluna Shire further north. This reduced the Liberal margin from 14.8% to 13.5%.
History
Durack was created in 2010, out of northern parts of O’Connor and Kalgoorlie.
Kalgoorlie had previously swung between Labor and Liberal, and was held by the ALP’s Graeme Campbell from 1980.
Campbell was expelled from the ALP in 1995, and was re-elected in 1996.
Campbell lost to the Liberal Party’s Barry Haase in 1998.
Haase moved to Durack in 2010, and won a fifth term.
Haase retired in 2013, and was succeeded by Liberal candidate Melissa Price, who has been re-elected twice.
Assessment
The Liberal Party is under no threat from Labor in Durack. At times in the past the Nationals have been close enough to the top two to pose a threat, but the Nationals vote was hit hard by One Nation in 2019, and was further impacted by the redistribution bringing the seat closer to Perth. It’s likely the seat will stay Liberal.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Melissa Price | Liberal | 34,429 | 44.3 | +2.6 | 44.6 |
| Sharyn Morrow | Labor | 16,742 | 21.5 | -4.4 | 22.7 |
| Grahame Gould | One Nation | 7,407 | 9.5 | +9.5 | 9.6 |
| Johani Mamid | Greens | 6,287 | 8.1 | -2.0 | 8.0 |
| Scott Bourne | Nationals | 7,878 | 10.1 | -5.8 | 7.7 |
| Gary Mounsey | Western Australia Party | 2,895 | 3.7 | +3.7 | 3.3 |
| Brenden Hatton | United Australia Party | 2,083 | 2.7 | +2.7 | 2.7 |
| Others | 1.3 | ||||
| Informal | 3,892 | 4.8 | +0.9 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Melissa Price | Liberal | 50,332 | 64.8 | +3.7 | 63.5 |
| Sharyn Morrow | Labor | 27,389 | 35.2 | -3.7 | 36.5 |
Booths have been divided into six areas. Those in the Geraldton urban area have been grouped together. The rest of the electorate was split into five areas. From north to south, these are Kimberley, Pilbara, Gascoyne, Mid West and Wheatbelt.
The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in five out of six areas, ranging from 56% in the Pilbara to 74.4% in the mid-west. Labor polled 53.65% in the Kimberley.
| Voter group | GRN prim | ON prim | LIB 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| Wheatbelt | 5.2 | 9.6 | 69.4 | 15,990 | 17.7 |
| Geraldton | 8.2 | 9.9 | 63.7 | 10,980 | 12.1 |
| Pilbara | 9.4 | 12.8 | 56.0 | 9,750 | 10.8 |
| Mid West | 3.9 | 9.4 | 74.4 | 5,241 | 5.8 |
| Kimberley | 18.4 | 5.7 | 46.4 | 4,503 | 5.0 |
| Gascoyne | 8.5 | 6.8 | 60.5 | 2,298 | 2.5 |
| Pre-poll | 8.1 | 10.1 | 63.5 | 27,072 | 29.9 |
| Other votes | 8.1 | 8.3 | 63.5 | 14,707 | 16.2 |
Election results in Durack at the 2019 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor and One Nation.
Rumour has it that former Nationals WA leader Brendon Grylls will run in this seat.
https://thewest.com.au/politics/federal-politics/nationals-set-to-target-defence-industry-minister-melissa-price-at-next-election-ng-b882047047z
Could be a problem for the Liberals as the Nationals in WA are an independent party, and not in the coalition. Plus, the Nationals have extra resources as the official opposition in WA. Grylls is still very popular and could be one to watch.
Liberal hold, the Nationals have a better chance in O’conner then here.
Grylls is still popular?
To who?
This is rural so I doubt the Liberals are a shoe-in. Since when do the Liberals do well in rural areas? She is only MP because the WA Nats just never take this seat seriously but if they do they can win it. Minister or not no member is safe. Look at John Howard in 2007 who had the highest job in the land.
Daniel, in WA the Nationals rarely run federally and have only performed well in a few elections recently (2010 when Tony Crook was elected to O’Connor and also 2013 when both remote seats were marginal Lib v Nat contests).
But a challenge by Brendan Grylls could make this marginal, similar to the open seat contest in 2013 when Melissa Price was held to a 3-4% margin against Shane Van Styn (who is now a local councillor).
Yoh An Tee
i figure there are about 20k more voters than in 2013 . So it’s pretty unlikely that Price could be under threat . Though of all the ministers NONE deserves to go more, than her. She is so appalling that she’d struggle to win a place in the RGR lineup . I dare anyone to identify a single quality that she embodies (a positive one)
Melissa Price is well established in Durack and will be hard to shift. If Brendon Grylls were to run (which I doubt as he has shown no inclination to re-enter politics) Price would have a huge budget to campaign with. The iron ore companies saw Grylls and his tax plans as a major threat in 2016/17 and they will not have forgotten that. Hard to see Grylls wanting to go Federal when the conservatives are likely to go into Opposition. Backbench in Opposition compared to having been a State Minister with lots of taxpayer dollars to pork barrel with? Easy choice.
In the unlikely event that the House gets expanded, could the old Kalgoorlie electorate be reestablished? And would the ALP be competitive in it, assuming a lot of the agricultural areas in Durack/O’Connor are excised?
Wish cross votes were available inan easy way.. eg what was the Pilbara electorate based on fed results.
@Mick Quinlivan agreed. A couple weeks ago I began trying to transport the 2019 federal election results onto a 2020 state electorate map of Queensland just for fun but got distracted by the election and never continued with it.
@Cranley
It was better structured when WA had the seat of Kalgoorlie which although huge, covering 90% of the state, fit better as a common community of mining and pastoral interests and O’Connor covered the agricultural wheatbelt.
If the house was expanded to another 28 seats (agree its unlikely anytime soon) with a corresponding 14 senators that would likely allocate WA another 3 or 4 lower house members for a total of 18 or 19. In that instance you could increase the rural allocation of WA seats from 3 to 4. You might end up with Canning moving further away from Perth and becoming a hybrid Mandurah/southwest seat, Forrest could remain on amended boundaries and then it’s more possible then to draw a sensible electorate boundary between an outer Southwest WA seat and the rest of WA.
Possible Labor target for 2025, due to it being very close.
Bob, I would doubt that theory since the large swing in WA this cycle is probably a one off due to McGowan’s strong personality/cult like following. In the post Covid era, McGowan’s popularity may fade and Labor will ultimately lose support at the next state and federal elections.
Why are there so many renters here? It’s top 4 in Australia, even more than Brisbane. If there are so many renters here why is this so strong for the Liberals?
@daniel t because of the mining agricultural industry and the FIFO and DiDO workers they don’t live here they just rent.
@bob no chance labor will be lucky to hold any of there 4 gains as they were due to McGowan’s COVID stance and popularity now that he’s gone wa will return to liberal hands.
Bit of trivial. Durack, Australia’s biggest electorate is 1383954km2 is 43248.5625 times biggest then Australia’s smallest electorate grander which is 32km2