Bullwinkel – Australia 2025

Liberal gain. If the Liberals don’t gain this then Dutton has problems in WA.

Honestly Labor seem to be fairing better in WA compared to the rest of the country with exception of SA. At the moment I would say its 50/50 so this could go either way.

@NP well technically the nats could win this too. I think I’d favour Mia Davies at the point. Though give n the design of the seat I don’t know how long she would hold against a liberal challenger if it were to shed the rural and regional parts.

The only way Labor can win this is an extremely strong metropolitan Perth vote. They cannot win the country section of this seat, it is farming country and with the live sheep bans – this will hurt Labor big time. It is line ball and each of Labor, Liberal and Nationals.

The real question should be why do people continue to vote for the hillbillies and hobos in the National Party. Our family farm was next door to a Deputy Premier of WA and he had no clue how to farm. We had good crops even in bad years and he could not even break even in good years.

I can’t see Mia Davies getting more then 10% or 15% of the primary vote – not enought to get ahead of the Liberal candidate and attempt to cobble together enough preferences to get ahead of the ALP. She will have a strong vote out of the eastern part of the electorate due to her profile in state politics but it won’t be enough.

Should be a Liberal gain.

James,
The only WA Politician I have met was Hendy Cowan. He came across as a likeable person. Don’t know what his farming ability was like.

@Huxley some libs might prefer to vote for a woman? Im not sure but Mia davies seems like she would be a more dedicated member than the liberal candidate

I wrote in another thread that although it is notionally Labor, the margin is inflated. It was the result of Labor pumping in resources to win Swan and Hasluck last election and also Labor’s incumbency in Burt over in the west.

Mia Davies could perform well in the east due to her profile but not so much in Perth’s outer suburbs. There’s a slim chance that she splits the non-Labor vote, thus giving Labor a pathway to winning this seat.

@Up the Dragons – from memory the Liberal candidate (Matt Moran) ran for preselection in Curtin, but was defeated by Tom White. So personally yeah he seems like a bit of a parachute being shipped from trying for a seat in the western suburbs of Perth to a hybrid seat in the east that he got.

@votante my thoughts exactly the nat -> lib vote would be stronger then the lib -> nat vote given the hybrid nature of this seat. the more urban part may vote labor over nats after preferencing libs first. this seat is also an example of the aec doing weird stuff it was entirely possible to have this entire seat in the city of perth

@Votante I’d say any split in the conservative, non-Labor vote would come straight back to either the Liberals or Nationals in preferences, so their chances of winning is still pretty high, it’s just dependent on who’s higher in preferences: Liberals or Nationals.

I’d say a Coalition gain but more favourable to Nationals as Mia Davies is high profile and is fairly moderate politically which is a rare commodity in the Nationals these days but sorely needed.

i think the fact that its a new division, no incumbent defending the seat, a close polling result, a pm whose on the nose, the fact that covid is over and mark mcgowan is gone taking the shine off labors numbers in wa all play against labor here. id say a liberal or national gain. i think longer term though the libs would be better placed due to the fact future redistribution may shed some of the more rural and regional parts.

il correct that statement based on current numbers it would actually gain more rural and regional areas and shed some of its perth territry to hasluck. interesting.

John, could you explain your post from 8:44am pls? Are you saying the Nationals primary vote will be stronger than the Liberal primary vote?

@huxley given the nature of the seat if the nats were to make the 2cp instead of the liberals some liberal voters may preference labor instead of the nats i clearly stated that. but the nat vote will likely strongly favour libs regardless

Think the Avon Valley makes up about 15% of this
Seat.The Avon valley makes up about half of Mia’s ex state seat. This is the relatively weaker part of that seat. Look at Northam narrow alp majorities.
Mia cannot outpoll the liberals here as the rest is Urban Perth .
This was a similar orientation to the old Pearce. Labor has a margin.of about 3% here based on the 2022 vote in wa which was excellent. I suspect this would be difficult for Labor to “notionally ” retain but to assume a certain win for the libs is misplaced optimism.

@Mick agreed but labor doesn’t really have anything except the splitting of the 2cp derivative vote and preference leakage especially from the Libs if nats make the 2cp. It’s hard too imagine they can hold it with no incumbency in a state that’s gonna swing away from due to the correction after 2022 especially in a year when labor is in govt and no liberal PM that’s alienating voters.

The problem for the coalition here is the libs could win the 2pp against but lose the seat in a Labor v nat contest. Mia will likely finish first or a close second in the regional and regional parts but will probably finish 3rd in the more urban parts of Perth. Libs will likely finish in the 2pp against Labor and win the seat on the grounds they will finish likely a close second in the rural and regional parts as Davies will likely leak votes to the but will outpoll her in the urban parts of Perth. If they finish first there they will likely win the seat, if they come second to Labor this seat could become interesting on a 3cp basis like macnamara in Vic and Richmond in nsw

@John the Coalition will preference each other.

The Nationals only ran in one federal seat in WA in 2022 (Durack). In Durack, Nationals preferences flowed 80.3% to the Liberals and 19.7% to Labor.

In SA, they only ran in Barker in 2022 and 81.0% of their preferences flowed to the Liberals.

In Victoria, there were several seats where the Liberals and Nationals both ran in 2022. Liberal preferences flowed 90.1% to the Nationals in National vs Labor seats, while Nationals preferences flowed 84.4% to the Liberals in Liberal vs Labor seats.

@nether yes but in the more urban parts of Perth voters may not follow that. While the preference flows in the regional and rural parts will be strong my concerns are that people in the more urban parts of Perth may not be inclined as the nats are not very popular there. So people who vote liberal 1 may not be inclined to put the nats second and may preference Labor over them. None of those seats you mentioned are in urban areas. Therefore my concerns that in a Labor v Nats contest the preferences may leak from the liberals due to the hybrid nature of the seat. But the liberals would win any contest vs Labor in my opinion. The fact this has only a small Labor margin and no incumbent member and the fact Labor has gone backwards means its likely the coalition will pick-up the seat but longterm it will likely be a Liberal held seat

John the historic record shows that Liberal preferences in WA run more heavily to National than vice-versa. Despite her high profile (any other Nat would have no chance in this outer urban seat) she may struggle to outpoll Matt Moran but if she does she is assured of a strong preference flow.

You also have to remember in WA they are not in a coalition its more of an alliance of convenience when they need it but effectively hate each other when they arent allies they compete for the same seats in much more of aggressive manner then the friendly battles they have in other states.

@jeremy yes but we have no idea what those preferences would do in urban parts of Perth. Sure we can guarantee the ones in rural and regional areas but city voters will likely be less friendly to the nats then their regional and rural brethren.

@jeremy i agree matt Moran will likely finish in the 2pp and win the seat. I just have concerns that davies may finish in the 2cp and the urban vote may help Labor come up the middle.

Federal seats in WA can often be roughly split into four state ones, but Bullwinkel is a mess. On redistributed boundaries (for next March’s election), here we go with some very handwavey estimates:

All of Kalamunda, all of Forrestfield.
About half of Midland (east of Roe Hwy).
About a third each of Swan Hills, Armadale and Darling Range.
Maybe a third of Central Wheatbelt.
A patch of Thornlie that looks big on a map but is barely populated.

Seven, maybe eight seats. In a 50-50 election (no I’m not comparing to 2021, and neither should you), Midland, Armadale and Thornlie are safe Labor, Central Wheatbelt is very safe Nat, Kalamunda marginal Lib, and the rest are 50-50 (the sort of mortgage belt outer suburbia that tends to decide state elections, so look out for them in 2029).

The Lib or Nat lean in Kalamunda and the Avon Valley is roughly cancelled out by the Labor lean in Swan View / Stratton / Bellevue (Midland) and Kelmscott (Armadale). Just eyeballing it, I don’t see the margin based on state results being all that different to the notional federal result.

Also for those trying to deduce things from the upcoming state election: Central Wheatbelt obviously has a retiring Nat MP, and so do Midland, Swan Hills, Kalamunda and Thornlie for Labor. If there’s a slightly bigger swing in those seats (especially Midland, where Michelle Roberts has been MP since 1996), that’s part of the reason why.

@bird of paradox but usually way like qld tend to vote differently at state and federal levels. And if both elections are held close together state Labor may get punished for being reminded of Albo. Either way should be a liberal gain only way I can Labor retain is if nats split the conservative vote in the urban parts

They could have contained bullwinkel solely in Perth Hills as i did but alas they went for a hybrid seat.

If WA has something like 12.5 quotas in Perth and 3.5 quotas in the rest of the state, there has to be a mixed rural-urban seat somewhere. Same reason seats like McEwen and Hume exist. If it annoys you, just wait a few years – population growth in Perth / decline in the country should fix it for you.

“but usually way like qld tend to vote differently at state and federal levels.”

They don’t vote differently all the time, they just move on their own separate cycles (state Labor obviously stratospheric over the last few years). Check the latest Newspoll state breakdowns – federal Labor is up 54-46 in WA, only a 1% swing from 2022. That would see Labor hold all existing seats and win Bullwinkel, and even make Moore a chance (due to Ian Goodenough splitting from the Libs).

@burd of paradox wa already crosses the regional/urban boundar in Canning and Durack there was absolutely no reason to do it here as well. I demonstrated this in my proposal this could of been a purely urban seat. That 54-46 is gon a be consecrated in places Labor already holds. They won’t win this seat because of it regional/rural parts that will heavily favour the libs and nats over Labor and if liberals can get 50/50 or close in the urban parts it’s over before it begins.

Without sitting or incumbent member it’s gonna hurt them even more.

About half of Central wheat belt is in this seat. The other half of Central wheat belt is more anti Labor.

John: I grew up in the Avon valley, so speaking from experience here. Plenty of people from Toodyay / Northam / York drive down to Midland to do the sort of shopping you can’t do in the country. Similarly, people drive from Beverley down the Westdale Rd / Brookton Hwy to Carousel. Just based on community of interest and transport links, if you’re going to mix urban and rural areas, this is a good part of WA to do it. It’s not that big of an issue.

@bird fair enough just saying there was no need to it.

The Avon Valley areas will be moved out of this seat. Maybe next boundary change

@mick according to my math it will actually lose parts of Perth.

Collectively the seats north of the Swan River are about 8% under quota whereas if you count O’Connor’s excess towards bullwinkels they about 6% over quota

john,
The boundaries are drawn so that all divisions have an enrolment within plus or minus 10% of redistribution quota on Wednesday 9 August 2023. Additionally, all electoral divisions are also required to be within the range of plus and minus 3.5% of the projected enrolment quota at the projection time of Friday 24 March 2028.
Therefore, the Divisions with fastest enrolment growth will commence with the lowest enrolment. Conversely, the Divisions with slowest enrolment growth, or even declining enrolment, will commence with the highest enrolment.
If the enrolment projections are correct, O’Connor and Bullwinkel will need to gain electors at the next redistribution.

The redistribution report can be found here:
https://www.aec.gov.au/redistributions/2023/wa/final-report/files/Redistribution%20of-Western-Australia-into-electoral-divisions-September-2024.pdf
The Legislative Requirements are on page 4 of the report (page 12 of the pdf file).

Hope you find this useful.

@watson in my opinion w is a chance to gain a 17th seat in 2026

A state can pick up a seat without another losing but two states gaining seats – QLD and WA – means someone has to lose – and that is not likely in the next cycle. Qld likely to get the next new seat if it can make up the small gap.

I don’t agree with recurrent comments about the undesirability of ‘hybrid seats’ extending across the Metropolitan Area boundary at federal level. Such seats are the norm in Western Australia.
In 1949-80 the seats of Canning and Moore were rural seats that extended into what were then fringe metropolitan suburbs (and incidentally were held by the Country Party for much of this time). In 1980-90 Moore was a mainly urban seat but had a rural ‘tail’. From 1990 until 2022 Pearce was a classic ‘hybrid’ seat, extending even as far as Narrogin. Neither Judi Moylan MP nor her constituents complained. The current Bullwinkle has boundaries similar to Pearce in the 1990s.

How many other hybrid seats at a federal level in Australia similar to Bullwinkel

Hopefully in the next parliament the number of seats will be increased maybe to 200. That is 25%.

@jeremy i dont have a problem but its completely unnecessary here since both Canning and Durack already cross it. I demonstrated both Durack and ‘Bullwinkel’ could be purely Regional/rural and urban seats respectively and canning remain the hybrid seat.

@mick that i can think of the top of my head Blair in QLD for one.
no way it increase to 200 for that to happen there would need to be around 100 senators which would be an increase of 22. To achieve that they would need to increase each state by 2 (12 total) and then 5 per territory (not happening) or 4 per state or 24 total. not to mention the territories. Also it wont happen overnight the current proposal is proposed to start mid 2028 after the next 2 elections and not take effect until 2033-2034 for the likely 33-34 election. so an expansion is still a few election cycles away. Also that proposal is for 16 new senators and 24 new mps.

Also 200 is not a 25% increase on 150 its a 33% increase. A 25% increase is 37.5 so 37 and a half new seats. 😀

@Mick seats that are metropolitan-non-metropolitan crossed (metropolitan = over 100,000 inhabitants):

ACT:
* Bean (Canberra + Tharwa, etc)

NSW:
* Hume (Sydney + Goulburn, etc)
* Hunter (Central Coast and Newcastle + Hunter Valley (Cessnock) and Upper Hunter (Muswellbrook))
* Macquarie (Sydney + Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury)
* Paterson (Newcastle + Kurri Kurri and Maitland)
* Whitlam (Wollongong + Southern Highlands (Bowral-Mittagong))

Queensland:
* Blair (Ipswich + Somerset Valley (Esk))
* Dawson (Townsville + Mackay and surrounds)
* Kennedy (Cairns, Townsville + Charters Towers, Mount Isa and surrounds)
* Leichhardt (Cairns + Far North Queensland (Cooktown and Weipa))
* Wide Bay (Sunshine Coast + Fraser Island, Gympie, Maryborough and surrounds)
* Wright (Brisbane, Gold Coast + Gold Coast Hinterland (Mount Tamborine))

SA:
* Mayo (Adelaide + Adelaide Hills (Mount Barker), Kangaroo Island and surrounds)

Victoria:
* Ballarat (Ballarat)
* Bendigo (Bendigo)
* Casey (Melbourne)
* Corangamite (Geelong)
* Corio (Melbourne, Geelong)
* Hawke (Melbourne)
* La Trobe (Melbourne)
* McEwen (Melbourne)
* Monash (Melbourne)

WA:
* Bullwinkel (Perth + Wheatbelt)
* O’Connor (Perth + Mandurah and surrounds)

Shortland crosses between Newcastle (Lake Macquarie) and the Central Coast but I won’t count it since they’re both metropolitan cities.

@NP Hume no longer crosses after the redistribution, Paterson is negligble adn is merely designed for a good boundary. o connor is not based is perth or mandurah thats Canning btw. Also Durack crosses into the city of Swan

@John most of the boundaries work to be honest. Macquarie however doesn’t make sense because it’s the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury combined which is stupid.

The nexus is as near as possible 2/1 don’t think the territories need to go to 5

As weird as it is that a colossal seat containing Kununurra butts up against the metro area, Bullsbrook isn’t suburbia.

Parliament needs to be enlarged one of these days… it last happened 40 years ago, so it’s due. If the senate goes to 14 seats per state, the lower house would go to about 170 seats, and WA would gain 2 or 3 (including one largely in the country). Canning would shrink to cover just Mandurah, Forrest would shrink to just Bunbury and Busselton, Durack would lose its weird Swan Valley salient to Hasluck and a chunk of wheatbelt to O’Connor, which then needs to lose a fair bit of territory. Then there should be room for a new seat running from the Avon valley down the Great Southern Hwy to Albany, and west to Margaret River – hacked out of Bullwinkel, O’Connor, Forrest and Canning.

(All of that is totally handwavy and says nothing about new Perth seats, but it seems to roughly work.)

@bird and additional 2 senators per state would be an increase of 24 lower house mps. It would be 8 for NSW 6 for Vic 5 for Qld 3 for WA and 2 for SA