ALP 2.8%
Incumbent MP
Sam Lim, since 2022.
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 and parts of Canning and Gosnells council areas. Suburbs include Alfred Cove, Attadale, Melville, Applecross, Mount Pleasant, Winthrop, Leeming, Willetton, Canning Vale, Bicton, Willagee, Rossmoyne, Palmyra and Shelley.
Redistribution
Tangney shifted slightly west, losing Ferndale and Wilson to Swan, and gaining Palmyra from Fremantle. These changes slightly increased Labor’s margin from 2.4% to 2.8%.
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, after a major redistribution shifted Tangney into much safer Liberal territory. 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. Dennis Jensen was re-elected three times, but before two of those elections, in 2006 and 2010, the local branch denied him preselection before he was given preselection by the state executive.
Jensen was finally defeated for preselection in 2016, and ran for Tangney as an independent. He came fourth, with Liberal candidate Ben Morton winning comfortably. Morton was re-elected in 2019.
Morton was defeated in 2022, when a large swing in Western Australia saw him lose to Labor candidate Sam Lim.
- Eric Hayward (Greens)
- Sam Lim (Labor)
- Howard Ong (Liberal)
Assessment
Labor did very well in Western Australia in 2022 and only won Tangney narrowly. While Lim would likely benefit from a personal vote, any swing back to normality in Western Australia should see Tangney as the first seat to fall.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Ben Morton | Liberal | 43,008 | 40.0 | -11.3 | 39.6 |
| Sam Lim | Labor | 40,940 | 38.1 | +10.1 | 38.1 |
| Adam Abdul Razak | Greens | 12,876 | 12.0 | +1.1 | 12.4 |
| Mark Staer | Australian Christians | 2,481 | 2.3 | +0.1 | 2.1 |
| Tshung-Hui Chang | One Nation | 2,288 | 2.1 | -0.3 | 2.1 |
| Jay Dean Gillett | Western Australia Party | 2,096 | 1.9 | +0.7 | 2.0 |
| Travis Llewellyn Mark | United Australia | 1,721 | 1.6 | +0.3 | 1.6 |
| Jacqueline Holroyd | Liberal Democrats | 1,110 | 1.0 | +1.0 | 1.1 |
| Brent Fowler | Federation Party | 1,028 | 1.0 | +1.0 | 1.0 |
| Others | 0.2 | ||||
| Informal | 4,271 | 3.8 | -0.8 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Sam Lim | Labor | 56,331 | 52.4 | +11.9 | 52.8 |
| Ben Morton | Liberal | 51,217 | 47.6 | -11.9 | 47.2 |
Booths have been divided into three parts. Polling places in Melville council area have been split into “west” and “west central”, while those in the Canning and Gosnells council area have been split into “east” and “east central”.
The ALP won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all four areas, ranging from 50.2% in the west to 58.2% in the east.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 9.9% in the east to 15.5% in the west.
| Voter group | GRN prim | ALP 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| West | 15.5 | 50.2 | 16,741 | 15.9 |
| West Central | 13.0 | 53.6 | 12,868 | 12.2 |
| East Central | 12.2 | 55.8 | 10,934 | 10.4 |
| East | 9.9 | 58.2 | 8,196 | 7.8 |
| Pre-poll | 11.3 | 52.7 | 33,901 | 32.1 |
| Other votes | 12.2 | 51.2 | 22,970 | 21.8 |
Election results in Tangney at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor and the Greens.
Labor hold, reason being that Labor has a better relationship with the Chinese government and Dutton’s past actions and remarks won’t help them here. Also an area like this seems to be better off so mortgage rise have as much of a impact here.
If this was before a redistribution that put Canning Vale into the electorate I would’ve said Liberal gain. However, Canning Vale being a newly developed area in recent times is strongly Labor, added with the positive sentiments towards Labor working to rebuild China-Australia partnership should help Labor. Not to mention Sam Lim being actually quite popular in the area, particularly during COVID as a police officer who translated information into 10 different languages for the community. The northern part by the Swan River is tealish rather than deep blue ribbon and Dutton will be unpopular there because he’s hard conservative.
I sense that Labor has a chance to hold on, like Bennelong for similar reasons. Whilst the consensus about Gilmore, Paterson, Lingiari, Bullwinkel etc I agree will be Coalition gains, this could be one that holds on based off personal vote and a diverse demographic.
Not really sure China relations would be a big issue here as the Chinese Community in Perth mainly hails from Malaysia unlike other Capital Cities mainly hails from the Mainland.
Sam Lim likely will have a strong personal vote, possibly the strongest out of any recently elected MP. That could be enough for him to retain since Labor seems to be holding firm in WA in contrast to other states. Either way I expect any anti-ALP swing to be less here than in other WA seats.
You’d think the Libs could overturn the defrceit here if they have any hope of winning the overlapping state seats
@Marh Sam Lim himself is from Malaysia in any case.
A general correction swing in WA should in theory be enough for the Libs to comfortably win this seat. However, Sam Lim is a tough opponent with a strong personal following so the swing will be less than in other WA seats. The question is whether Sam Lim will be able to minimise the swing enough to hold on. The Libs have done themselves a favour to switch out their original trainwreck candidate to Howard Ong but Dutton seems to be appealing less to the sort of demographics in Tangney: affluent + large Chinese community.
Tangney was the surprise win from Western Australia. I would have thought Moore would have been a more likely win. Who knows Sam Lim may hold on.
Maybe people from Perth would know better but this seat looks like the WA equivalent of Menzies and Bennelong. Big Chinese population, lots of university educated people, similar median income. Considering Labor won Bennelong, and came pretty close in Menzies (and would on new boundaries) the win actually makes a lot of sense given how well Labor did in Perth.
I actually think the Labor vote here doesn’t look as inflated here as it does in other Perth seats. It’s only really 2-3% more Labor than Bennelong/Menzies. Unlike the rest of the country, in WA the swing was on with every demographic. In other states it was mainly in inner city/well educated seats.
I actually think Labor will win this.
I don’t think the China issue is much of the issue for the Chinese Community of Perth compared to other major cities as Perth’s Chinese Community tend to hail from Malaysia/Singapore (most are apathetic/indifferent to the issue) rather than from Mainland China. On 2021 Census, 3.7% Tangney is born in Mainland China which would even below average for Greater Sydney (4.6%) and is only slightly higher than Greater Melbourne (3.4%). Even Adelaide and Brisbane has has seat with higher percentages born on Mainland China than Tangney with 4.7% for Sturt and 6.3% for Moreton.
One of my good friends lives in this seat, and has for most or all of her life – she said that Sam Lim is well liked as an MP, especially compared to Dennis Jensen or Ben Morton.
That, combined with the fact that the north of the seat has teal tendencies (the old Alfred Cove state seat being a good example of that 2001-2013), means Lim could hold on here.
I’ve lived in Tangney for the majority of my life and I can attest to Sam Lim’s popularity in the seat. Out of all the seats Labor could lose, Tangney is certainly one of these seats that it can retain due to a huge personal vote for Sam Lim.
He also has experience in appealing to CALD communities as he has knowledge of ~9-10 languages (afaik, Mandarin, Hokkien, Hainanese, English, Burmese, Malay, Indonesian, “Dolphin” if you count that according to some news articles) and has previously assisted such communities as a Police officer; something crucial for him as iirc, he did win Tangney due to preferences, especially from the Chinese community.
That being said though, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Liberals regain Tangney as it is a traditional safe Liberal seat.
Tangney, unlike the other target seats for the Liberals, isn’t an outer-suburb. In fact, it’s quite likely that after Curtin, Tangney is probably the 2nd or 3rd most affluent inner-city seat in WA and its proximity to the Swan River/Perth City suggests that the demographics aren’t the ones affected by the same issues in the outer suburbs, such as interest rates and mortgage stress. Add in the big CALD community, and it is pretty much all the worst demographics for Dutton to appeal to.
Sam Lim is someone who was elected as a ‘representative of the community’ having worked as a police officer and doing all the translation during COVID. This coupled with the relative strength of Labor in WA, and I would be feeling confident that Tangney could be a fairly certain Labor hold this coming election. Out of the seats targeted by the Liberals, I’d say Tangney and Bennelong are the two seats that have the best chance of being retained by Labor for similar reasons, whilst I’m fairly confident in predicting that the likes of Paterson, Lyons and Gilmore etc are going to be directly in the firing line.
Most times this seat has been a reliable liberal seat. If this seat is retained by Labor then there is no chance of any lib pickups in wa.
Moore would also be in play.
they will lose this mick
Most of the overlapping state seats are on low margins and will likely flip back too
@tommo I’ve got libs winning tangent and Bennelong along with those others.
I’ve got this as a toss-up. In any other circumstance I’d say Liberal win but Sam Lim does seem popular. I don’t know if that will be enough though
For me it was pretty much a toss up until that Newspoll question about whether Albo ‘deserves another go’ or not (something like that anyway) showed WA voters beginning to sour on Federal Labor. That plus a generic swing to the Liberals after a high water mark year for Labor is probably enough even with a decent local MP to wash Labor out
Sam Lim will be feeling very confident with the state results. How involved was he in the state campaign? It may be possible his strong personal vote is flowing through to his state counterparts.
Doubtful remember his margin is a lot smaller
And the federal liberals are absolutely gonna tie him to albo
All six state seats overlapping Tangney, namely Bicton, Bateman, Bibra Lake, Riverton, Jandakot and Southern River, have all been retained by Labor, including the seat of Bateman that most would have expected to fall to the Liberal Party, and Riverton that was considered at serious risk of falling to the Liberal Party.
@Dan M: I don’t think it’s Sam Lim’s personal vote flow through to the state campaign, but rather the members of these state seats have built up enough personal votes to withstand the expected correction swing, especially the first term Labor MPs of Bateman and Riverton. Sam Lim will definitely be buoyed by the state result, because it shows that personal votes could help Labor MPs retain seats that Labor normally wouldn’t win in the first place. If the members of Bateman and Riverton can do this, he can do it as well.
@Joseph March 9, 2025 at 1:14 am
I’m familiar with the seat of Riverton and still have lots of friends living there, but from what I’ve seen and heard from them, Jags Krishnan is an active MP whose at least popular with the Indian community in Riverton. His popularity plus Amanda Spencer Teo’s lack of campaigning (the last time I was there at least) was probably what led to Jags Krishnan retaining Riverton rather than Sam Lim’s popularity trickling down to him.
I suspect Jags Krishnan being the main face of the development in Willetton and Rossmoyne Senior High School might’ve also helped boost his popularity considering a lot of people move to the area in order to get their kids enrolled in some of WA’s best public schools.
I would also hesitate to suggest any link between the results tonight and the likelihood of Labor keeping Tangney. As Dan M commented, the Liberals being forced to switch to Howard Ong will do them a favour.
NOTES: I meant MLA, not MP, bit of a typo, and by “main face” i meant that he was the Politician mainly linked to these projects, at the very least, Krishnan was more involved in that project than Sam Lim.
In addition, I still question how much of this state election results can be used to help predict the Federal results for Tangney considering that the State and Federal elections are fought on different issues and that the popularity of the MLAs in the 6 seats and Sam Lim are at different levels and that these people have different reasons for their popularity and who they’re popular with (e.g., I’m unsure if Krishnan was popular with Chinese community, and idk if Sam Lim is popular with the Indian community)
@North by West March 9, 2025 at 1:33 am
Howard Ong being preselected for Tangney was a good move bc at least on paper, Sam Lim’s appeal to the Chinese community might get cancelled out. However, I’d still give Sam Lim the edge in terms of personal vote. Ik Howard Ong has been doing some campaigning and I’ve heard he’s been visiting the houses of Liberal voters for a chat, but other than that, idk much else about him.
However, considering that Labor has managed to keep all 6 state seats overlapping with Tangney, with the 3 main state seats of Riverton, Bicton and Bateman somehow being Labor hold on swings from 2-4% should be cause to have some careful consideration on Tangney’s result.
Rn my prediction has Tangney as a LIB flip (has been since I found out Ong was the candidate) but lately, I’ve been reconsidering my prediction considering I might be underestimating Sam Lim’s popularity and the surprisingly good results for ALP tonight (I was surprised they managed to keep Bateman)
Whilst I acknowledge that state and federal are two different stories, if let’s say what happened tonight across the six seats that span the length of Tangney is replicated federally, then I’d probably rate Sam Lim’s re-election into parliament as pretty favourable. if they can’t win Tangney then they won’t be winning any more inner-city or Teal seats except maybe Curtin and even then it’s not certain. Sure there might be a swing but it won’t be the same scale as outer suburban areas.
Tangney, along with all the other state seats within it, seems to be experiencing a fair evident shift in voting demographics. Once Liberal heartlands have now got red painted all over it on the state level. The people who used to vote blue unwaveringly are now starting to favour more progressive parties like Labor and Greens, even in places like South Perth, Bicton (which experienced the smallest swing out of all) and Bateman. We could well see a scenario in the future where the Liberals regain government federally but without Tangney, in the same way that they formed government in 2019 but without Corangamite, Dunkley or Gilmore.
While they still remained in labor hands there was a swing against them. Federally labor have a much smaller margin to play with in tangey
@Tomm9: In 2008 and 2013 WA elections, the six state seats that now overlaps Tangeny were all held by the Liberal Party with the exception of Bibra Lake (then called Willagee) being held by Labor and Alfred Cove (whose territory now split between Bateman and Bicton) being held by independent Liberal Janet Woollard in 2008. Realignments seem to be undergoing in the inner urban areas of many capital cities including Perth, Melbourne and Sydney, where people of higher education levels and high incomes turning away from the Liberal Party. For example, in the 2022 federal election, Higgins elected its first Labor MP after being held by the Liberal Party since 1949, Labor won the area within the current boundary of Chisholm that it would not have won since at least 2004 and Labor came closest to winning the area within the current boundary of Bennelong since at least 2004.
Labor has a chance of retaining Tangney at the federal election with such a strong state result that may indicate a trend of realignment away from the Liberal Party, especially considering that Labor managed to retain the Liberal heartland seat of Bateman (an area that had not been won by Labor between 1977 and 2017). Due to the realignment Labor has a chance of retaining Chisholm as well.
Chisholm isnt an inner city seat in any way though. Its very much middle ring
@Up the dragons:Yes, I acknowledge that. I just used Chisholm and some other seats as an example to illustrate realignments that are happening in many urban seats with high education levels and high incomes. Most of such seats are in inner urban areas, but there are also some that are middle ring or outer suburban.
On ABC’s WA election night coverage, Tony Barry mentioned Bullwinkel as the only WA seat he’s putting in the Liberal gain column. I think he mentioned Pearce as potentially swingy due to the outer-suburban mortgage belt there.
There may be signs of a political realignment with traditionally Liberal WA state seats, like Bicton (formerly Alfred Cove) and Bateman, remaining with Labor at the state election, albeit with a smaller margin. Sam Lim might have a personal vote that could save him. He’s quite a character.
@Votante As I mentioned before I could definitely see a situation in the future where the Liberals can potentially form government, but without the likes of Tangney, Sturt or Bradfield which would be unprecedented in the 21st century, much in the same way that I’d have never imagined Labor holding government without the likes of Hunter, Shortland or Whitlam (Throsby previously). It would be a massive realignment and frankly the Liberals (and Labor in those areas mentioned) only have themselves to blame for this realignment.
It’s quite possible come the 2030s/40s that Labor will be the party of the middle/upper class/professionals/inner city elites and Liberals being the party of the battlers and hold seats they’ve never held before previously.
Joseph, Chisholm has been a marginal electorate for decades, and for that reason, there isn’t any evidence of any realignment at this stage. However, despite Chisholm being classed as a marginal, it doesn’t swing back and forth, and that is why I am surprised the ALP has reportedly given up on it when its margin of over 3% looks defendable.