Rockingham by-election, 2023

Do we know which candidates own investment properties?

@Zoe that depends. Does WA require local government councillors to have a register of interests like they do in Queensland? If so, then we can probably find that information out for some of the candidates (i.e the ones elected to local government, e.g Hayley Edwards). If not, then I don’t see how we would be able to know.

Well, it appears not.

We can probly extrapolate any swing here to see the state of play at the next election. Since this is labor central we can probly extrapolate this as the minimum swing statewide

There is no way in hell the Liberals are up 54-46 statewide, that would be a swing of 24%, unheard of, unseen of, that is 1/4 Western Australians changing their preference in one election.

And even if that poll was right Mettam wouldn’t be premier because there are allot of Labor incumbents and some will be harder to dislodge in the 15-30% margin range, the Liberals need most of those and I suspect the biggest swings will be in seats with retiring Labor MP’s and coalition held seats (I’m aware there is no coalition so I mean Lib+Nat)

Roger Cook is no Campbell Newman and this aboriginal heritage law isn’t going to make 15% of voters to switch. “It’s the economy stupid™” that will decide the next state election.

There may be a 24% swing at this by-election, I can see that, but that is a by-election, not a general one.

Mettam is unfit to be premier because of what she did to David Honey and cannot appeal to women like other women premier/opposition leaders have like the QLD premier and Gladys.

Labor retain, it’s clear the Liberals aren’t taking this seriously when they run a Wyatt Roy here.

@daniel t they arent gonna run any serious campaign here it would be a waste of resources you see it both here and in general elections they run there future prospects in safe seats to give them campaign experience

Given the poll was conducted by the same pollster we can assume it’s legitimate

No it’s not “legitimate” they had the Liberals ahead in Hasluck 56-44 at the last federal elections not a reliable pollsters they heavily underestimate Labor and only Liberal cheerleaders will believe those polls.

I would compare the pollster to banned pollsters on FiveThirtyEight and would give them a D-

If Newspoll or Galaxy shows a Liberal lead, then we’ll talk.

@vicliberal The 2PP swing against Labor in Rockingham would be much higher than the statewide swing in a hypothetical state election because of the loss of the personal vote of the enormously popular former Premier Mark McGowan. Challenge from independent candidate and Deputy Mayor of Rockingham Hayley Edwards, who has distributed HTVs preferencing the Liberals over Labor, will also inflate the 2PP swing against Labor. What’s more, WAEC probably won’t even calculate a 2PP figure if it’s Labor and independent Hayley Edwards in the top two.

The Utting Research poll that @DanielT is talking about is conducted via robocalls, and “polls by robocalling tend to skew towards an older, more conservative demographic”. In fact, very few people under 40 are still taking robocalls nowadays. At the last federal election, they estimated in March 2022 that Labor ahead in Swan 59 – 41, Pearce 55 – 45, Hasluck 52 – 48, and Tangney on 50 – 50. In May 2022, they somehow detected “steep falls in Labor’s primary vote across the board”, making Labor ahead in Swan 53 – 47 and Pearce 52 – 48, while behind in Hasluck 45 – 55 and Tangney 46 – 54. Utting Research’s May 2022 polling result in these seats significantly underestimated Labor’s performance at the actual election, with Labor ahead in all four seats Swan 58.8 – 41.2, Pearce 59.0 – 41.0, Hasluck 56.0 – 44.0 and Tangney 52.4 – 47.6. This shows Utting’s polling results are very volatile and should always be taken with a grain of salt, especially wildly improbable results of Liberal leading Labor in WA 54 – 46. Utting is certainly not a reliable pollster.

“Mettam is unfit to be Premier because of what she did to David Honey and cannot appeal to women like other women premier/opposition leaders have like the QLD Premier and Gladys.” I think regardless of what voters think of Mettam, she is certainly much better than Honey. Firstly, Honey is much more conservative. Honey voted against VAD and opposes the Indigenous Voice, while Mettam voted for VAD and supports the Voice. Secondly, Mettam looks more empathetic and more likeable. We will see in the next few election cycles whether Mettam can appeal to female voters that the Liberals desperately need to win back to win elections. I believe she absolutely can as long as she wants to.

@vicliberal The 2PP swing against Labor in Rockingham would be much higher than the statewide swing in a hypothetical state election because of the loss of the personal vote of the enormously popular former Premier Mark McGowan. Challenge from independent candidate and Deputy Mayor of Rockingham Hayley Edwards, who has distributed HTVs preferencing the Liberals over Labor, will also inflate the 2PP swing against Labor. What’s more, WAEC probably won’t even calculate a 2PP figure if it’s Labor and independent Hayley Edwards in the top two.

The Utting Research poll that @DanielT is talking about is conducted via robocalls, and “polls by robocalling tend to skew towards an older, more conservative demographic”. In fact, very few people under 40 are still taking robocalls nowadays. At the last federal election, they estimated in March 2022 that Labor ahead in Swan 59 – 41, Pearce 55 – 45, Hasluck 52 – 48, and Tangney on 50 – 50. In May 2022, they somehow detected “steep falls in Labor’s primary vote across the board”, making Labor ahead in Swan 53 – 47 and Pearce 52 – 48, while behind in Hasluck 45 – 55 and Tangney 46 – 54. Utting Research’s May 2022 polling result in these seats significantly underestimated Labor’s performance at the actual election, with Labor ahead in all four seats Swan 58.8 – 41.2, Pearce 59.0 – 41.0, Hasluck 56.0 – 44.0 and Tangney 52.4 – 47.6. This shows Utting’s polling results are very volatile and should always be taken with a grain of salt, especially wildly improbable results of Liberal leading Labor in WA 54 – 46. Utting is certainly not a reliable pollster.

“Mettam is unfit to be Premier because of what she did to David Honey and cannot appeal to women like other women premier/opposition leaders have like the QLD Premier and Gladys.” I think regardless of what voters think of Mettam, most voters would agree that she is much better than Honey. Firstly, Honey is much more conservative. Honey voted against VAD and opposes the Indigenous Voice, while Mettam voted for VAD and supports the Voice. Secondly, Mettam looks more empathetic and more likeable. We will see in the next few election cycles whether Mettam can appeal to female voters that the Liberals desperately need to win back to win elections. I believe she absolutely can as long as she wants to.

As much as I’m doubtful that the LNP could win now with a 24% a lot of those voters don’t traditionally vote Labor rather they voted for Mark an example of a party winning a lop sided majority was in QLD in 2012 where the government became a one term government. At the end of the day there will be an above average swing and I expect a lot of the those blue ribbon seats to return to the LNP fold.

@yuanlintech agreed. Interestingly not only do the WA Liberals support the Voice, but so do the WA Nationals.

@Daniel T although I’m a Coalition voter I can’t see how Libby Mettam has done anything wrong. I think we should give her a chance before judging her. When more people know who she is then maybe she could appeal to female voters like Gladys did (though Gladys appealed to everyone, here in NSW she was as popular as McGowan; don’t get me wrong, Perrottet was popular too but not as popular as Gladys was). Anyway at the last election about 20% of people changed their vote from Liberal to Labor, I guess some of those Liberal voters are coming back to the Liberals. Also the Aboriginal heritage law is pretty crazy, so it seems: public events like tree plantings have been cancelled because of the law (even though the state government said they should have been allowed to hold those events).

I actually lived in both NSW and WA through the pandemic, (traditionally Liberal area in WA, traditionally Labor area in NSW) and I can say no, Gladys’ appeal was much more concentrated in the North/East of Sydney, she was much more polarizing in the Western Suburbs and even many parts of regional NSW, not at all comparable to McGowan who enjoyed near-universal support in the metropolitan area and regions outside of the wheatbelt (the fact Labor flipped Geraldton, Churchlands & Nedlands says it all, The NSW Liberals even under Gladys would not have come close to flipping say Bankstown, Newtown or Newcastle for example).

On Rockingham, this result will give us much more insight than that poll ever could, sure it’s Labor’s safest seat and not at all one the Liberals will target the next election, but if they can muster up say a 10-15% swing they’ll be hoping to project whatever they tried here in other, lower income & outer-suburban seats (Darling Range and Kalamunda stand out as good examples of winnable seats).

On Mettam/Honey, the latter was an utter buffoon, a barely articulate aristocrat who paraded himself as one with the regions despite representing the wealthiest electoral district in the country. Mettam is much more presentable being a younger moderate woman from the regions, why she was never made leader off the bat really makes me wonder how the WA Liberals operate behind closed doors and whether they’ve changed at all (after 2 state and a federal election massacres at that), they don’t seem to realise how lucky they are to have Mettam in the first place, I can’t see anyone else they could possibly bring back (say Le’Strange or the ever touted Zempilas) becoming premier in the foreseeable future.

The problem with Mettam also is as pointed out she is from a regional seat, How on earth is she going to appeal to those in inner and suburban Perth? almost all liberal premiers in WA have been from Perth and same with other states except their respective capital cities. Here in Victoria the last Liberal premier to NOT be from the city was Henry Bolte who served a long time.

Remember unlike Queensland which you could get away with having a seat in the regions like a few premiers have. 79% of Western Australians are in Perth and surrounds. So I’m unconvinced Mettam can appeal to those in Perth. I can see her being an asset to Liberals in rural seats and might take Albany from Labor as she might appeal here being regional.

Don’t get me wrong of course they will win back 7-12 seats they lost in Perth at the last election, These seats are usually Liberal leaning or safe, but they won’t win the traditional marginals or bellwether seats with Mettam, not even in 2029. Mettam is only temporary until the next leader is in, who will likely be the next liberal premier.

She is no Anastasia Palaszczuk who only managed to overturn a massive majority under extraordinary circumstances with some sheer dumb luck involved.

As a Liberal voter (yes, even in 2021), I do NOT expect them to win the 2025 election.

At this stage, I see 2025 being like the NSW 1984 election, namely the Liberals (and Nationals) buying the furniture back from the shop, and 2029 being like their 1988 election (by that point, voter fatigue will likely have set in here in WA)

Agree Anton, the next WA election could also be like the recent 2020 NT election where Labor still clung onto a bare majority, but the CLP recovered most of their traditional seats.

I really don’t see how Mettam representing Vasse is an impediment, the socioeconomic gap between Cottesloe and say Darling Range, Swan Hills or Murray-Wellington is much more drastic and Barnett had little trouble carrying those in 2008 & 2013. The reason why WA lacks premiers from the regions is because the population is so concentrated in Perth, it’s just not likely through this variable alone, in fact it wasn’t even that long ago where the previous member for Vasse (The ever troubled Troy Buswell) was once considered a future premier, and we all know being from Vasse was not the reason he fell out of favour.

I’d actually see it as a benefit as I truly don’t believe metro voters would feel as alienated by a leader from Vasse as a voter from say Geraldton or Albany would be by a leader from a metro seat. Even considering the pendulum, there’s not many metro seats held by Labor on less than 10% anyways. The Liberals will want to pick up as much as possible and it might actually be worth focusing more on volatile regional seats that can return monster swings (such as the aforementioned Albany or dare I say it, Bunbury) over particular metro seats that aren’t the ‘furniture’ (say Nedlands or Bateman).

The next state election will likely be a 2017ish result by seat count (11 for the Liberals, give or take 2, I think closer to ‘take’). I actually can’t see the Liberals regaining everything they lost, I anticipate Labor will hold onto Scarborough for example, but the Liberals will absolutely walk away with a good foundation to at least be in opposition and have enough of a base to project their influence from. This is where they struggle at the moment, when the government screws up the media naturally gives airtime to the opposition leader and they aren’t in opposition. I don’t know if there’s any modern interstate result that’s comparable to such a situation.

There will be all kinds of uneven swings with so many new local members and some genuine voting pattern changes that have been obscured by the 2021 landslide. Maybe Labor hang on to once in a lifetime gains like South Perth or Nedlands but lose a 2017 gain like Kalamunda or Pilbara, or long held Albany or Collie Preston. Those would be the basis of a narrative that Labor may well lose in 2029 – at least opening up the electoral map.

It’s also possible the Greens finally break through at a general election in otherwise ultra safe Fremantle, Perth or Maylands. Fremantle is where they actually came 2nd and it seems like Federal Perth is the Greens WA target seat for doorknocking on renters rights. Labor no longer have any plausible deniability they’re a centre-right, pro fossil fuel political party. They have absolute power and near guaranteed reelection yet can’t say no to Scarborough gas. Of course the Greens will struggle with the magnitude 37 upper house basically meaning that all the micro parties that take a bite out of their vote can turn that into a seat (or multiple seats) – and that will likely be the focus of the campaign.

Even with all that, it will be readily apparent that Labor is going to win and the bandwagon effect will be tough to overcome. Yes, there are voters that think voting is about predicting who’s going to win. Any gains from Labor will be hard won and fought on local issues with local campaigns (similar to the recent Uxbridge by-election in the UK)

John, while the minor parties certainly are a threat to the Greens in the upper house, I think that was already apparent at the last election when they lost two seats to Legalise Cannabis, who were on a much lower percentage of the primary vote and won due to group voting tickets.

The new system benefits the Greens greatly. Firstly, by removing group voting tickets and forcing the minor parties to work harder for a seat (and removing nonsense like Daylight Savings winning a seat from a 0.2% primary). Secondly, the old system reduced the value of votes from the Greens’ strongest areas (urban) while increasing the value of votes from their weakest areas (rural), so a levelling of vote value increases their chances of winning seats.

Even if it means Legalise Cannabis maintain the seats they’ve won, I doubt the Greens will mind, because unless their primary vote collapses, they’re basically guaranteed to gain upper house seats next election.

Agree Wilson, the statewide system will resemble NSW which regularly elects 2-3 Greens each cycle (21 MLC’s up for election) whilst also allowing the other minors to win at least 1 seat (primarily One Nation and Legalise Cannabis)

The Greens will gain seats from the new system and should be able to count on winning at least 2 seats. But it also forces them to confront the fact their vote is soft head on, as it will make a difference to their seat count. Kate Chaney could endorse a teal to take one (the return of “liberals for forests”?) Maybe a party with Socialist in its name could scrape together enough of a quota (2.6% of the vote – and they don’t even need that). Plus the usual AJP and LC. Why protest vote for Greens when the message is clearer from a single issue party?

They can’t coast on getting “most of a quota” like they do in magnitude 5,6,7 elections to be a dominant minor party, and will need to contend with other permanent presences in the upper houses. In general it will be hard for the Greens to carve out a voter base that’s neither a protest vote nor a major party vote. Lower house seats will help, as will a record of getting actual political outcomes, as well as a potential crust of “rusted on” Green voters that may be emerging.

@Angus about Gladys: I am a Mid North Coast-born resident who visits family in Port Macquarie regularly and I can tell you she was actually very popular. The Coalition is popular in regional/rural NSW though (particularly on the Mid North Coast), so maybe you mean like Newcastle?

Anyway she never had a net negative rating in any opinion poll, so she was clearly popular. Antony Green even said that if she was still Premier that the Coalition would have been favoured to win the 2023 state election.

@John teals generally don’t do well on the state level. Federally since 2022 we have had seven teals in Parliament: the members for Mackellar, North Sydney, Warringah and Wentworth in Sydney, Goldstein and Kooyong in Melbourne and Curtin in Perth (plus David Pocock as an ACT Senator). On the state level these seats are not teal seats; in Victoria there are no independents (teal or not) in any chamber of Parliament (Moira Deeming is considered an Independent Liberal), in fact if all the teals that contested only made the TCP count in any seat which was the candidate for Mornington (in the federal seat of Flinders, a safe Liberal seat). In NSW only one teal in Parliament is Judy Hannan in the seat of Wollondilly (which is in the federal seat of Hume, a safe Liberal seat), while in Queensland they have Sandy Bolton in Noosa. So they generally failed to even make the TCP count in seats like Hawthorn and Kew (both Liberal vs Labor) in Melbourne and while they did make the TCP count in some Sydney seats (mostly Northern Beaches seats), many of them like Vaucluse are still safe Liberal seats, while others like Pittwater are now marginal. So while Simon Holmes-à-Court will probably endorse some candidates in WA seats, they probably won’t win any.

@Daniel T I should also note that the past three Tasmanian Premiers (all Liberals) have not represented the seat of Clark (formerly Denison, covers most of Hobart). Will Hodgman represented Franklin (which is in southern Tasmania and includes some outer suburbs of Hobart), Peter Gutwein represented Bass (which includes Launceston and the surrounding area) and Jeremy Rockliff represents Braddon (which covers western Tasmania and includes Devonport and Burnie). Although most Tasmanians live outside Hobart, like how most Queenslanders live outside Brisbane.

@ Nether portal,

With regards to Teals not doing well at a state level, i think in NSW it is harder because the State Libs are moderate while in Victoria in November 2022 the Libs did try and appeal to this cohort for example 50% Legislated climate target, dedicated LGBT legal service, funding Joy FM etc so their primary in those seats was high.i was truly surprised that the Teal did not make the 2CP in Kew especially as there was no chance of a Labor victory there while in Hawthorn it makes more sense as the hardcore Labor vote did not tactically Teal where there was a sitting MP. I would not be surprised if WA Labor secretly wants a Teal to run in Nedlands, Churchlands and South Perth as Labor probably do not see themselves holding those seats long term and think a Teal would have a better hold of the seat. It is a bit like Victorian Labor not being interested in trying to hold on to Hawthorn and there is accusations it was actually trying to help the Teal, Melissa Lowe elected in Hawthorn

Nedlands might be a place for a teal but not Chruchlands, that’s more of a conservative seat in terms of ideology, the previous independent MP in Churchlands, she wasn’t exactly a moderate reading up on her, Liz.Constable I think her name is.

Never lived in Newcastle, only running off my intuition and it’s not a close contest, I’m not saying she wasn’t popular, the Liberals would have faired much better under her at an election of course, but it was never going to even resemble say an O’Farrell style win, let alone McGowan, I know for a fact she wasn’t so popular around the Western Suburbs, again I can cite the fact that McGowan carried Nedlands and Bateman, I think remember even he was in disbelief.

Re Teals, the only seat that strikes me as fertile ground is Cottesloe, due primarily to a conservative Liberal incumbent, it’s simply easier to justify running there as opposed to Nedlands, where having a Labor incumbent, despite certainly being a one term wonder, means the Liberals have every chance to preselect a moderate or emphasise unseating Labor above else.

I’m not sure we will be able to extrapolate the results here to a wider WA trend. McGowan was astronomically popular at the time of the 2021 election and think it’s fair to say that with him gone Labor stands to lose at least 10% on that factor alone, and in any event the political tide has receded on them since 2021. Labor would probably be content to keep the swing against them to below 20%. What will probably be more interesting is to see to what extent the Liberal party vote recovers – I think it’ll be fairly modest and I suspect Independent candidate Hayley Edwards will outpoll them and make the final count.

@Malcolm while I expect it to be a Labor vs Liberal contest, it seems likely that Edwards will win over 10% of the vote and could make the TCP count. However, if that was the case I would say that Labor finishes first, Liberals second and Edwards third, because even though she is third in my scenario she could make the TCP count with help from Labor/Greens preferences, plus most Liberals will preference her over Labor and the Greens. This is all because a candidate does not need to finish first or second to make the TCP count or even to win a seat. For example, independent Andrew Wilkie won the Hobart-based federal seat of Denison (now called Clark) in 2010, despite finishing third (Labor finished first and the Liberals finished second). This was because Liberal preferences flowed to him. Another example is in 2022 in the federal seat of Groom in Queensland (which is located in southeast Queensland, including Toowoomba, Gatton and surrounds). The LNP finished first and won the seat like usual, but an independent who finished fourth made the TCP count due to strong preference flows from Labor.

@Nimalan NSW was also less teal on the state level because of OPV. However, back to WA: I’m sure teals will run in seats like Churchlands, Cottesloe, Nedlands, South Perth, etc, or maybe even in a seat like Scarborough and while they may be able to make the TCP count in some of those seats, I don’t think a teal would win any of them. Kate Chaney holds Curtin which includes what Wikipedia describes as “the wealthy beachside suburbs of Perth, including Claremont, Cottesloe, Mosman Park, Nedlands, Subiaco and Swanbourne.” Teals don’t just run in any conservative seat (which is why in 2022 they either didn’t run or didn’t do well in regional seats except Indi or in the more conservative metropolitan seats on the outskirts of Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide); most seats where teals run and do at least somewhat well are wealthy, coastal Liberal seats in the capital cities that are economically conservative but environmentally progressive (blue (Liberal) + green (Greens) = teal) and were never going to be won by Labor, so seats like Kooyong in Melbourne for example were Liberal vs. Greens contests in 2019. So Zali Steggals doing well in Warringah does not mean a teal would do well in say, Mitchell, even though both seats are affluent and located in Sydney. But what is does mean is that Simon Holmes-à-Court could have won two of the three Brisbane seats that the Greens won in 2022, those two being Brisbane and Ryan given they were LNP seats whereas Griffith was a Labor seat and more progressive (hence why it is now the Greens’ safest federal seat, even safer than Melbourne somehow), despite Labor not even making the TCP in 2022 (it was Greens v LNP).

All this makes Curtin a perfect seat for the teals to run in and a seat Labor would not do well in. Now, I’m going to try and predict which seats teals will contest at the 2025 WA state election. I would say that any seat that at least somewhat overlaps with the federal seat of Curtin will highly likely have a teal candidate; so this means that teals would likely run in Balcatta, Carine, Churchlands, Cottesloe (which is actually the richest WA state electorate, by the way), Nedlands and Scarborough.

As for the “monster” swing areas for the Liberals, other than regional areas I would say northeastern Perth could swing quite big, for example Butler, Burns Beach, Hillarys, Joondalup, Kingsley, Wanneroo, etc.

Also, for those wanting to see the results, the WAEC says they will be posted on here: https://www.elections.wa.gov.au/rbe23 at 6:00pm WAST (Western Australian Standard Time). For those who are too lazy to convert the times or do the maths, here are the times around Australia and in New Zealand:

6:00pm (WA (excl. Eucla))
6:45pm (Eucla and surrounds)
7:30pm (SA, the NT and Broken Hill)
8:00pm (NSW (excl. Broken Hill), VIC, QLD, TAS and the ACT)
10:00pm (NZ)

Technically the results will be here: https://www.elections.wa.gov.au/elections/state/byelection#/2023-Rockingham-By-election but the other link has a link that sends you there anyway.

@Daniel T Liz Constable formerly had Liberal membership but actually contested Churchlands as an independent, serving from 1996 until 2013. Previously, she was also the independent member for the now-abolished seat of Floreat, from 1991 until 1996. Floreat was abolished in 1996 and was replaced by Churchlands. In 2008 she became a minister in the Barnett government, becoming the first independent to be appointed as a Minister of the Crown in Western Australia. Her Wikipedia page does not seem to have any information about her political views, however. I can’t find much online either (I Googled “Liz Constable MP views” and looked through two pages, I also had to add MP because I was getting information about an independent writer, instead of the independent politician. Both women are “independents”, however.

@ Nether Portal
Agree with your analysis. Just a few points to ponder
1. I agree OPV helped Libs in Teal target seat in NSW but the Liberal primary vote was pretty strong close to 45% in North Shore, Manly, Pittwater and Lane Cove. This is contrast to Warringah at a federal level when the Liberal primary vote was very low and the Teals outpolled the Libs on primaries in both 2019 and 2022, whereas they got a thumping primary vote at a state level around Mosman in March.
2. At a federal level in these very affluent seats the Libs need a primary vote close to 46% with CPV to win these seats as minor parties that preference the Libs such as UAP, ONP and DLP tend to be very weak in these seats by contrast Labor, Greens and Teal can win with a much lower primary vote due to a better preference flow.
3. Great point about Mitchell, it is an interesting case as it in not winnable for Teal but not for Labor either. what i would say about Mitchell is that while it is affluent it lacks the old money or inter-generational wealth of the North Shore is somewhat more aspirational, nouveau riche etc. This often means that bread and butter issues such as childcare etc, interest rates are more important to voters than post-material issues such as climate change or integrity. Aston and Menzies are similar to Mitchell although they cover areas that are more friendly to Labor as well. Mitchell is also more ethnically diverse and socially conservative on LGBT issues etc
4. The Federal electorate of Moore is also quite affluent but not teal friendly again more like Mitchell an upper middle class rather than Elite area lacking Old money etc.
5. Good points about Ryan and Brisbane. I feel Ryan could have been won by a Teal but not Brisbane while parts of the seat are more tealish like the parts east of Breakfast Creek places like Brisbane CBD, Fortitude Valley are left-wing so voters there will not tactically vote Teal when either Greens or Labor could win the seat it is the same situation in Higgins and Caulfield at a state level where there is Tealish areas but strong left-wing areas as well.

@Nimalan Caulfield is an odd electorate. It is a marginal Liberal seat and has never been won by Labor, currently it’s held by David Southwick with about 54% TPP (I think). However, it is entirely located in the federal seats of Goldstein (a teal seat) and Macnamara (a Labor seat that the Greens have been targeting for a while now and it would likely be their next seat if they gain a seat in 2025); the suburb Caulfield itself is in Macnamara while suburbs like Caulfield South are in Goldstein.

Ryan was won by the Greens with 30.21% primaries (the LNP had 38.50% while Labor had 22.30%, everyone else was under 3%) and 52.65% TPP (against the LNP’s 47.35%; the notional TPP was 52.42% Labor, 47.58% LNP). A teal could have taken a few more LNP votes and Labor votes and may have polled 54% TPP v LNP.

@DanielT “The problem with Mettam also is as pointed out she is from a regional seat. How on earth is she going to appeal to those in inner and suburban Perth?” This was the reason why Mettam initially refused to run as the WA Liberal leader after the 2021 state election and endorsed Honey as the leader, saying Honey was a metropolitan member. However, WA Liberals realised Honey was an utter buffoon (as @Augus said) and voters treated him like this, which was why Mettam challenged Honey for the leadership and won. I consider this as a right move and a positive step taken by the WA Liberals to modernise the party.

Mettam has enjoyed much higher approval ratings in the polls than Honey did, which means she will likely stay on as leader until the 2025 state election. It’s too early to say whether Mettam will be WA’s next Liberal Premier, because the WA Liberals will not win a state election until at least 2029 and anything could happen before that. After the WA Liberals regain some of their traditional heartland seats in 2025 they will have more choices for leadership, therefore there could be leadership spills against Mettam after the 2025 state election.

@Angus: The Labor margin in Bunbury (ALP 22.5% vs LIB) is probably too large for the WA Liberals to win at the 2025 state election. The regional seats of Warren-Blackwood, Geraldton and Kalgoorlie all have a smaller Labor margin than Albany (ALP 13.7% vs LIB), and along with Albany will all be target seats for WA Liberals and Nationals at the 2025 state election.

@ Nether portal
Agree Caulfield interesting seat basically comes in 3 parts. Your are correct about corresponding federal seats and never been won by Labor despite being marginal although 2PP is actually 52.1%
1. Inner city area west of Hotham Road. Strong Green vote weak Liberal vote
2. Affluent Core based on the Caulfield proper suburbs. Strong Jewish community (around 40%) often hostile territory for Greens due to middle eastern issues
3. Middle Class bellwether territory along Frankston line (Ormond, Glen Huntly) an extention of Sandbelt both Libs and Labor can do well here. Bread and butter issues dominate here.

Labor may be able to just hang on to Rockingham in their heartland but will be in trouble throughout the regions and most outer metro areas in the next state election. They will definitely lose the upper house!

@nether they have also made serious inroads in Wills and Cooper. They are already in the 2CP count there but I do agree on McNamara if Labor shed anymore ground to the greens it will become a Greens v Liberal contest. At that stage the seat could fall to the liberals as Labor leaks more to the Liberals then Greens do.

@Vicliberal Cooper and Wills are Labor heartland though. It would be like them winning Canberra, Grayndler or Sydney; they made the TCP in 2022 but still are safe Labor seats. The Greens won’t win any NSW federal seats even though Grayndler overlaps with the state seats of Balmain and Newtown which are Greens seats (the former is marginal while the latter is safe).

Also, is @Colin Tincknell the real Colin Tincknell, the one who was One Nation WA leader and an MLC at one point?

Though I guess maybe Balmain and Newtown voters are Albo as progressive and the NSW Labor Party as less progressive so they vote Greens? Not quite sure.

It’s no secret that the NSW Labor Party (like the Queensland Labor Party but unlike the Victorian Labor Party) is dominated by the more centrist Labor Right faction while the NSW Liberals are dominated by the more centrist Moderate faction, so NSW politics are more centrist. For example while Dan Andrews supported the Safe Schools Program after the federal government ended funding for it due to controversies, the NSW Labor Party and the NSW Liberals both were opposed it.

@ Nether Portal, i agree that NSW state politics is much more centrist so social issues dont play a large role. What i would say about about Gryndler and also the Federal seat of Sydney is that a sitting high profile. Labor MP makes it harder for the Greens to win it. Also the electorate of Gryndler also includes the seat electorate of Summer Hill the western fringe such as Ashbury, Haberfield are more suburban areas where there is a decent liberal vote. That makes it similar to Wills and Cooper where unless the Liberals preference the Greens it makes it quite challenging to win. In Wills the area around Pascoe Vale, Oak Park has a sizable Liberal vote

Result of the Rockingham by-election has just been declared. Turnout was 74.48%. IND Hayley Edwards has finished second after the distribution of preferences. 2CP is ALP 61.37% vs IND 38.63%. The last recorded 2PP was ALP 65.20% vs IND 34.80%.