ALP 13.8%
Incumbent MP
Simone McGurk, since 2013.
Geography
South-western Perth. The seat covers the centre of Fremantle, and stretches from Palmyra to North Coogee.
Redistribution
Fremantle shifted south-east, losing East Fremantle and Palmyra to Bicton and gaining Hilton, Spearwood and the remainder of Hamilton Hill from Willagee.
History
The seat of Fremantle has existed continuously since 1890. The seat was held by the ALP continuously from 1924 to 2009.
The seat was held from 1980 to 1990 by David Parker. He served as Deputy Premier briefly from 1988 to 1989 and resigned in 1990.
The 1990 by-election was won by Jim McGinty, despite a large swing against the Labor government.
McGinty served as Labor leader from 1994 to 1996, and as Attorney-General from 2001 to 2008.
After the Labor government lost power in 2008, McGinty resigned and triggered the 2009 Fremantle by-election.
The Greens ran Adele Carles, who had polled over 27% at the 2008 election. The ALP ran former Fremantle mayor Peter Tagliaferri.
The ALP’s primary vote stayed steady, but a 16% swing to the Greens on primary votes put Carles on a 44% primary vote, and gave her 54% of the two-candidate vote.
Carles’ time as a Greens MP didn’t last. In 2010 she admitted to an affair with the Treasurer, Troy Buswell. Her relationship with the Greens broke down, and she resigned as a Greens member. She served out the remainder of her term as an independent.
Labor’s Simone McGurk recaptured Fremantle in 2013, with Carles coming a distant fourth.
Candidates
- Gabrielle Van Der Linde (Australian Christians)
- Chris Jenkins (Socialist Alliance)
- Hayden Shenton (Liberal)
- Janetia Knapp (Julie Matheson for WA)
- Martin Spencer (Greens)
- Andrew Ayre (Micro Business Party)
- Warren Duffy (One Nation)
- Simone Mcgurk (Labor)
Assessment
Fremantle is a very safe Labor seat if the contest is against the Liberal Party. The seat, however, is quite a strong area for the Greens – the party managed to win the seat in the 2009 by-election. With Adele Carles’ downfall, the Greens vote has dropped, and they are quite far behind the Liberal Party. The Greens will need to outpoll the Liberal Party to threaten Labor, and that will be a tough ask in 2017.
2013 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Simone McGurk | Labor | 8,249 | 38.2 | -0.7 | 43.4 |
| Matthew Hanssen | Liberal | 7,760 | 35.9 | +7.3 | 30.8 |
| Andrew Sullivan | Greens | 3,925 | 18.2 | -8.5 | 18.3 |
| Adele Carles | Independent | 1,186 | 5.5 | +5.5 | 4.0 |
| Sanna Andrew | Independent | 252 | 1.2 | +1.2 | 0.9 |
| Jan Ter Horst | Independent | 225 | 1.0 | +1.0 | 0.7 |
| Others | 1.9 | ||||
| Informal | 1,219 | 5.3 |
2013 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Simone McGurk | Labor | 12,488 | 57.9 | -4.2 | 63.8 |
| Matthew Hanssen | Liberal | 9,094 | 42.1 | +4.2 | 36.2 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into three parts: central, north and south.
The Labor two-party-preferred vote against the Liberal Party ranged from 64.4% in the north to 67.7% in the south.
The Greens primary vote ranged from 12.2% in the south to 22% in the north.
| Voter group | GRN % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Central | 18.5 | 66.6 | 6,834 | 33.7 |
| North | 22.0 | 64.4 | 5,326 | 26.2 |
| South | 12.2 | 67.7 | 2,838 | 14.0 |
| Other votes | 18.0 | 57.6 | 3,784 | 18.6 |
| Pre-poll | 16.9 | 56.8 | 1,516 | 7.5 |
Election results in Fremantle at the 2013 WA state election
Click on the ‘visible layers’ box to toggle between two-party-preferred votes and Greens primary votes.
The redistribution helped Labor here and should be an easy hold. The Greens should probably come second with an expected large swing against the Libs and with Carles not recontesting most of her 5% should go to the Greens.
I’d suspect 65-35 Labor over Greens
I still see this as a Labor v Liberal runoff. The post-redistribution numbers above estimate a 12.5 point gap between Liberal and Greens. And whilst the Liberal vote will go down, the Greens vote is not guaranteed to go up. Particularly not if the new member has established any sort of following.
Is there any chance of Liberal HTVs preferencing Greens over Labor?
It used to be fairly commonplace across the country until Bandt used Liberal preferences to win Melbourne, but it may be a way for the Liberals to have more to work with than Labor in a hung parliament or close contest.
I have heard that the Liberals only didn’t do it at the last federal election because they thought they would win easily, and/or as part of a deal with Labor to save the Libs in Lib vs Nat and Lib vs NXT seats.
@David Walsh
I’d imagine there would be a personal vote for McGurk probably pushing upwards of 40% on primary vote. That being said the greens had a bad result last time, and in the two latest elections being the 2014 Senate election and the 2016 Federal election they were at about 30% in Fremantle, 20% in the other booths except for the three Spearwood booths where they get around 10%. As I’ve outlined before the Carles vote should go to them.
I can’t imagine them winning but if they were looking to cement a top two place this should be their time.
the only way they could win this seat or even the Federal seat is if Ludlam ran but that would need to be in 10+ years.
The Perth Freight Link is a huge issue in this electorate, with locals largely against it. Even in a very safe seat such as Fremantle where there are not many votes to gain I’d expect a 2PP of 70-73% to the ALP, assuming it’s an ALP/LIB contest.
I don’t think the Greens will win or significantly improve their vote at this election, the WA branch has been pretty low-profile at a state level since the departure of Giz Watson. That said if the Liberal vote drops off considerably it could well become an ALP/GRN contest.
The biggest problem for the Greens in this electorate was that when they did win it, they got Adele Carles into Parliament, who did them no favours whatsoever. Getting into bed with Troy Buswell (in the most literal sense) was not exactly what you’d expect from a Greens MHR, and then jumping ship to being an Independent just made it worse.
Until that stain is forgotten, Greens candidates will have a tougher time of it in Fremantle than you might expect in what should be one of the most Green friendly areas in Australia.