LIB 10.8%
Incumbent MP
Peter Abetz, since 2008.
Geography
Southern River covers southern parts of the Gosnells council area, including the suburbs of Southern River, Huntingdale and parts of Gosnells.
Redistribution
Southern River shifted east, losing Canning Vale to Jandakot and gaining southern parts of Gosnells from the seat of Gosnells. These changes cut the Liberal margin from 17% to 10.8%.
History
The seat of Southern River has existed since 1996, and has always been won by the party that won the election.
The seat was originally won by the Liberal Party’s Monica Holmes. The seat was created as a marginal Labor seat, partly out of remnants of the Labor seat of Kenwick. Holmes defeated sitting Member for Kenwick, Judyth Watson.
In 2001, Holmes was defeated by the ALP’s Paul Andrews. Andrews won a second term in 2005, defeating an attempt by Holmes to return to Parliament.
In 2008, Andrews was defeated by new Liberal candidate Peter Abetz. Abetz was re-elected in 2013.
Candidates
- Peter Abetz (Liberal)
- Terry Healy (Labor)
- Toni Pikos-Sallie (Greens)
- Steven Secker (Independent)
- David Fishlock (Liberal Democrats)
- Craig Harley (Independent)
- Aman Singh (Micro Business Party)
- Ash Srivastava (Julie Matheson for WA)
Assessment
While the margin in Southern River looks solid, it may not be so solid if there is a sizeable swing to Labor.
2013 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Peter Abetz | Liberal | 13,949 | 63.1 | +18.2 | 55.7 |
| Susy Thomas | Labor | 6,421 | 29.0 | -9.6 | 34.0 |
| Kate Gnanapragasam | Greens | 1,176 | 5.3 | -4.8 | 5.8 |
| Damian Posthuma | Australian Christians | 570 | 2.6 | -0.3 | 2.9 |
| Others | 1.5 | ||||
| Informal | 1,464 | 6.2 |
2013 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Peter Abetz | Liberal | 14,777 | 67.0 | +6.8 | 60.8 |
| Susy Thomas | Labor | 7,286 | 33.0 | -6.8 | 39.2 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into three parts: central, east and west.
The Liberal Party won large two-party-preferred majorities in the centre (69%) and west (68%), but Labor won a slim 51% majority in the east.
| Voter group | LIB 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| East | 49.0 | 6,918 | 36.3 |
| West | 68.3 | 6,202 | 32.5 |
| Central | 69.4 | 3,441 | 18.0 |
| Other votes | 62.3 | 3,271 | 17.2 |
| Pre-poll | 61.2 | 1,187 | 6.2 |
Two-party-preferred votes in Southern River at the 2013 WA state election
This seat could be interesting come election night, 10.8% could be on the tail end of a big swing, as well, this area swung very hard for Labor in the Federal election.
Peter Abetz is brother of federal Liberal senator Eric Abetz, and they are very similar in political ideology. Interesting to note the voting booths from Gosnells itself are still fairly solid for Labor, transferred in the redistribution.
The redistribution changes have made it very likely Southern River will maintain its perfect bellwether record.
Ben – something’s gone awry with your assessment section.
Good work Ben.
I am one of the candidate for this seat, so please include my website under my name as you have done for some of the big players. That will give me a bit of level playing field 🙂
Cheers,
Ash
A ReachTEL seat poll has Labor ahead 54-46 here off a sample of 651.