ALP 25.2%
Incumbent MP
Tony Buti, since 2010.
Geography
Armadale covers south-eastern parts of Perth, including Armadale, Brookdale, Mount Richon, Hilbert, Haynes, Seville Grove, Champion Lakes, Mount Nasura, Camillo and Kelmscott. The entire seat lies within the Armadale council area.
Redistribution
No change.
History
The seat of Armadale has existed since 1983, and has always been held by Labor.
Armadale was first won in 1983 by Labor MP Bob Pearce, who had held the seat of Gosnells since 1977. Pearce had joined the Labor frontbench in 1980, and became a minister after the 1983 election. He was re-elected in 1986 and 1989, and served as a minister until 1992. He retired at the 1993 election.
Pearce was succeeded in 1993 by Labor MP Kay Hallahan. Hallahan had held a seat in the Legislative Council since 1983, and had served as a minister since 1986. Hallahan became deputy leader of the opposition after Labor’s defeat in the 1993 election, serving in that role until 1994. She retired in 1996.
Alannah MacTiernan, another Labor member of the upper house, replaced Hallahan in Armadale in 1996. MacTiernan had been elected to the upper house in 1993 after five years on Perth City Council.
MacTiernan was re-elected in 2001, 2005 and 2008, and served as a minister in the Labor state government from 2001 until 2008.
MacTiernan resigned from Armadale in 2010 to contest the federal seat of Canning. She was unsuccessful in this contest, and went on to win election as Mayor of the City of Vincent in 2011. MacTiernan won the federal seat of Perth in 2013, and retired in 2016.
The 2010 Armadale by-election was won by Labor’s Tony Buti. Buti has been re-elected twice.
Candidates
- Blake Clarke (Western Australia Party)
- Arthur Kleyn (Australian Christians)
- Jayden Carr (One Nation)
- Mahesh Arumugam (Liberal)
- Tony Buti (Labor)
- Jessica Openshaw (Greens)
- Lisa Moody (No Mandatory Vaccination)
- Eby Mathew (Waxit)
Assessment
Armadale is the safest Labor seat in the state.
2017 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Tony Buti | Labor | 15,091 | 66.7 | +13.0 |
| Wendy Jeffery | Liberal | 3,814 | 16.9 | -15.9 |
| Nitasha Naidu | Australian Christians | 1,448 | 6.4 | -0.6 |
| Anthony Pyle | Greens | 1,456 | 6.4 | -0.2 |
| Cameron Huynh | Independent | 556 | 2.5 | +2.5 |
| Edward Flaherty | Micro Business | 269 | 1.2 | +1.2 |
| Informal | 1,325 | 5.5 |
2017 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Tony Buti | Labor | 17,008 | 75.2 | +15.5 |
| Wendy Jeffery | Liberal | 5,619 | 24.8 | -15.5 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into three parts: central, north and south.
Labor won a large majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 71.8% in the south to 77.2% in the centre.
| Voter group | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Central | 77.2 | 5,337 | 23.6 |
| North | 76.1 | 4,685 | 20.7 |
| South | 71.8 | 4,547 | 20.1 |
| Pre-poll | 76.6 | 4,266 | 18.8 |
| Other votes | 73.5 | 3,799 | 16.8 |
Two-party-preferred votes in Armadale at the 2017 WA state election
Fun fact – Don Randall, in 2004 and 2010, won the booths federally for the Liberals in the seat of Canning.
Unless someone like him comes around again, this will be Labor at both levels for the foreseeable future.
If the Libs really get flayed, AC could come second here. They get a decent vote in the Armadale / Gosnells area, and they came second at the 2010 by-election when the Libs didn’t run (in contrast to Fremantle and Willagee, where the Lib vote turned Green). They’ve also come second at at least one NSW by-election (Canterbury, 2016).
Bird of paradox well do you think there is any chance of Greens running a very distant second? But, Personally, I would find it hard to believe Liberals don’t pick up atleast 15%, because isn’t it more a swing to Labor rather than against Libs? but I’m Victorian and don’t have a clue on the electorate. Thanks
Second on primaries, faintly possibly; second on 2cp, hard no. If Libs and AC come third and fourth, one will get bounced into second place on the preferences of the other. There’s five minor right-wing parties, and most of them will have the Greens last on their HTV cards.
Armadale is like Broadmeadows or Dandenong – a grotty outer suburb at the end of the train line. (Completely unlike the Armadale in Melbourne, next door to Toorak.) The sort of safe Labor seat where the Greens don’t do well. AC (or their predecessors, the CDP) have gotten at least 6% at every election since 2001, except 2005 (when Family First got 3%), and outpolled the Greens at most of them. As much as I don’t like them, they do have a base in this part of Perth.
The main reason the Greens would be campaigning in a seat like this is for the upper house – Labor may get a fourth seat in East Metro at the expense of the Greens. It’ll be one of their weakest seats in the region, though. If you want to see a Labor/Green 2cp, look to Fremantle, Maylands, or maybe Perth.
Based on my fiddling with Antony’s calculator, a similar situation may crop up this time in the upper house to last time, in that the Greens are actually competing in East Metro with the Liberals for what would traditionally be the 2nd Liberal seat, and the 6th seat is up for grabs for a conservative leaning minor party. I’m not sure how much higher Labor’s 1st prefs can get in East Metro, compared to North and South.
Last time in East Metro, the Libs were genuinely unlucky: the reason One Nation beat them was to do with the way the Green surplus got distributed after they got the fifth seat. It was abstract enough to confuse Antony Green (nothing to do with GVTs). This time around, it’s simpler: the Libs might lose just from having a very low vote.
The Canterbury and Blacktown byelections ended up as Labor vs Christians runoffs. That’s partly due to Liberals not running but I expect a weak Liberal party would have the same result.
Greens are trying to pitch their left wing, pro union credentials at ALP seats but that isn’t really being done out of electoral strategy. I suspect many of the ALP rusted ons in seats like this would sooner start voting Liberal or PHON.
AC down to 6.1%, with Libs on 7.5% – they were tied on about 7% each before, so the WAEC pulled the standard 2pp distribution. The donkey vote (WAP) favours AC over Lib, and they got 2.5%, so a Labor/AC 2cp is still a theoretical chance. The other minor right parties (ON, WAP, NMV, Waxit) got 7.6% between them, so the Libs only got about a third of the total right-wing vote. Just in case there weren’t enough ugly numbers for them already.
Oh, and: Christians got 26% at the Free Reformed Church booth – no other booth was above 10%. Their vote is weirdly hyper-local… they must get their supporters to go to that one church (on a Saturday) to vote.
FRC members tend to live near their churches (and schools), and there is a strong correlation between those booths and a high AC vote.
Notable, though, that AC seem to have beaten the Liberals in a lot of booths, but are well behind in the early voting.