ALP 21.7%
Incumbent MP
Dave Kelly, since 2013.
Geography
Bassendean covers parts of Perth’s north-eastern suburbs, including Ashfield, Bassendean, Eden Hill, Kiara, Lockridge and Beechboro. The seat covers the entire Bassendean council area along with parts of the Bayswater and Swan council areas.
Redistribution
Bassendean lost its north-western edge to Morley and gained Bennett Springs from West Swan and part of Caversham from Midland. These changes slightly increased the Labor margin from 21.5% to 21.7%.
History
The seat of Bassendean has existed since 1996, and has always been held by Labor MPs.
Bassendean was first won in 1996 by Labor’s Clive Brown. Brown had first been elected to represent Morley in 1993, and moved to Bassendean when the former seat was abolished. Brown served on the Labor frontbench from 1994, and became a minister when Labor won power in 2001. He retired in 2005.
Martin Whitely won Bassendean in 2005. Whitely had won the traditional Liberal seat of Roleystone for Labor in 2001, but moved when his former seat was abolished in 2005. He was re-elected in 2008, and served as a parliamentary secretary in the Labor government from 2006 to 2008.
Labor’s Dave Kelly replaced Whitely in Bassendean in 2013, and Kelly moved straight onto the Labor frontbench. Kelly was re-elected in 2017 and has served as a minister since the formation of the current Labor government.
Candidates
- Leni Erceg (No Mandatory Vaccination)
- Felicia Adeniyi (Liberal)
- Peter Martin (Waxit)
- Lesley Pallister (One Nation)
- Charles Pratt (Greens)
- Dave Kelly (Labor)
- Dean Powell (Australian Christians)
Assessment
Bassendean is a safe Labor seat.
2017 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Dave Kelly | Labor | 13,203 | 59.1 | +12.4 | 59.6 |
| Jim Seth | Liberal | 5,192 | 23.2 | -16.3 | 22.9 |
| Sarah Quinton | Greens | 2,532 | 11.3 | +1.0 | 10.9 |
| Paul Mewhor | Australian Christians | 735 | 3.3 | -0.2 | 3.2 |
| Graeme Martin | Micro Business | 680 | 3.0 | +3.0 | 2.7 |
| 0.7 | |||||
| Informal | 1,455 | 6.1 |
2017 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Dave Kelly | Labor | 15,967 | 71.5 | +16.4 | 71.7 |
| Jim Seth | Liberal | 6,365 | 28.5 | -16.4 | 28.3 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into three parts: central, north and south.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 68% in the south to 74.9% in the north.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 7.1% in the north to 16.9% in the south.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| North | 7.1 | 74.9 | 7,180 | 31.1 |
| Central | 12.4 | 70.9 | 5,001 | 21.7 |
| South | 16.9 | 68.0 | 3,107 | 13.5 |
| Pre-poll | 8.9 | 71.4 | 3,652 | 15.8 |
| Other votes | 13.2 | 70.0 | 4,122 | 17.9 |
Election results in Bassendean at the 2017 WA state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and Greens primary votes.
Very safe ALP seat that they’ll win on primaries.
This seat has some potential to end up as an ALP vs Green contest. The Greens generally picked up swings in this area at the federal election if that means anything.
It will be trivia more than anything else if that happens, much like the swag of Liberal vs Green seats after the 2011 NSW election. But wherever it happens, Liberal preferences will make the seats look less safe than they are.
The Greens won’t come second on these boundaries – the Lockridge end will never be anything but Labor, and it’ll be a cold day in hell before that area ever gets gentrified. Lockridge has such a bad reputation they tried to change its name in the 90’s, same way Westfield became Camillo and part of Balga became Westminster.
If there was a seat along the river and the Midland line, with the southern parts of Maylands and Bassendean, then that would be a potential Labor/Green seat (while the northern parts, basically a highly redrawn Morley, would be one of the safest Labor seats in WA). I doubt it would ever happen, though – the Bayswater industrial area is a natural divide between the two seats.