LIB 8.2%
Incumbent MP
Dean Nalder, since 2017. Previously member for Alfred Cove 2013-2017.
Geography
Inner-southern Perth. Bateman covers the suburbs of Bateman, Booragoon, Mount Pleasant, Myaree, Winthrop and Kardinya. Bateman entirely lies inside the City of Melville.
Redistribution
Bateman expanded slightly south, taking in Kardinya from Willagee. These changes cut the Liberal margin from 9.5% to 8.2%.
History
Bateman was created in 2008, largely replacing the former district of Murdoch. Murdoch had existed from 1977 to 1989 and from 1996 to 2008, and was always won by the Liberal Party.
Murdoch was won in 2005 by Trevor Sprigg. He died in January 2008, triggering a by-election.
The 2008 by-election was easily won by Liberal candidate Christian Porter.
Porter was immediately appointed as Shadow Attorney-General. Murdoch was largely replaced by Bateman in 2008, and Porter was appointed Attorney-General in the newly elected Liberal government.
Porter became Treasurer in late 2010. In late 2012 he stepped down from the front bench to run for the federal seat of Pearce at the 2013 federal election, and stepped down from the state parliament at the 2013 election in anticipation of his federal run. He was elected to represent Pearce in 2013 and was re-elected in 2016.
The Liberal Party’s Matt Taylor won Bateman in 2013.
The redistribution prior to the 2017 election abolished the neighbouring seat of Alfred Cove and redrew Bateman significantly, taking in large parts of Alfred Cove and losing other areas to the newly-named seat of Bicton. Taylor moved to Bicton where he was defeated for re-election.
Bateman was won in 2017 by the Liberal Party’s Dean Nalder who had won Alfred Cove in 2013.
Candidates
Sitting Liberal MP Dean Nalder is not running for re-election.
- Fiona McKenzie-Brown (Australian Christians)
- Adam Abdul Razak (Greens)
- Kim Giddens (Labor)
- Matthew Woodall (Liberal)
- Christina Tseng (No Mandatory Vaccination)
- Gregory Leech (Liberal Democrats)
- Steve Kepert (Independent)
- Bill Koul (Western Australia Party)
- Barry Mason (One Nation)
Assessment
Bateman would normally be considered a safe Liberal seat, but could flip in current circumstances.
2017 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Dean Nalder | Liberal | 11,515 | 51.0 | -15.3 | 50.2 |
| Tomas Fitzgerald | Labor | 6,469 | 28.7 | +9.9 | 30.0 |
| Adie Wilmot | Greens | 2,315 | 10.3 | +1.4 | 10.3 |
| Michelle Meyers | One Nation | 1,032 | 4.6 | +4.6 | 4.0 |
| Don Huggins | Australian Christians | 698 | 3.1 | +3.1 | 3.1 |
| Jonathan Masih | Micro Business | 334 | 1.5 | +1.5 | 1.5 |
| Adrian Arnold | Matheson for WA | 206 | 0.9 | +0.9 | 0.8 |
| 0.1 | |||||
| Informal | 792 | 3.4 |
2017 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Dean Nalder | Liberal | 13,418 | 59.5 | -13.7 | 58.2 |
| Tomas Fitzgerald | Labor | 9,148 | 40.5 | +13.7 | 41.8 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into three parts: north, south-east and south-west.
The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 52.5% in the south-west to 65.2% in the north.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 9.7% in the south-east to 10.5% in the south-west.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | LIB 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| South-West | 10.5 | 52.5 | 7,018 | 27.3 |
| South-East | 9.7 | 57.4 | 6,135 | 23.9 |
| North | 10.1 | 65.2 | 5,114 | 19.9 |
| Pre-poll | 10.1 | 58.9 | 2,455 | 9.5 |
| Other votes | 11.1 | 59.9 | 4,986 | 19.4 |
Election results in Bateman at the 2017 WA state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and Greens primary votes.
With another landslide looming for Labor and likely even bigger than last time along with the sitting liberal member not contesting, This could be in play. One to watch for now
Any personal vote Nalder had would be diluted in the 2017 result because he was only known to half the electorate at the time. Indeed, the fact that Nalder ran away from Bicton – despite a notional 10% Liberal margin – for the much safer Bateman suggests that he wasn’t an MP with a significant personal following.
Bateman is a blue ribband Liberal seat. Note that the only Labor booth (Kardinya) was in Willagee last time. Fair chance that will swing Liberal this time.
What David Walsh says may be true, but I still think it’s a disadvantage that a incumbent not returning. Dean Nalder announced only in December that he was not recontesting his seat, hasn’t given the Liberal candidate alot of time to campaign either. Which could be a detriment to seeing the Liberals receive a swing. I still predict the Liberals retaining though.
Alot of the Liberals in the party were upset Nalder wasn’t chosen as leader which has prompted his exit from parliament.
Bateman will not be held by Labor ever. There is a bible belt in this seat as well as a lot of money around the Canning River and Swan Rivers. It is interesting that Kardinya was a labor win – this is not a traditional labor area. This seat is Liberal heartland and Nalder is a big loss to the Liberal party and the state of WA.
I would dispute Nalder being any sort of loss, MP’s looking to shift seat just because they have a narrowish margin where they are is something I cannot even remotely respect
coughpeterduttoncough
But on a more relevant note, this is indeed staunch Liberal territory, nothing much to see here
Prediction: Liberal retain
@DemocracySausage
You are right about Peter Dutton, but to be fair Dean Nalder situation was a little different. The seat that he originally had Alfred Cove got abolished and went up for redistribution and over 50% of his seat went into Bateman. Nalder lived in Bateman and his office was based there under the new boundary changes.
That’s completely different to what Dutton tried to do where his seat of Dickson was based in Northern Brisbane and tried to parachute into McPherson a seat based on the Gold Coast. It was a good old parachute and had nothing to do with changing boundaries that were bordering electorates.
I live in this electorate. Not sure what Nalder’s personal following is like here given he’s been completely non-existent as a local member. He obviously has a following within the Liberal Party and could have some personal support from when he was a minster, but as a local MP, he has been AWOL. Nothing, nada, zip. Ben Morton at least knows he has to put in a showing as a local member. He has a presence. So did Janet Woollard. Nalder, nada.
Matt Woodall is a local councillor, he’s already reasonably well known. Part of the Russell Aubrey faction that mostly got turfed at the last council elections, but I would assume Liberal voters could overlook that and just see him as a Liberal? Or like him because of that even?
Steve Kepert is also a local councillor, won at the most recent election on a platform of opposing all the high rises going up around Canning Bridge and opposing the Wave Park. He has a profile, but I’m not sensing this seat is in play. Don’t really want to lose Kepert from the council anyway. His seat could revert.
I live in Matt Woodall’s council ward (Bull Creek). Although he supported Aubrey on some issues (e.g. Roe 8) he broke ranks over the high rise at Canning Bridge. Not much differentiation between him and Kepert on that issue although Kepert’s profile is higher in Applecross & Mt Pleasant.
Kepert will do well in north-east of the electorate but I can’t see him polling well in the south given his opposition to Roe 8 and general lack of profile there.
Libs seem to be campaigning hard here, can’t see much activity by Labor.
Liberal retain unless something dramatic happens in the last few weeks of the campaign.
Antony Green’s analysis for the parliamentary library (and thus the ABC’s coverage) list the margin as 7.8%, rather than 8.2%. Any idea where the difference lies?
I use my own methodology to calculate margins, in part because I want to have the figures at a sub-electorate level. I think the difference likely lies in how special votes are distributed. When a seat has a more significant change there’s more room for models to differ. I don’t know exactly how we differ.
Usually they are very similar. In this case we agree that the Liberal margin has declined.
The biggest difference I’ve seen with margins is Joondalup – you have 1.0% (increase from 0.6%), while Antony Green / William Bowe have 0.03% and 0%, basically the flipside of the redistribution that made Hillarys weaker for the Libs.