ALP 12.8%
Incumbent MP
Michelle Roberts, since 1996. Previously Member for Glendalough 1994-1996.
Geography
Eastern Perth. Midland covers the suburbs of Guilford, Midland, Woodbridge, Viveash, Midvale, Stratton, Jane Brook, Swan View, Greenmount, Koongamia, Bellevue, Helena Valley, Boya, Caversham and parts of Middle Swan. The seats cover parts of Mundaring and Swan councils.
Redistribution
Midland lost part of Caversham in the north-western corner of Midland to Bassendean. This change slightly reduced the Labor margin from 13% to 12.8%.
History
The seat of Midland was created at the 1996 redistribution, and was first won by the ALP’s Michelle Roberts.
Roberts was first elected to the seat of Glendalough at a 1994 by-election after the resignation of former Premier Carmen Lawrence.
Glendalough was abolished in 1996, and Roberts won Midland.
She held Midland in 1996 with a 4.3% margin. This was expanded to 13.5% in 2001 before falling back 8.5% in 2005 and 8.3% in 2008.
Roberts was narrowly re-elected in 2013, winning by 24 votes after an 8.2% swing to the Liberal Party. Roberts was re-elected comfortably in 2017.
Candidates
- Ester Nabate (Australian Christians)
- Brendan Sturcke (Greens)
- Steve Kelly (No Mandatory Vaccination)
- Michelle Roberts (Labor)
- Brad Bedford (Western Australia Party)
- Jo Cicchini (Liberal)
- Teresa Olow (One Nation)
- Mohit Bhasin (Waxit)
Assessment
Midland has been a close seat when Labor was at a lower point but it will likely stay in Labor hands in 2021.
2017 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Michelle Roberts | Labor | 12,060 | 49.6 | +7.3 | 49.2 |
| Daniel Parasiliti | Liberal | 7,032 | 28.9 | -16.7 | 29.2 |
| Matthew Biggs | Greens | 2,127 | 8.8 | -0.5 | 8.9 |
| Tony D’Angelo | One Nation | 1,915 | 7.9 | +7.9 | 7.9 |
| Trent Passmore | Shooters, Fishers & Farmers | 690 | 2.8 | +2.8 | 2.9 |
| John Biltoft | Micro Business | 249 | 1.0 | +1.0 | 1.1 |
| Greg Ross | Matheson for WA | 230 | 0.9 | +0.9 | 1.0 |
| Informal | 1,195 | 4.7 |
2017 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Michelle Roberts | Labor | 15,315 | 63.0 | +12.6 | 62.8 |
| Daniel Parasiliti | Liberal | 8,976 | 37.0 | -12.6 | 37.2 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into three parts: north-east, south-east and west.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 58.8% in the south-east to 65.3% in the west.
| Voter group | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| North-East | 63.1 | 5,264 | 22.5 |
| South-East | 58.8 | 4,377 | 18.7 |
| West | 65.3 | 3,600 | 15.4 |
| Pre-poll | 65.2 | 5,450 | 23.3 |
| Other votes | 61.5 | 4,697 | 20.1 |
Two-party-preferred votes in Midland at the 2017 WA state election
I live here,
Major Labor stronghold and Michelle Roberts will win with a larger TPP margin compared to her massive swing towards her in 2017.
Alot of One Nation signs on Great Eastern Highway and on various stores and businesses and I will say the local Liberal candidate has been much more visible and on the ground than Roberts is in this election.
This is basically the Ipswich of equivalent in WA politics, a traditional working class Labor stronghold however in a future bad election for Labor this may fall to small “c” conservative candidate which the Liberal candidate clearly is.
Just drove through Midland for the first time in a while. There seems to at least 300 corflutes around the Town Centre. Totally unnecessary considering Labor is pretty much guaranteed to win huge here.
Unnecessary? Do you expect political parties to try to win by exactly 1 vote in exactly a half +1 of seats? No, they try to run up the score as much as possible.
Even better for the ALP, these people willing to host signs in this election might be willing to do it again in subsequent federal elections and now Labor has their details and gotten them used to it. Hasluck is a potential target seat later this year/early next year for Labor.
@ZH
What party/parties dominated the corflutes? I don’t get to Midland often
Lots of Labor, Liberal, One Nation, WA Party and a few Greens signs across Midland. The WA Party candidate has been putting up alot of signs since August and has been focusing on bringing back the Railway Workshops.
@Benne,
No, I think having corflutes are generally a good thing, but in Midland it has been so over done that it is off putting.
I didn’t see 1 corflute on someone’s front lawn. Almost all of the signs are on public property, power poles, parking signs, along railway fences, roads and vacant properties. There are hundreds of them, mostly Liberal followed by Labor and a shit ton of One Nation ones.
The upper house race is still competitive. There are seats to be won, and a majority is in Labor’s grasp. Last election they won every single lower house seat in East Metro but just 3 of 6 in the Upper House.
Labor would be hoping for 4 seats in East Metro, which requires 57%, and that will basically need to be primary vote (group voting tickets aren’t Labor’s friend). So it’s worth running up the score.
It also helps next time to if seats have a huge margin. Even with internal polling it will be hard to convince your campaign manager to throw marginal seat resources and attention at a seat with >20% margin.
Oh I’m sorry ZH, I wasn’t aware that corflutes could be put up on public land like that in Midlands/whatever city councils in Perth.
I much prefer the rules I have lived in where signs can go on private land only (so either a political campaign is paying to rent advertising space or they have to ask supportive residents if they are willing to host a sign) and it slipped my mind that there was of course other regulations elsewhere.
If this is a “parties send out teams to cover every public space in their colours” I totally agree with your point that that’s bad.
Midland is in the City of Swan and in previous elections they would have definitely taken some of those signs down. There are huge Lib signs attached to curve road signs and can genuinely be dangerous. This time looks like Councils seems to not care.
And in Thornlie which is in the City of Gosnells, there has been both Lib and Labor signs up on a School for the past few weeks. That School in Maddington is one of the biggest polling booths in the electorate