Kalamunda – WA 2025

ALP 14.3%

Incumbent MP
Matthew Hughes, since 2017.

Geography
Eastern Perth. Kalamunda covers suburbs including Kalamunda, Lesmurdie, Mundaring, Pickering Brook, Walliston, Carmel and Darlington, and stretching further east to Woololoo. The seat is split between the Kalamunda and Mundaring council areas.

Redistribution
Kalamunda shifted north-east, gaining Wooroloo, Chidlow, Mount Helena and the Lakes from Swan Hills, losing Gooseberry Hill to Forrestfield and Orange Grove and Martin to Thornlie. These changes increased the Labor margin from 11.8% to 14.3%.

History
Kalamunda was created as a new seat in 2008. A previous seat with the same name existed from 1974 to 1989. The seat and its neighbour, Darling Range, have occasionally replaced each other in redistributions and on a number of occasions have had members switch from one seat to the other. Both seats had been won at every election by the Liberal Party for over 50 years, until 2017.

Ian Thompson moved to Kalamunda in 1974 after Darling Range was abolished. He had been elected to Darling Range in 1971. Darling Range was restored in 1977, but Thompson held Kalamunda until it was abolished in 1989. He then moved to Darling Range and held it for one term, although he finished his term as an independent after resigning from the Liberal Party in 1990.

In 1993, Thompson was succeeded as Member for Darling Range by John Day. Day held Darling Range for fifteen years, being re-elected in 1996, 2001 and 2005.

In 2008, Kalamunda was restored as a seat name, taking over a large part of the former seat of Darling Range. Day moved to Kalamunda and was re-elected, and won the seat again in 2013.

A 12.7% swing swept out Day in 2017, electing Labor candidate Matthew Hughes. Hughes was re-elected in 2021.

Candidates
Sitting Labor MP Matthew Hughes is not running for re-election.

Assessment
Kalamunda covers areas that have traditionally favoured the Liberal Party, but Labor has won the seat in landslide results in 2017 and 2021. Based on the ranking of Labor support by seat, Labor probably doesn’t need to retain this seat to stay in power. A Liberal win here would help the party build up a stronger base and bring them closer to power, but wouldn’t be enough to change government.

2021 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Matthew Hughes Labor 13,100 51.3 +14.3 53.7
Liam Staltari Liberal 8,124 31.8 -5.9 29.3
Lee-Anne Miles Greens 2,164 8.5 -4.3 8.6
Brady Williams Australian Christians 651 2.5 -0.2 2.7
Michael Fane No Mandatory Vaccination 415 1.6 +1.6 1.9
Carolyn Trigwell Liberal Democrats 382 1.5 +1.4 1.3
Maureen Butters One Nation 372 1.5 -5.8 1.2
Stephen Phelan Western Australia Party 267 1.0 -0.2 0.9
Robert Ellis WAxit 74 0.3 -0.7 0.4
Informal 836 3.2

2021 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Matthew Hughes Labor 15,781 61.8 +9.5 64.3
Liam Staltari Liberal 9,763 38.2 -9.5 35.7

Booth breakdown

Polling places have been split into three parts: north-east, north-west and south.

Labor’s two-party-preferred vote ranged from 57% in the south to 71.7% in the north-west.

The Greens came third, with a vote just under 9% in the north-west and south, and 13% in the north-east.

Voter group GRN prim % ALP 2PP % Total votes % of votes
North-West 8.9 71.7 4,229 15.9
South 8.7 57.0 3,719 14.0
North-East 13.0 65.6 3,379 12.7
Pre-poll 6.9 62.6 9,537 35.8
Other votes 8.4 65.7 5,761 21.6

Election results in Kalamunda at the 2021 WA state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party and the Greens.

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8 COMMENTS

  1. I reckon a good Independent would have a decent shot here. Voices for Kalamunda or Indi for Munda sounds like a thing.

  2. It has the demographics of a wealthy-well educated electorate with a respective Green vote. Alot of issues like anti-Satterly attitude would work well with an Independent.

    If not Greens could poll 15% – I expect Libs would pick up Kalamunda although.

  3. This is the seat where it is lining up for a major upset.
    Nats to win with 25% of primary vote.
    Have very active local candidate and have Mia Davis campaigning hard in the area as well.
    Nats to also win:( with 4-6% increases in primary vote from ALP) Mid West, Roe, Central Wheatbelt (still no lib candidate),Warren Blackwood and Geraldton.
    Also toss up in Albany and Kalgoorlie (could go NT/Lib/ALP)
    Also expect Nats to come 2nd in Pilbara and Collie Preston (still no lib candidate).
    So Nats 5- 8 seats.

  4. @nick nat will win midwest geraldton, central wheatbelt, roe and warren blackwood. either libs or nats will likely win kalgoorlie and albany. i expect them to finish second in pilbara but the libs will finish second in collie-preston.

  5. How would the Nats win Kalamunda? It’s not a farming seat, and the Nats have no recent history of even running in, let alone winning seats in the hills. Davies is obviously trying to campaign in all of Bullwinkel, not just the bit she currently represents in state parliament (a quarter of it), but it doesn’t mean she’ll get far.

    CG: Liberals for Forests (a proto-teal sorta thing) did well in Darling Range in 2001 (despite the name, it’s basically the current Kalamunda). They also won Alfred Cove and came second in Nedlands. Another few % and the teal breakthrough could’ve happened 20 years earlier than it did.

  6. Can’t see nats winning at state level. And I expect Mia davies to run at least second to Labor federally if not 3rd to them and the libs . Nats running in bullwinkel and splitting the vote could cause coalition to lose the seat. If Mia davies breaks into the 2cp against Labor people in this part of bullwinkel could vote Lib 1 Lab 2. So it will be interesting to see both the lab v lib and lab v nat result.

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