ALP 10.9%
Incumbent MP
Jags Krishnan, since 2021.
- Geography
- Redistribution
- History
- Candidate summary
- Assessment
- 2021 results
- Booth breakdown
- Results maps
Geography
Southern Perth. Riverton lies on the southern side of the Canning River, covering the suburbs of Rossmoyne, Shelley, Riverton, Parkwood, Bull Creek and Willetton. Riverton covers parts of Canning and Melville council areas.
Redistribution
Riverton shifted north-east, losing the remainder of Leeming to Jandakot and gaining Parkwood from Cannington. These changes increased Labor’s margin from 9.0% to 10.9%
History
Riverton has existed since 1989.
The seat was held by Graham Kierath for the Liberal Party from 1989 until he was defeated in 2001.
Tony McRae defeated Kierath in 2001. He held the seat for the ALP for two terms.
In 2008, McRae was narrowly defeated by the Liberal Party’s Mike Nahan, losing by 64 votes. Nahan was re-elected in 2013 and 2017. Nahan served as Treasurer from 2014 to 2017, and he became leader of the opposition after the 2017 election. He stepped down as party leader in 2019.
Nahan retired in 2021, and Labor candidate Jags Krishnan won Riverton.
Assessment
Riverton would be a key target for a revived Liberal Party.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Jags Krishnan | Labor | 12,850 | 50.0 | +16.1 | 52.2 |
| Anthony Spagnolo | Liberal | 8,928 | 34.7 | -10.2 | 32.6 |
| Simon Blackburn | Greens | 1,989 | 7.7 | -1.6 | 7.4 |
| Dena Gower | Australian Christians | 955 | 3.7 | -0.9 | 3.9 |
| Chris Holman | Liberal Democrats | 444 | 1.7 | +1.7 | 1.6 |
| Terry Lee | Western Australia Party | 293 | 1.1 | 0.0 | 1.1 |
| Penelope Scull | No Mandatory Vaccination | 242 | 0.9 | +0.9 | 1.0 |
| Others | 0.2 | ||||
| Informal | 675 | 2.6 |
2021 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Jags Krishnan | Labor | 15,157 | 59.0 | +13.2 | 60.9 |
| Anthony Spagnolo | Liberal | 10,537 | 41.0 | -13.2 | 39.1 |
Polling places have been split into three parts: north-east, south-east and west.
Labor’s two-party-preferred vote ranged from 55.6% in the west to 63.4% in the north-east.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| South-East | 9.2 | 61.9 | 3,470 | 12.9 |
| North-East | 8.8 | 63.4 | 3,215 | 11.9 |
| West | 9.6 | 55.6 | 2,654 | 9.9 |
| Pre-poll | 5.7 | 61.7 | 11,456 | 42.6 |
| Other votes | 7.9 | 60.0 | 6,122 | 22.7 |
Election results in Riverton at the 2021 WA state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party and the Greens.
2021 alp win
My prediction:m Labor did hold this in the Gallop-Carpenter years, but redistributions have made this better for the Liberals. Liberal gain.
Just because this seat ended up being held by a party leader doesn’t mean it’s a gimme for the Libs. Tony McRae would’ve held it in 2008 if he hadn’t turned out to be in Brian Burke’s pocket (one of the many small things that cost Labor that election). Rossmoyne and Shelley are rich suburbs (being in the catchment area for Rossmoyne SHS inflates house prices an extra $100k), but the rest of the seat is pretty marginal. It’ll be close here.
This is normal lib seat and they held in the labor slide in 2017 and well within the 15% swing expect.
Here’s some numbers. Riverton’s lean to ALP/Lib compared to the statewide result:
1989: Lib 2.1
1993: Lib 5.1
1996: Lib 1.5
2001: ALP 0.1
2005: Lib 0.6
2008: ALP 2.1
2013: Lib 1.9
2017: Lib 9.9
2021: Lib 10.7
From 1989 to 2013, Riverton was within 2% of the state result, with the lone exception of 1993 (presumably Graham Kierath getting a sophomore swing). The Lib lean suddenly blew out in 2017, partly because of a friendly redistribution, but also because it swung less than the outer suburbs which supercharged the 2017 result. It’s hard to get anything meaningful out of 2021 because of how exceptional it was – let’s just say 2017 repeated.
Now that redistribution has been partly reversed, and Krishnan is up for a sophomore swing. If a 15% statewide swing is driven by some of those crazy margins in seats like Southern River and Wanneroo coming back down to earth, it could be more like 10% here – the seat’s partisan lean coming back down to where it was for 25 years.
Probable liberal gain
This is a seat that is getting wealthier, but also more ethnically diverse. Lots of people from across the Asian continent live here because of the two high-ranking public high school that are basically next to each other in Rossmoyne and Willetton. That profile sort of evens out the seat – wealthier voters more inclined towards Liberal, non-Anglo voters more towards Labor. In truth, I don’t know that there’s much party loyalty towards either side here, but over time I suspect it will become increasingly Liberal.