ALP 33.1%
Incumbent MP
Terry Healy, since 2017.
Geography
Southern River covers southern parts of the Gosnells council area, including the suburbs of Southern River, Huntingdale and parts of Gosnells.
Redistribution
No change.
The seat of Southern River has existed since 1996, and has always been won by the party that won the election.
The seat was originally won by the Liberal Party’s Monica Holmes. The seat was created as a marginal Labor seat, partly out of remnants of the Labor seat of Kenwick. Holmes defeated sitting Member for Kenwick, Judyth Watson.
In 2001, Holmes was defeated by the ALP’s Paul Andrews. Andrews won a second term in 2005, defeating an attempt by Holmes to return to Parliament.
In 2008, Andrews was defeated by new Liberal candidate Peter Abetz. Abetz was re-elected in 2013 but lost in 2017 to Labor’s Terry Healy. Healy was re-elected in 2021.
Assessment
Southern River is a very safe Labor seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Terry Healy | Labor | 18,718 | 76.0 | +26.3 |
| Ruben Zandman | Liberal | 2,879 | 11.7 | -27.2 |
| Simone Collins | Greens | 875 | 3.6 | -2.8 |
| Gerard Spoelstra | Australian Christians | 799 | 3.2 | +3.2 |
| Malcolm Heffernan | One Nation | 334 | 1.4 | +1.4 |
| Katie Hawkes | No Mandatory Vaccination | 307 | 1.2 | +1.2 |
| Shazi Siddiqui | WAxit | 283 | 1.1 | +0.2 |
| Wesley Jerome Du Preez | Liberal Democrats | 257 | 1.0 | +0.4 |
| Julia Walsh | Independent | 188 | 0.8 | +0.8 |
| Informal | 1,039 | 4.0 |
2021 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Terry Healy | Labor | 20,472 | 83.1 | +25.3 |
| Ruben Zandman | Liberal | 4,155 | 16.9 | -25.3 |
Polling places have been split into three parts: central, east and west.
Labor’s two-party-preferred vote ranged from 79.8% in the centre to 85% in the east.
| Voter group | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| West | 83.1 | 3,412 | 13.8 |
| East | 85.0 | 2,795 | 11.3 |
| Central | 79.8 | 2,259 | 9.2 |
| Pre-poll | 84.2 | 10,569 | 42.9 |
| Other votes | 81.5 | 5,605 | 22.7 |
Election results in Southern River at the 2021 WA state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party and the Greens.
Of all the hyperinflated margins from 2021, this has to be the craziest. Bellwether seats shouldn’t have a 33% margin. A 44% swing over the last two elections is just nuts.
That said, they won’t lose it. There’s two shiny new train stations about to be opened locally as part of the Thornlie-Cockburn Link, and that could help Labor when it goes back to being a normal marginal seat in 2029.
Mind you the state as a whole has a margin of about 30%, so a bellwether seat having a 33% margin is consistent with that.
20%, not 30%. They didn’t win THAT big.
State 2pp 69.7%, seat 2pp 83.1%: Southern River is 13.4% safer for Labor than their statewide result. Compare to 2008 (the last time we had a non-landslide election – it’s been a while!): Girrawheen had about that much of a lean to Labor (61.5 vs 48.1), and it was the fourth-safest Labor seat of that election (behind only Nollamara, Willagee and Armadale).
There’s a few seats like this that look out of place of the pendulum. Secret Harbour, Butler, Southern River, West Swan and Baldivis are all newly-developed outer suburbia (the sort of seats that tend to flip in change-of-government elections), and they’re all over 30% for Labor. They’ll have to come back down to earth sometime.