• Joe Spagnolo of the Sunday Times reports that the Liberal internal polling that persuaded Troy Buswell to go showed that even with Buswell as leader the party would have retained Bunbury (Liberal-held but notionally Labor post-redistribution) and won the notionally knife-edge new eastern suburbs seat of Kalamunda. However, they were trailing slightly in the must-win seats of Albany (Labor-held but now notionally Liberal) and Kingsley (northern suburbs, Labor-held, notionally line-ball). A report from Robert Taylor of The West Australian suggests the poll showed them winning all four if Barnett was leader, by a margin of 60-40 in Bunbury. However, Taylor also reports Labor polling is believed to give them a “nice buffer”.
• Independent Churchlands MP Liz Constable has been included in the new shadow cabinet, with the public sector management and government accountability portfolios: smartly chosen in the context of an election campaign that will emphasise Brian Burke and ministerial sackings, but potentially very dangerous thereafter. The formerly estranged Rob Johnson and Graham Jacobs (members for Hillarys and Roe, with the latter set to contest the new seat of Eyre) are back on the board.
• It now seems likely the Liberals will be unable to accommodate Deidre Willmott, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry policy adviser who had to abandon Cottesloe so Colin Barnett could shelve his retirement plans. This leaves the Liberals with a grand total of four female lower house candidates out of the 43 nominated so far: Liza Harvey in the marginal Liberal new northern suburbs seat of Scarborough, Andrea Mitchell and Milly Zuvella in Kingsley and Joondalup further north (respectively line-ball and marginal Labor) and Ruth Webb-Smith in long-shot Kimberley.
• Today’s West Australian reports that outgoing Carine MP Katie Hodson-Thomas is ruing her decision to retire, made on the day Troy Buswell became leader. Hodson-Thomas complained Buswell had made “inappropriate comments” to her in front of male colleagues.
• The West Australian’s Gary Adshead reports that Sue Walker, the Liberal-turned-independent member for Nedlands, is yet to have nominated for the election, prompting speculation she was “throwing in the towel”. Walker responded by telling Adshead that a man had come into her electorate office to say her “life was in danger”, but that “providing there’s nothing that stands between me and the close of nominations, I intend to nominate”.
• Alan Carpenter has announced a re-elected Labor government will spend $160 million rebuilding Albany Regional Hospital, after earlier committing only to a $55 million redevelopment. Albany was won by Labor in 2001 and retained by a 1.4 per cent margin in 2005, but the one-vote one-value redistribution has turned it into a 2.3 per cent Liberal seat by expanding it into rural areas beyond the city limits.
• In other policy news, the Kimberley canal is officially off the agenda of a first-term Liberal government. Word is that the once-bitten twice-shy Barnett will pursue a “small target” strategy.
• If you’re a Crikey subscriber, you can my read quick overview from today’s email. The upshot is that the Liberals are a better chance than the $4.25 being offered by Centrebet suggests.
UPDATE (9/8/08): The Sunday Times reports Labor polling conducted after the Liberal leadership change shows Labor leading 56-44 in the new seat of Jandakot, which has a notional Labor margin of 3.6 per cent.
340 Comments
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Now that’s an interesting question, considering he came out in support of Buswell at the height of the Chair sniffing /bra-snapping woes, and as I recall didn’t give any sort of congratulatory message to Barnet as he was already out of the country last week when he was elected.
Only by resigning, Gary
“otherwise whats the point.’
Point of Rudd coming to WA is whether Federal polls in WA show him as a big plus or Nelson as a big negative , and whether he has any big project ‘handouts’ (obviously voters know its a State electon)
Well Peter Garratt was in town yesterday campaigning in the Seat of Midland at the Midland Sports Complex – it was to launch the Solar City project, of which the City of Swan is one of the Consortium members.
http://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/Pages/Results.aspx?ItemID=130692
“The Perth Solar City project is worth a total of $85million over five years
the potential to deliver greenhouse savings of 50,000 tonnes per annum and cut peak electricity loads of six megawatts per annum.
There are than 6,000 households and businesses will be directly involved.”
Anything with solar as a replacement enegy sourse I’m for Did this Garrett announcement get big airplay on current affairs , or ar good news storys shelved
Only briefly mentioned on the news here – nothing on TV, dominated by the Olympics.
Is there any info on the former liberal deputy who has teamed up with Family First? Is this an election for all the upper house in WA ? Does the voting system in WA heed or help minor parties?
Yes, the election is for the whole upper house, but unlike NSW and SA the state is divided into six six-seat regions so the quota is the same for the Senate and thus tough for very small parties. Not impossible though – other similarities with the Senate include above-the-line ticket voting, which very nearly produced a win at the last election for the insignificant Fremantle Hospital Support Group in South Metropolitan region. A Victorian 2004 style boilover is unlikely, but certainly not out of the question.
William,
Have you got a preview of Tomorrow’s West – What’s their take on Trading Hours ?
Video of Buswell accusing the State Govt over the recent Gas Crisis, though it was a bit unwise to use the term “Stink ” about 3 times .
http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200808/r281322_1194415.asx
Thanks William for the background on structure of WA elections. On another note, I am in Boothby electorate and I am also interested in the Mayo election but I guess there is very little info released publicly on this upcoming election – because it is on the outskirts of Adelaide and mostly rural – but there seems to be a few local people on your bloggs who have good info at times – would there be enough movement to have a Mayo blogg ticking over as it covers a fair bit of the bottom of the Murray. Also I am interested in how Bob Day will fair under Family First banner.
on the Nelson-Barnett front – there is something to be discussed there.
some weeks ago John Howard and Alexander Downer came to Perth and held a big Lib bash in town as part of their farewell tour. Julie Bishop hosted it, and much comment was made that Buswell, although State Leader, was not seated at the high table and was on the outer.
whether this was because Howard thought Buswell was on the nose, or because Buswell didn’t want to be seen close to the man who took the Libs into opposition at all levels, was not clear. I am not even sure if Barnett was present.
it should not be forgotten that WA swung towards Howard in the Fed election, and that Bishop controls the Fed Lib MP’s, and that they held the balance of power in the Party room that delivered the leadership to Nelson. I interpreted Howard’s visit as a thank-you to the WA true believers, of whom Bishop is top dog and still in denial that Work Choices is dead.
the state Libs have been begging Bishop to leave Fed politics and run for Premier in WA, but she’s not that daft. She tries to keep the State party at arm’s length, so I doubt she will want Nelson coming over. She always likes to remind people that she is not from WA.
It will be interesting to see what happens to Bishop when Nelson gets rolled as leader. If Turnbull takes over, he can either retain her as deputy to hold the party room together, or bone her for not supporting him last time.
if she gets the arse we might yet see her in State politics.
Skink – “it should not be forgotten that WA swung towards Howard in the Fed election”.
If I’m not mistaken I think you may find that in fact there was a small swing overall to Labor last Federal election. I seem to recall someone saying it was in the order of 2%. In the seats that counted Labor lost some ground.
Quite so, Gary – there was a 2.1 per cent swing to Labor in WA, which was in fact just slightly higher than the swing in Tasmania. However, the cookie crumbled in such a way as to cost them Cowan and Swan, while gaining them only Hasluck.
er…I shall stand behind the fact that the Libs had a net gain in seats
The funny thing there is, Swan probably had the smallest swing in any direction of any seat in the country in 2007 – a couple of hundred votes. Kim Wilkie’s good luck last time, bad luck this time… when was that seat last not super-marginal? (And meanwhile, in the state seat of Belmont, which is in Swan, there’s no question Eric Ripper’ll get back in… go figure.)
I didn’t know the WA ALP swing was bigger than that in Tassie, though. Was that because of the preselection troubles in Harry Quick’s old seat?
@166
The funny thing there is, Swan probably had the smallest swing in any direction of any seat in the country in 2007 – a couple of hundred votes. Kim Wilkie’s good luck last time, bad luck this time… when was that seat last not super-marginal?
Depends how you define ’super-marginal’. It was 52-48 in 2001, 53-47 in 1998, 54-46 in 1996, and 58-42 in 1987.
165 skink – and WA swung to Labor. A gain of one seat obviously does not make a summer, if you know what I mean.
Exactly, Cowan was lost basically because of the retirement of a very popular member, and Swan was very close again, and the Libs Just scraped through.
And meanwhile Matt Birney has retired and said the Libs will find it hard to win.
And note that the Libs aren’t running a candidate in Churchlands – that’s to ensure they get Liz Constable a Ministerial spot if they win.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/13/2333546.htm
Bird of paradox @ 166,
Yes, the seat of Frankin had the biggest swing away from Labor in the 2007 election (3.1%). Bass only swung to Labor by 3.6% and Braddon by only 2.6% – yet Labor were able to pick both of these seats up. In Denison, there was a swing of 2.4% to Labor, whilst the biggest swing to Labor in Tassie was in Lyons, where there was a 5.1% swing.
In WA, however, whilst Cowan went to the Libs by 2.5% and Swan by 0.3% (both leading to ALP losses), there were consistent swings of about 3% in most of the other seats in the state (highest was 4.6% in Forrest).
It’s interesting to note that in Pearce, the biggest swings to Labor were in booths that were in the Swan Hills electorate.
And once The West are now calling on both parties to support full de-regulation, which is a 180 degree turn from the last poll if I recall correctly, The West were running the No campaign for the Referendum.
“Coalition frontbencher Joe Hockey said Senator Xenophon’s concerns reflected the opposition’s long-held views that FuelWatch was bad policy.”
Talk about a wedge. So what are the WA Libs going to do, agree or disagree with Hockey?
Good question, considering it was a Liberal Govt here which introduced Fuelwatch here in WA in the first place.
Hmm, so the Libs won’t be running TV ads during the Olympics ?
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=77&ContentID=91148
175 Frank Calabrese – ie “We have money problems.”
Making a virtue out of necessity if ever I saw it done….
I note the Libs are crying foul over Hospital ads being in the Weekend Community Press.
But note the Govt’s Response.
Which would indeed be correct as the deadline is approximately 4pm, and the Election was announced at a media conference around 3pm, which means that the copy is sent to the printers that afternoon so that the papers could be printed on a Friday and are usually delivered on a Saturday, hence no time to pull the ads.
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,24174900-5017005,00.html
“Liberal party advertising campaign was being planned.”
I thought that “The West” and the radio stations were already doing all the lib advertising gratis for them and had been for the past five years.
“The deadline for the community newspapers was Thursday and we missed the deadline.
Re Deadlines, these are the deadlines for display advertising for the Community Newspaper Group.
Note the deadlines for the Hills Gazette and the Weekend Courier.
http://www.communitynews.com.au/Portals/0/PDF/Production_Specifications.pdf
Prepare for the Buswell Razor Gang.
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/labor-blew-boom–buswell-20080813-3uxe.html
Don’t let Buswell loose with any kind of razor. With his track record he’d remove his own testicles.
And the libs have a platform on Mining Uranium, and I note that Gearldton is a Marginal seat, and of course Esperance had problems with lead contamination killing local birdlife.
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/uranium-has-more-than-a-halflife-under-liberal-plans-20080813-3uz1.html
And Barnett vows to keep Fuelwatch, thus putting him at odds with his federal colleagues.
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=77&ContentID=91198
So the consumer then goes and buys his petrol from the more expensive venue?
I think the Liberal leadership has been sniffing more than chairs if they believe fuel watch doesn’t lower the price of petrol for those who look at the website or watch the summary on the nightly news bulletins.
Yep, so much for being the Party of Individual freedoms and choices and of Free Enterprise.
What’s the go with increasing uranium mining by the Liberals? Are they determined to ensure they get no Greens preferences?
And Shelley Archer will now retire at the end of her term.
It seems that those who have since become independents after being dumpe/forced to resign from the ALP are slowly realising that running for re-election isn’t such a good idea, first Kucera, now Archer – will John D’Orazio be next to fall on his sword ?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/13/2334564.htm
184 Frank – this is a case of having your cake and eating it too.
Why Shelley Archer resigned.
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/archer-to-retire-from-politics-20080813-3v0r.html
William,
Both Parties have all their candidates up on their websites.
Libs: http://www.wa.liberal.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=151&Itemid=56
ALP:http://visionwa.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=26
Frank
excuse me if you have been asked before,but what is your prediction in terms of final seat numbers for WA
To be honest, I have no idea in this first week, but I reckon that what may have been a very close result will now be a fairly convincing ALP victory due to the Libs announcing a Nuclear Mining policy.
I reckon the ALP by about 5-10 seats
And the Libs call for the Nationals to drop the preference deals with Labor & The Greens because of further one vote one value reforms.
http://www.wa.liberal.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=490:call-for-nationals-to-drop-laborgreens-preference-deal&catid=54:loop-news-category&Itemid=109
frank
ta for that
from a long way off i come up with only 2-4 seats,but if as you say the yellowcake policy bites then 5-10 is foreseeable.
Day 6 of the Election Campaign courtesy of West TV.
http://www.westtv.com.au/?vxSiteId=43c6a3c7-abf1-4c32-b98d-c27f8fa83360&vxChannel=News&vxClipId=1416_WAU1359&vxBitrate=700
Interesting piece by Robert Taylor in The West on the Liberals’ unpreparedness – as Frank did earlier, it notes that Barnett “has generally made his announcements at Parliament House, where the television pickings are very slim”. Not much else to report that hasn’t been noted already.
Yep, and those “on location” announcements have been opposite the RPH North Block for the retention of RPH policy, Esther House for the Anti Drugs policy, and of course Whitfords Sea Rescue base for the announcement of increased funding, whereas all of Labor’s announcements have been at various community locations, complete with local members in the background.
I am still stonkered at the uranium mining announcement.
You try to differentiate from the other mob on many issues, but mining uranium. geez.
As well as possibly some national prefs, now they have blown away green prefs.
Green prefs can be crucial in the city.
Overall I believe the election will be messy. Probably Labor to just survive.
The overall feeling in Perth I reckon is ‘meh’ and ‘who cares’. A general malaise if you will.
Especially in Hills seats like Swan Hills who have quite a high number of Greenie/Hippy types in Glen Forrest and Stoneville, as well as in nearby Darling Range.
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