In other Western Australian news, the result of September election finally takes effect in the Legislative Council tomorrow, May 22 being the changeover date for its fixed term. This will produce an increase in the chamber’s numbers from 34 to 36, as the electoral reforms which introduced one-vote one-value for the lower house also remodelled the upper house from a combination of seven- and five- member regions to six regions of six members, half-Senate style. The rural malapportionment which gave the metropolitan and non-metropolitan regions equal numbers despite a 78-22 population imbalance remains, with the more remote Agricultural and Mining and Pastoral regions being still more over-represented than the South West region. Most importantly, the Liberal and National parties will have a combined majority of 21 seats out of 36, with Labor on 11 and the Greens on four. Previously the numbers were Labor 15, Liberal 15, Nationals one, Greens two and one independent, the latter being former Labor MP Shelley Archer who was expelled from the party as it sought to distance itself from links with Brian Burke in the lead-up to the federal election. A useful report on the changeover was featured on Stateline last month.

UPDATE: Final score from the Fremantle by-election: Carles 10,664, Tagliaferri 9,100. Margin: 3.96 per cent. I expected Labor would rein it in a little on late counting, but no.

Wednesday, May 6

Last night’s by-election forum at Notre Dame University saw a crowd of several hundred assemble to observe and interrogate 10 of the 11 candidates, independent Rosemary Anne Lorrimar having made her apologies. Although a highly entertaining affair, one wonders about the representativeness of an audience that appeared sharply divided between left and right. The former included a lot of very vocal Greens who extended an equally sympathetic hearing to the Socialist Alliance, while the latter consisted of a remarkably well mobilised crowd of Christian Democratic Party supporters. This included state party figurehead Gerard Goiran, who managed to get a question in. If any Labor partisans were present, they kept their thoughts largely to themselves.

As expected, Tagliaferri faced uncomfortable moments over the previous government’s stance on lead carbonate shipments and his own role in the Fremantle Markets stallholders issue, to which he offered practised responses. He also came face-to-face with Australian Services Union secretary Paul Burlinson over the non-union contracts episode, and found himself used as a punching bag for concerns over uranium and GM crops. His least convincing responses related to the Labor how-to-vote card’s placement of the Christian parties ahead of the Greens, and whether he would cross the floor on issues affecting the electorate. On the first count he replied that the only votes he cared about were primary ones – an honest answer would have been that they were keeping the card as simple as possible to reduce the informal vote, and it’s really only of academic interest anyway. The second was despatched with a line of obfuscation about “always putting Fremantle first”. It was a point worth pursuing, because Labor would face an interesting dilemma if Tagaliaferri did anything to warrant disendorsement, given its evident dependence on him to retain the seat.

Adele Carles inevitably had a much easier time, notwithstanding challenges from CDP supporters over drugs and prostitution, to which her responses would have neither won nor lost her any friends. Her strongest moment came when she told the audience they faced a choice between an independent voice and a Labor backbencher, artfully capped off with “sorry Peter”. She also spoke well in opposition to the “Dubai style” North Port Quay development. Her weakest moment came when she essentially told a representative of the Leeuwin tall ship replica project they could have as much money as they liked.

The outstanding performer of the minor candidates was a very articulate Sam Wainwright of the Socialist Alliance. Julie Hollett was almost as forceful in her presentation of the CDP’s case, which wasn’t so very different from Wainwright’s if you focused on the diagnosis (“we are currently grappling with the consequences of an immoral corporate culture guided by greed and self-interest”) rather the cure. Andriétte du Plessis of Family First left rather less of an impression, and was knocked back on a show of hands when she requested that Liberal MP turned party candidate Anthony Fels take her place when she had to leave early.

Riverton real estate agent and independent candidate Nik Varga still hasn’t made much of a case as to why he would like to represent Fremantle in particular, and his most memorable contribution was a candid admission of his Liberal sympathies. On the latter count he is in the same boat as Carmelo Zagami, who offered bona fide Fremantle credentials, anti-Labor rhetoric and a reasonable grab bag of local policy concerns. I don’t know how feasible independent Steve Boni’s showpiece policy of an underground freight transport tunnel is, but he at least sounded like he’d thought it through. Local anti-council crusader Jan ter Holst got quite a few laughs, apparently intentionally, while Rob Totten of the Citizens Electoral Council didn’t win too many converts with his poster demonstrating why global warming was a fraud. The rest of his spiel was the usual Larouchite deal about looming global depression and the need for a national bank to finance humungous national infrastructure projects, Rex Connor-style – which you would have to say sounds less bonkers than it used to.

I recorded proceedings on my mobile phone, but a) it didn’t sound very good, b) I accidentally deleted part of it, and c) I gather the ABC are going to put it up as a podcast in any case.

Tuesday, May 5

The candidates’ forum will be held this evening at Notre Dame University’s Drill Hall (at the Marine Terrace end of Mouat Street) at 7.30pm, hosted by Peter Kennedy of the ABC. If you recognise me, come up and say hi. A Labor mailout has hit the letterbox, featuring this covering letter, this flyer and a pamphlet with a front and back. That gives Labor a 2-0 lead in the mailout war. The Western Patriot has a good update on the campaign, which beats me to a point I had planned on making myself: that the widespread media coverage of union dissent with Tagliaferri might steel homeless Liberals to give him their vote, or at least their preference. Or as Western Patriot commenter Peter Van Insolent puts it: “Labor voters will be voting Green because they don’t want to vote Liberal and Liberal voters will be voting Labor because Labor is Liberal”. Labor might have hoped for better timing on the CPRS backdown, but the federal government obviously has bigger fish to fry than the Fremantle by-election.

Sunday, May 3

The Sunday Times has conducted a dubious sounding “survey” of 200 Fremantle voters, without providing details of how it was conducted. Respondents broke 106 for Peter Tagliaferri and 94 for Adele Carles, evidently without being given the option of nominating minor candidates. Today’s Fremantle May Day rally got a good run on the evening news, being the second story on Ten and the ABC and somewhat further down the order on Nine. Both stories focused on the Australian Services Union’s opposition to Peter Tagliaferri, with union secretary Wayne Wood sharing screen time with Tagliaferri and Eric Ripper.

Saturday, May 2

One clear winner has emerged from the campaign so far – the Fremantle Herald, which is bursting this week with election advertising. The paper has a May Day wraparound with a small ad promoting a Greens fundraiser gig at the Fly By Night Club, which I gather will feature Bob Brown backed by Lucky Oceans and Dave Brewer. Page two of the wraparound features ads from Peter Tagliaferri, Melissa Parke and Rachel Siewert. The front page of the paper proper has the first ad I’ve seen from Sam Wainwright, promoting himself as Socialist Alliance but formally an independent. Page three has a second big ad from independent Carmelo Zagami, who gives away rather more than he did in his first ad, along with a quarter-page Tagliaferri ad I can’t be bothered scanning. Adele Carles’ first full page ad graces page five. Page six has a quarter page ad for independent Jan ter Horst and a second entry from deputy mayor John Dowson, taking a too-clever-by-half dig at Tagliaferri. There’s a half-page Tagliaferri ad on the opposite page, and one from the North Port Quay proponents (which doesn’t mention the by-election) across the bottom halves of pages eight and nine. The same full-page ads as appeared for Nik Varga and Steve Boni in the Fremantle Gazette (see below) are on pages 12 and 15.

As for the news, reporter Jenny D’Anger informs us that Labor’s preference determinations have been designed to make the how-to-vote card easy to follow, with the Greens put second last because that’s where they are on the ballot paper (perhaps Labor might give some thought to backing optional preferential voting). Another report finds D’Anger seeking further unions to add to the one laboratory confirmed and one suspected case of anti-Tagliaferrianism, getting no bite from the Maritime Workers Union and no answer from the Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union. The paper also features a vox pop in which plentiful support is to be found for the Greens. It was a similar story on the ABC’s Stateline yesterday (link presumably forthcoming), but perhaps that’s café strips for you.

Thursday, April 30

Julian Grill, lobbying colleague of Brian Burke and minister in his government, says Peter Tagliaferri should be expelled from the party he joined so very recently due to his membership of the Liberal fundraiser group the 500 Club. Tagliaferri says he joined after the Barnett government was elected last year to improve his access to its ministers as Fremantle mayor. Grill’s beef is that he himself was expelled ostensibly for making a donation to the Nationals on behalf of a client. This happened in the lead-up to the 2007 federal election, as Labor nervously contemplated the impact of its association with Grill and Burke. Embarrassment followed when it was revealed that Gary Gray, then candidate and now member for Brand, had also made donations to the Nationals in his capacity as corporate affairs director for Woodside – and that he was, in his own words, “a member of the 500 Club for about three years”.

The West Australian also reports that the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union has “told its members to ignore an ALP email calling on party faithful to march with Mr Tagliaferri and to wear T-shirts expressing Labor support” at the May Day rally in Fremantle this weekend. Its concerns are not shared by another union which Labor has traditionally not been able to rely on – the WA Police Union, whose president Mike Dean says Tagliaferri has been “a strong supporter of police for many years on a number of matters, including on wages claims and local policing issues”.

Two independents have expensive full-page ads in this week’s Fremantle Gazette Community newspaper. Independent candidate and Riverton real estate agent Nik Varga interestingly has the “V” in his name spelled with a tilted Liberal Party logo. However, Varga says he “won’t give my preferences to the Greens” due to his pro-development stance, which presumably means Labor will get them instead. The ad sells Varga as an “Independent with a Liberal voice in a Green wilderness”. One-time Labor candidate Steve Boni has a professional looking effort which like Varga’s expresses support for the North Port Quay project. Frank Calabrese in comments notes that authorisation details for each just show name and suburb – not sure how this stacks up against the Electoral Act’s requirement that the “name and address” be shown. Also in the Fremantle Gazette is an article by Angie Raphael in which the candidates offer brief explanations of what makes them tick.

More axe-grinding from The Western Patriot, which is overdue to start spelling Tagliaferri’s name correctly (UPDATE: WP’s error now corrected.).

Tuesday, April 28

Labor’s postal vote application mailout is hitting Fremantle’s letterboxes, accompanied by this flier. Paul Murray of The West Australian talks up discontent over the Labor credentials of Peter Tagliaferri, who directed preferences to the Liberals as an independent candidate in 1990 and threatened to run against Melissa Parke as an independent at the federal election. Also noted are his “tentative support” for the North Port Quay project, the council’s eviction of Fremantle Markets stallholders and deputy mayor John Dowson’s campaign against him. The article’s star attraction is Ruth Belben, a one-time electorate officer to John Dawkins whose election to council in 1987 prompted Tagliaferri to complain it had become dominated by Labor. Observing that yesterday’s West Australian report focused on a union not affiliated with the ALP, Bule in comments argues: “The real story will be when/if an affiliated union splits to oppose Tagliaferri.”

Monday, April 27

Saturday’s West Australian reported that the Australian Services Union will meet to consider a recommendation by secretary Wayne Wood that it campaign for Adele Carles. The union is unhappy with Peter Tagliaferri because of a Fremantle council non-union pay deal, which Tagliaferri argues he could not legally have involved himself with as it was an operational matter.

Friday, April 24

A candidates’ forum will be held at Notre Dame University’s Drill Hall (at the Marine Terrace end of Mouat Street) at 7.30pm on Tuesday, May 5, hosted by Peter Kennedy of the ABC. The public are invited to submit questions for the candidates to freodebate@yahoo.com.au.

Fremantle deputy mayor John Dowson has been on the warpath against Tagliaferri, first over his move to extend generous lease terms to the Fremantle Italian Club, now on the interesting terrain of Tagliaferri’s alleged neglect of the council’s “green plan”. Dowson has a quarter-page ad in today’s Fremantle Herald in which he says the plan “has not been updated or seriously fudned in the 8 years since he was elected”. Elsewhere in the Herald, Adele Carles gets a photo in on front page while Tagliaferri gets two (both posed with Julia Gillard) on page two. There are two ads for Peter Tagliaferri (the one at the top is from last week’s edition), one for the Greens and one for independent Carmelo Zagami.

Saturday, April 18

Robert Taylor reviews the minor players in his Political Sketch column in today’s West Australian:

There’s Christian Democrat Julia Hollett, who yesterday put out a press release opposing the Greens “agenda to introduce primary school curriculum to teach young children lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and inter-sex lifestyles”. We can safely assume her preferences will end with Mr Tagliaferri. Then there’s Rosemary Anne Lorrimar, a nurse who blames Mr McGinty for turning her from a private sector employee into a public servant and twice ran for the DLP in the 1960s against Kim Beazley – that’s Beazley Sr. She will be directing preferences to Mr Tagliaferri not the least because the Greens are “more worried about trees and whales than people.” Mr Tagliaferri can also count on pro-development Labor lawyer Steve Boni, a former ALP candidate, for preferences and more than likely will also get Family First’s Andriette DuPlessis’s preferences.

Ms Carles can count on preferences from Sam Wainwright, a wharfie and member of the Socialist Alliance Party whose main platform is that Australia should be 100 per cent reliant on renewable energy by 2020. Ubiquitous Fremantle campaigner Jan Ter Horst should also put a few votes Ms Carles’ way as should Liberal, now independent, Carmelo Zagami. Sketch isn’t quite sure which way the Citizens’ Electoral Council’s Rob Totten will send his preferences but given that he holds a diploma in homepathic ionic therapy, we’re guessing Green.

Taylor concludes that Labor is most likely just “guarding against complacency” with its talk of possible defeat, as “there’s no unpopular Labor government and more importantly no Liberal Party candidate”. A report on last night’s ABC Television news focusing on the nomination of Carmelo Zagami can be viewed online. Gasp in awe at the dashing fellow with the clipboard standing behind Peter Tagliaferri at the ballot paper draw. Here’s a letter from Tagliaferri seeking assistance from Labor members well outside the electorate, passed on to the Poll Bludger by a top-level party insider.

Friday, April 17

District returning officer Tracey Elliott takes care of business

Full list of candidates in ballot paper order, as drawn today at the Electoral Commission’s Spearwood office (to be updated with biographical details as they come to hand):

Nik Varga (Independent).

Rob Totten (Citizens Electoral Council).

Jan ter Horst (Independent). Ter Horst has been making himself known locally with claims of council corruption, which he has publicised by daubing slogans on his house and driving a car with a coffin on top. He has been in long-running dispute with the council over a neighbouring strata development which has blocked his ocean views.

Carmelo Zagami (Independent). The manager of the Fremantle United soccer club, Zagami polled 35.9 per cent as the Liberal candidate for the federal seat of Fremantle in 2004. The ABC reports he is running “to give Fremantle voters a chance to vote for a conservative candidate”, and plans to direct his preferences to the Greens.

Steve Boni (Independent). Described by Robert Taylor of The West Australian as a “pro-development Labor lawyer”, Boni was Labor’s candidate for Roe (which has since been superseded by Eyre) at the 2001 election, running fourth with 16.2 per cent of the vote.

Andriette du Plessis (Family First).

Peter Tagliaferri (Labor). Tagliaferri is a member of a prominent local Italian family, and assumed ownership of its Interfoods cafe in 1983. In that year he became at 23 the youngest person ever elected to local government in Western Australia when he was elected to East ward on Fremantle City Council. He ran as an independent in the 1990 by-election that brought Jim McGinty to the seat, polling 3.6 per cent. In 2001 he was elected mayor, defeating incumbent Richard Utting, and was re-elected in 2005 with 62 per cent of the vote.

Julie Hollett (Christian Democratic Party). Robert Taylor of The West Australian reports Hollett put out a press release on the day nominations closed opposing the Greens’ “agenda to introduce primary school curriculum to teach young children lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and inter-sex lifestyles”. The CDP put the Greens last at the state election in all but a few seats where it didn’t direct preferences, with the interesting exception of Willagee where Alan Carpenter did the honours.

Rosemary-Anne Lorrimar (Independent). Robert Taylor of The West Australian reports Lorrimar is “a nurse who blames Mr McGinty for turning her from a private sector employee into a public servant”, and that she “will be directing preferences to Mr Tagliaferri not the least because the Greens are ‘more worried about trees and whales than people’.” As Rosemary Taboni, she was a candidate for the Democratic Labor Party three times in the 1970s – against Kim Beazley Sr in 1972, and for the Senate in 1974 and 1975 – and she is presumably also the Rosemary Lorrimar who for the Christian Democratic Party in Willagee in 2005.

Adele Carles (Greens). Carles is a 41-year-old lawyer and resident of South Fremantle. She came to local prominence first as part of the Save South Beach campaign, which opposed a housing development within contentiously close range of the beach’s dunes, and later when she launched a legal challenge against the state government’s plans to dig up a former lead smelter site in South Fremantle. Carles polled 5.8 per cent as an independent running in opposition to the South Beach development in 2005, and surprised most observers by scoring 27.6 per cent when nominated by the Greens in 2008 – more than 10 per cent higher than former MPs Ian Alexander and Jim Scott had achieved in 2001 and 2005, and 6.0 per cent higher than the combined vote of Carles and Scott in 2005.

Sam Wainwright. Wainwright is the candidate of the unregistered Socialist Alliance, for which he ran officially as federal candidate for Fremantle in 2007 and unofficially in the state upper house region of South Metropolitan in 2005. The Green Left Weekly describes him as “a wharfie, member of the Maritime Union of Australia and activist in the Fremantle Community Solidarity group”.

Thursday, April 16

Only one more shopping day to go before the closure of nominations and ballot paper draw. Considerable media attention has been given this week to Peter Tagliaferri’s determination to stay on as mayor until his term expires in October. Deputy mayor John Dowson is quoted by the Fremantle Cockburn Gazette saying he should stand down if elected, while Amanda Banks of The West Australian relates that Tagliaferri’s predecessor as mayor, Richard Utting, has joined Adele Carles in calling on him to stand down during the by-election campaign. The issue also got a run on last night’s ABC television news. Today’s West features a lengthy opinion piece on the by-election by Paul Murray – a link will hopefully be forthcoming.

Sunday, April 12

The Western Patriot, a feisty new Perth news and opinion site published by former Labor staffers John Theodorsen and Nathan Hondros, identifies a “sleeper” local issue:

12,000 people signed a petition to save Kel Smith’s Carriage Café on the Fremantle Esplanade. Kel’s café has funneled caffeine to exhausted parents near Fremantle’s best playground for the better part of three decades. Many of Kel’s signatories would not be local, but the famous Freo gossip mill puts the City of Fremantle’s plans to bulldoze the café down to lobbying by Camellia Holdings Pty Ltd, the owner of the Esplanade Hotel. This issue is niggling for locals, many of whom are fond of the owners of this small but vital business.

Friday, April 10

The writ for the by-election was issued yesterday, making official May 16 as polling day. Nominations close at noon next Friday (a day earlier for party candidates), with the ballot paper draw to follow and the roll to close at 6pm that evening. The complete timeline for the by-election can be viewed here.

Brendan Foster of the Fremantle Herald reports:

Both the Greens’ Adele Carles and Labor’s Peter Tagliaferri want rail extended south of Fremantle but Ms Carles wants light rail too, extended throughout the metro area. Mr Tagliaferri says moving the port to Kwinana will cost jobs and he’ll fight it … “In particular we need a rail from Fremantle, through South Beach to Port Coogee” (Carles said). Mr Tagliaferri, born and bred in Fremantle, laughed off suggestions by Ms Carles, a South Freo resident, that he would be too Freo-centric, ignoring the outlying suburbs of the electorate in Cockburn and the fringes of Melville.

Thursday, April 9

The ABC reports the Liberals have decided to sit this one out. Obviously they don’t think they’re travelling so well in Fremantle that they could repeat Labor’s feat in the New South Wales seat of Clarence in 1996, when the Nationals-held seat fell to Bob Carr’s promising young government with a 14.0 per cent swing (the margin in Fremantle is 12.0%) – though admittedly this was achieved with a popular candidate who until recently served the area at federal level. Antony Green has a comprehensive guide to the by-election with more historical detail than you can poke a stick at.

Wednesday, April 8

The ABC reports Colin Barnett saying that “while some in the Liberal Party will be keen to run against Labor, he sees it as a distraction for the Government”. The party will discuss whether to field a candidate tonight. Should they require a primer on the subject, Antony Green has written a comprehensive overview of the pros and cons of running by-election candidates in safe seats.

Tuesday, April 7

Labor’s administration committee has unanimously chosen Peter Tagliaferri as its candidate from a field of three nominees, the other two being the aforementioned Keith McCorriston and local branch member David Hume.

Green Left Weekly says the unregistered Socialist Alliance has announced its candidate will be Sam Wainwright, “a wharfie, member of the Maritime Union of Australia and activist in the Fremantle Community Solidarity group”. Wainwright ran for the Socialist Alliance in the federal seat of Fremantle in 2007 and the upper house region of South Metropolitan at the 2005 state election.

Monday, April 6

The grapevine reports that Keith McCorriston nominated for Labor preselection today, ahead of the closure of nominations at 4pm tomorrow. McCorriston is president of the party’s Fremantle branch and an official with the Maritime Union of Australia, which is obviously influential in the portside electorate – although that probably won’t count for much if as expected the preselection is decided by the party’s administration committee. McCorriston is also said to have backing from “some of the other blue-collar Left unions”, but a decisive-sounding combination of the Right unions and McGinty’s Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union has lined up behind Peter Tagliaferri (the Cockburn City Herald reports McGinty has described Tagliaferri as an “excellent candidate with ministerial potential”). However, one might speculate on the possibility of a union-backed independent spoiler emerging, such as helped deliver the federal seat of Cunningham to the Greens at a by-election in 2002. The West Australian reported this morning that the Liberals are still keeping their options open, with the better part of three weeks to go before nominations close. Greens MLC Giz Watson is encouraging them to enter the fray.

Saturday, April 4

The West Australian reports Peter Tagliaferri has gone back on an earlier threat to stand as an independent if he does not win Labor preselection. Joe Poprzeczny at WA Business News reports there are also rumours surrounding the imminent departure of John Kobelke, whose margin in his northern suburbs seat of Balcatta was slashed from 9.3 per cent to 2.3 per cent at the election. However, the rumour seems to be that the departure is not immediately imminent, but will rather coincide with a change of leadership ahead of the federal election and Alannah MacTiernan’s tilt at the Liberal-held federal seat of Canning, allowing for simultaneous by-elections in Balcatta and MacTiernan’s safe Labor seat of Armadale.

Here is my piece from yesterday’s Crikey Daily Mail:

The lid was officially lifted overnight on the worst-kept secret in Western Australian politics: the resignation of Left faction powerbroker, senior front-bencher and one-time Opposition Leader Jim McGinty. The announcement comes six weeks before the May 16 daylight saving referendum, and has obviously been timed so the resulting by-election can be held on the same day.

While this will limit the backlash that usually occurs when voters are dragged to the polling booths mid-term, Labor is by no means out of jail. Like its federal counterpart, McGinty’s electorate of Fremantle has traditionally been a stronghold for Labor, which has held the seat without interruption since 1924. However, a significant demographic shift in recent decades has seen the port city’s waterside workers and migrant communities make way for an assortment of alternative lifestylers, café dwellers, university students and bong shop proprietors.

While this mixture had long made the electorate a strong source of support for the Greens, few anticipated the strength of their candidate’s performance at last September’s state election. Adele Carles picked up a swing of over 10 per cent on the primary vote, and appeared on track early in the count to overtake the Liberal candidate and defeat McGinty on preferences. Carles ultimately finished in third place 3.4 per cent behind the Liberals, but the result made it clear that Labor could no longer take Fremantle for granted, particularly in the context of a by-election.

The Labor hierarchy has recognised its weakness by courting a non-party member in Peter Tagliaferri, who has been mayor of Fremantle since 2001. This trod on the toes of various union officials, reportedly including McGinty’s successor at the Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union, Dave Kelly. While Keith McCorriston of the Maritime Union of Australia could recently be heard musing about his options, it appears all but certain that Tagliaferri will be endorsed in coming weeks by the party’s administrative committee. The Greens meanwhile have conducted a pre-emptive preselection which saw Carles win endorsement without opposition.

The Liberals are remaining coy as to whether they will go to the effort of fielding a candidate. While they could reasonably plead that running in a seat with Fremantle’s track record would not be worth the expense, they might care to recall that they cut the margin below five per cent at the 1990 by-election that brought Jim McGinty to the seat. However, the Barnett government hasn’t been making too many friends locally with its plan to allow Magellan Metals to transport lead carbonate through the port, after a similar operation in Esperance was linked to widespread contamination and the deaths of thousands of birds. A more realistic consideration is whether they would harm the Greens by giving them a hurdle to clear for second place, or help them by marshalling the votes of supporters who dutifully follow the how-to-vote card.

The word from the Labor camp is that polling shows local supporters are so angry that last year’s botched early election delivered government to the hated Coalition that they are of a mind to punish the party further with a protest vote. The story goes that Labor are by no means assured of victory over the Greens even with Tagliaferri in their corner, and would be gone for all money without him.

Below is a chart mapping the primary vote in Fremantle going back to 1974, when John Tonkin’s one-term Labor government was defeated by the Charles Court-led Coalition. There have of course been redistributions over this time, but they have had little effect on Fremantle, whose northern and western boundaries have remained defined by the Swan River and the ocean. The one-vote one-value redistribution ahead of the last election slightly weakened Labor by removing working class areas in the electorate’s far south and increasing the potency of Greens support around the city centre, but even this only reduced Labor from 44.9 per cent to 43.8 per cent and boosted the Greens from 15.8 per cent to 17.1 per cent (as calculated by Antony Green). Labor’s slump in 1989 resulted from the independent candidacy of John Troy, who held the seat from 1977 to 1980 when he was rolled for preselection by David Parker (no doubt explaining the slight dip in Labor’s vote in 1980). The Labor primary vote fell further at the 1990 by-election held when Parker made way for Jim McGinty after the WA Inc catastrophe cost him the deputy premiership. Among the Melbourne Cup field on that occasion was one Pietro Tagliaferri, who polled 645 votes (3.62 per cent) as an independent.

Friday, April 3

The lid has officially been lifted on the worst-kept secret in Western Australian politics: the resignation of Left faction powerbroker, senior front-bencher and one-time Opposition Leader Jim McGinty. This will result in a by-election in the Poll Bludger’s very own electorate of Fremantle. While the timing of the by-election remains at the discretion of the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, it can be taken for granted that it will be held in conjunction with the May 16 daylight savings referendum. Fremantle has been in Labor hands since 1924 and is in no danger from the Liberals, but it nonetheless looms as a fascinating contest due to the strong performance at last year’s state election by Greens candidate Adele Carles, who fell 3.4 per cent short of overtaking the Liberals and winning the seat on their preferences. Carles has already been endorsed as the Greens candidate for the by-election, while Labor is considered all but certain to nominate Fremantle mayor Peter Tagliaferri. Much, much more to follow, including a piece in today’s Crikey Daily Mail.

• Speculation continues to mount that former WA Health Minister and Attorney-General Jim McGinty (left) will shortly be calling it a day, initiating a by-election in Fremantle to coincide with the state’s May 16 daylight saving referendum. On ABC television news, Peter Kennedy reported that rumoured preselection contender Peter Tagliaferri (right) met with McGinty and ALP state secretary Simon Mead to “discuss the possible vacancy”. However, Alan Carpenter is offering point-blank denials to speculation he might also vacate his seat of Willagee, which puts the prospect of a dangerous preselection stoush between Tagliaferri and LHMWU state secretary Dave Kelly back on the agenda. Steve Grant of the Fremantle Herald reports:

Alan Carpenter says he will remain in state parliament till the next election. He ruled out the possibility of a by-election for his safe Labor seat of Willagee … He shrugged off speculation that he and Fremantle MP Jim McGinty were contemplating mid-term retirement to make way for new Labor blood, “you might not believe me, but often I’m the last person to hear about these things”. It seems Jandakot Liberal MP Joe Francis could be more tuned in to Labor machinations than the former premier, becoming the third person to tell the Herald that LHMWU secretary Dave Kelly was being groomed to take over a Labor seat.

• What’s more, Robert Taylor of The West Australian has mused on the possibility of star Gallop/Carpenter government minister Alannah MacTiernan moving to federal politics by taking on Don Randall in Canning, where redistribution has shaved the Liberal margin from 5.6 per cent to 4.3 per cent.

• Staying in WA, the Liberal Party is having an interesting time dealing with jockeying ahead of preselection for the safe southern suburbs seat of Tangney. Sitting member Dennis Jensen (left) lost the preselection vote ahead of the last election to Matt Brown, former chief-of-staff to Defence Minister Robert Hill, but the result was overturned by prime ministerial fiat. As Robert Taylor puts it, “this time there’s no John Howard and Dr Jensen looks decidedly shaky”. Against this backdrop, local Liberal branches have been inundated with membership applications from “Muslim men”, who are believed – certainly by the Brown camp – to be enthusiasts for the incumbent. A compromise reached at the state executive saw admission granted to half the applicants, who can apparently thank Julie Bishop for arguing that “many of her east coast colleagues with big Muslim populations in their electorates were nervous about the outcome”. Taylor says a Brown supporter told him “the new members were associated with ‘strident anti-Israel statements’ from the Australian National Imams Council”.

• With independent MP Rory McEwen to call it a day, the Liberals would be pencilling in his seat of Mount Gambier as a soft target at next year’s state election. However, the Border Watch reports Liberal candidate Steve Perryman, the mayor of Mount Gambier, might face an independent challenge from Don Pegler, the mayor of Grant District Council, who has perhaps been inspired by Geoff Brock’s boilover in Frome. Grant covers the electorate’s extensive rural areas outside of the City of Mount Gambier, although the latter accounts for three times as many voters.

• Andrew Landeryou at VexNews offers a colourful and detailed account of the gruelling Liberal preselection jockeying in Kooyong.

• Landeryou also notes conflicting reports on the prospect of a Right-backed preselection challenge by Noel McCoy against Phillip Ruddock in Berowra.

• Andrew Leigh and Mark McLeish have published a paper at Australian Policy Online which asks a most timely question: Are State Elections Affected by the National Economy? Using data from 191 state elections, they find a positive correlation between low unemployment and success for the incumbent, “with each additional percentage point of unemployment (or each percentage point increase over the cycle) reducing the incumbent’s re-election probability by 3-5 percentage points”. Furthermore, “what matters most is not the performance of the state economy relative to the national economy, but the state economy itself”. That being so, it seems voters “systematically commit attribution errors – giving state leaders too much blame when their economy is in recession, and too much credit when it is booming”.

• The Parliamentary Library has published a note on the redistribution of WA’s federal electorates.

• Brendan Nelson’s announcement he will vacate his blue-ribbon northern Sydney seat of Bradfield at the next election could initiate another of the classic preselection clashes for the NSW branch of the Liberal Party has become justly famous in recent years. Party sources quoted by Imre Salusinszky of The Australian say the preselection will be “the most open and hotly contested since Bronwyn Bishop succeeded Jim Carlton in the neighbouring seat of Mackellar in 1994”, with no clear front-runner and neither Right or Left controlling the seat. However, it is also “understood party bigwigs are intent on avoiding a repeat of the preselection debacle in 2007 in the southern Sydney seat of Cook”. Salusinszky’s report floated the possibility of his paper’s conservative pundit Janet Albrechtsen taking the field, but she promptly ruled herself out. Live possibilities apparently include another connection with The Australian in Tom Switzer, former opinion page editor and staffer to Nelson; Arthur Sinodinos, John Howard’s legendary chief-of-staff; Nick Farr-Jones, former rugby union international; Julian Leeser, executive director of the Menzies Research Centre; Geoff Selig, former state party president; Alister Henskens, barrister and local party office-holder; David Elliott, former Australian Hotels Association deputy chief executive; Paul Blanch, a sheep farmer who ran in Calare in 2004; and, as always, Adrienne Ryan, former Ku-ring-gail mayor and ex-wife of former police commissioner Peter Ryan. The Sydney Morning Herald reports we shouldn’t hold our breath waiting for a result:

A state executive meeting tomorrow is likely to discuss the timetable for the preselection race but because of a redistribution of seats in NSW, the final ballot will not be held until the end of the year. Because of that, most Liberal insiders believe the final candidate has yet to emerge.

• The Electoral Commissioner’s federal electoral determination has been published, confirming redistributions will need to occur to remove a seat from New South Wales and add one to Queensland. There seems to be some confusion abroard as to whether this scotches any chance of an election this year. As Antony Green explains, it is indeed the case that Queensland cannot be deprived of the seat which it is constitutionally entitled to at the next election now that the determination has been made, and it is indeed true that a redistribution process takes the better part of a year. However, the Electoral Act lays out a set of procedures for “mini-redistributions” in these circumstances, in which the two most or least heavily enrolled adjoining electorates in the state are either divided into three or merged into two. This has never happened before, and there would be obvious political difficulties in justifying an election held under such slapdash arrangements if it could possibly be avoided.

• Could Western Australia’s May 16 daylight saving referendum be the catalyst for a super Saturday of state by-elections? It certainly seems war clouds are gathering over the electorates of the two most powerful figures in the defeated Carpenter government: Jim McGinty, the member for Fremantle, and Alan Carpenter himself, who holds the neighbouring seat of Willagee (surely I have not so pleased the Lord that He would grant me neighbouring same-day by-elections in my own backyard?). According to Jenny D’Anger of the Fremantle Herald:

In the face of persistent rumours that veteran state Labor MP Jim McGinty is about to trigger a by-election for Fremantle by announcing his retirement, the Greens have called a war cabinet to talk tactics and anoint a candidate. It is all but certain they will choose South Fremantle’s Adele Carles, who came within a whisker of taking the seat at last year’s state election … Ms Carles says if the powerbroker is considering calling it quits he should do it so the by-election can coincide with the daylight saving referendum in May, saving thousands of dollars … The tom-toms have been beating for weeks that Fremantle mayor Peter Tagliaferri was the shoe-in as Labor’s choice to replace Mr McGinty. But more recently a senior union figure has emerged as a front-runner, which a Labor insider says had Mr Tagliaferri threatening to run as an independent (Word around the campfire is that this refers to Dave Kelly, one of McGinty’s successors at the LHMWU – PB). The Herald’s Labor source said Alan Carpenter also had to be taken into account: If the former premier decides to quit politics the union figure may prefer Mr Carpenter’s safe Willagee seat, which is not threatened by the Greens. This would leave Fremantle open for Mr Tagliaferri. But both Mr McGinty and Mr Tagliaferri are denying a by-election is imminent. “It’s no more than rumour-mongering,” Mr McGinty barked down the phone, adding he stood by the Herald’s report last November that he had no plans to go early but was unlikely to run again in 2013.

• Killjoy Harry Quick has gone back on his threat to run against Treasurer Michael Aird as Greens candidate in the looming upper house election for Derwent. According to the ABC, Quick says “his family has played second fiddle to his political aspirations for too long”. An earlier report said he was “understood to be ready withdraw his nomination due to family pressure to stay true to the Labor Party”.

• Not sure how much of this is news, but there’s a lot of good stuff on the Western Australian Electoral Commission site: veteran academic Harry Phillips’ 149-page Electoral Law in the State of Western Australia: An Overview; Isla Macphail’s 388-page Highest Privilege
and Bounden Duty: A Study of Western Australian Parliamentary Elections 1829–1901; and comprehensive survey data on various aspects of the September state election.

• AAP reports that Jennifer Huppert, a lawyer with the firm Maddocks and “long-time Labor moderate”, has been “unanimously endorsed” by Labor’s national executive to replace Evan Thornley in the Victorian upper house region of South Metropolitan. A “senior Labor source” quoted in the report says “Ms Huppert was the Premier’s pick, chosen from four women candidates selected by Federal MP Michael Danby and state Treasurer John Lenders”. The Herald Sun earlier reported that “a list of six names – four women and two men – had been submitted to the Labor Party’s national executive”, with the Left-aligned Laura Smyth named as frontrunner.

• Rick Wallace of The Australian reports that a looming split in the Right of the Victorian ALP could produce “another round of bloody winner-takes-all preselections replete with branch-stacking, brawls and backstabbing”. The next Victorian opinion poll will be interesting to observe, given the stresses the present heatwave has placed on Melbourne’s infrastructure.

• Malcolm Mackerras muses on the recent history of by-elections and upper house vacancies in the Canberra Times.

• Annual financial disclosure returns for 2007-08 can be viewed at the Australian Electoral Commission site (UPDATE: … from Monday – thanks to Ruawake for pointing that out).

The problem Eric Ripper and Alannah MacTiernan have within Labor is that they both come from a Centre faction that no longer exists. Without factional backers, the more likely long-term scenario is that the next Labor premier will either be the Left’s Roger Cook or the Right’s Ben Wyatt. The problem Labor has is that neither of the two is ready to assume the leadership, and it must find someone capable of leading the party into an election, be it a by-election or general contest, at a moment’s notice, such is the knife-edge situation in the State Parliament …

After the election loss, (Ripper) was seen as more acceptable to the two factions, who were not impressed with Ms MacTiernan’s efforts to reform the factional system. But with the Ray report into the party’s election failings criticising its factional warfare, Ms MacTiernan’s reformist zeal might win her some favour at the national level. Few political observers believe Mr Ripper will lead Labor to the next election if the Barnett Government goes its full four-year term. It therefore comes down to a matter of when Mr Ripper will step down or be pushed aside in favour of the next leader, and whether that leader will be Ms MacTiernan or one of the new generation.

• Ray cites various elections over the past year-and-a-bit to observe that the advantages of incumbency are clearly not what they used to be. In particular, “a formerly inviolable rule of politics was that if opinion polls showed the country or State ‘heading in the right direction’ by more than 55%, re-election was a certainty”. The Howard government was nonetheless defeated with 58 per cent supporting such a proposition, and Alan Carpenter’s Labor joined the club with the figure on 54 per cent. Trumping the statistic in the latter case (and no doubt the former as well) was the belief of 53 per cent that it was “time to give someone else a go”.

• “As a rule, the higher the voter turnout, the better Labor does.” This time it was 82 per cent compared with 85 per cent in 2005. “Was the Labor vote lower because of the reduced turnout or was the loss of community support for Labor a driver of lower turnout? So far, no plausible explanation has been offered.”

• “Too many in the electorate thought that the surplus was just sitting around, unused”, when it was in fact being committed to capital works programs. Voters “readily formed the view that they, as individuals, had not benefitted from the boom and were resentful that the Government was not spending some of the surplus on them.”

• Colin Barnett “looked like he had made a personal sacrifice to resume the leadership and had been unfairly ambushed by the calling of the election”.

• “Dream team” candidates who were defeated in decisive seats such as Mount Lawley and Morley were placed in the wrong seats – though it’s unclear where they should have run instead. Bumping Bob Kucera aside in Mount Lawley is universally recognised as an error, though I do wonder what role the Royal Perth Hospital played in Labor’s loss of that particular seat.

• Ray faults The West Australian for “displaying a bias not seen since the Murdoch excesses of 1975”, which “spread to the rest of the media as though it was the norm”. On the former count, I wonder if Ray remembers the role Murdoch’s Adelaide News paper was said to have played in the defeat of Des Corcoran’s South Australian government in 1979, an election which had many parallels with this one.

• Ray rightly complains that Labor did not run an ad responding to the Liberal effort which gave viewers 30 seconds of silence to think of “three good things Alan Carpenter’s Labor has done in eight years of boom”, which would have written itself. The West Australian reported shortly after the election that such an ad had been considered but rejected on the grounds it would have seemed “reactive”.

• The Nationals “had a simple message, promoted it for 18 months and were allowed to get away with the fiscal irresponsibility of their promises and the illusion of their independence from the Liberal Party”. Blame lay with a “Perth-centric” Labor campaign, which was no doubt inspired by the new electoral landscape ushered in by one-vote one-value.

This post will be progressively updated as information becomes available.

UPDATE (1.30pm): Cabinet announced. Included are three Nationals (Brendon Grylls in regional development, Terry Waldron in sport and recreation and Terry Redman in agriculture) along with independent Liz Constable, who takes education from Peter Collier, who instead gets energy and training. Constable is one of only three women out of 17, and the only one in the lower house. The others are Robyn McSweeney as Child Protection and Community Services Minister and Donna Faragher as Environment Minister, the latter a surprise inclusion at the expense of former Shadow Women’s Affairs Minister Helen Morton.

UPDATE (3.30pm): North Metropolitan, East Metropolitan and South Metropolitan have all gone Liberal three, Labor two and Greens one. Still to come are Agricultural (likely result Nationals three, Liberals two and Labor one, although the third Nationals seat might go to Liberal-turned-Family First member Anthony Fels) and South West (looking like three Liberal, two Labor and one Nationals).

UPDATE (3.40pm): Three Liberal, two Labor and one Nationals in South West.

UPDATE (4.50pm): Three Nationals, two Liberals and one Labor in Agricultural. Final result: 16 Liberal, 11 Labor, five Nationals, four Greens.

UPDATE (Saturday): Full preference distributions:

North Metropolitan
East Metropolitan
South Metropolitan
South West
Agricultural
Mining and Pastoral

Listed below are close-ish results at the final counts. There were no tremendously close calls earlier in the counts that might have proved decisive, such as Family First or CDP candidates getting ahead of Liberal or Nationals candidates in South West or Agricultural.

EAST METROPOLITAN
Greens #1: 41489 (15.0%) ELECTED
Labor #3: 37106 (13.5%)

SOUTH METROPOLITAN
Greens #1: 43516 (15.5%) ELECTED
Liberal #3: 40174 (14.3%) ELECTED
Labor #3: 34640 (12.4%)

SOUTH WEST
Liberal #3: 22124 (14.4%) ELECTED
Greens #1: 20992 (13.6%)

AGRICULTURAL
Nationals #3: 11096 (15.2%) ELECTED
Labor #2: 8971 (12.3%)