With just two more sleeps until polling day, now would be a good time to acquaint yourself with the sundry delights of the Poll Bludger’s state election guide if you haven’t done so already (or to reacquaint yourself if you have). As well as that, I have the following electorally relevant developments of the past few days to relate:
• Paul Garvey of The Australian reports a “growing belief within both major parties that the Liberals’ warnings of the dangers of ‘total control’ may be enough to prevent its electoral oblivion”. However, that would still leave the Liberals’ representation in the “high single digits”, down from 13 at the 2017 election. Zak Kirkup is rated as likely to rank among the casualties owing to Mark McGowan’s popularity among the large retiree population of his electorate of Dawesville. The report notes that Zak Kirkup has campaigned in Darling Range, in which the Liberals had generally been written off after gaining the seat in a by-election in 2018, and its Labor-held neighbour Kalamunda. Conversely, Mark McGowan has seen fit to visit the seat of North West Central, which the Nationals hold on a margin of 10.1%.
• The West Australian reports three unnamed Liberal MPs and another three unnamed candidates have lined up to drop a bucket on Zak Kirkup, mostly over his renewable energy policy but also for his pre-emptive concession of defeat, which one MP felt should have included some wriggle room. Another was “worried that by trying to appeal to left-leaning voters – particularly in the western suburbs – the Liberals had instead unwittingly provided the extra nudge required to push lifelong conservatives to lodge a one-off vote for Labor”. The issue was said to be particularly a problem in the South West, “including in coastal communities such as Australind and Eaton”
• A former research officer to Matthew Hughes, the Labor member for Kalamunda, had lodged a complaint against him over “verbal aggression and workplace bullying”, while another two former staffers say they quit over his behaviour. This follows extensive reporting in The West Australian on a former electorate officer’s claim that Roger Cook, Deputy Premier and member for Kwinana, unfairly dismissed her and was responsible for a “toxic environment” in his electorate and ministerial offices.
• One Nation has dropped its candidate for Forrestfield, Roger Barnett, over the more than usually racist tenor of his social media exploits, though he remains identified as the party’s candidate on the ballot paper.
I’m looking forward to see how the minor parties are going to do at the WA state election, especially One Nation…
The continued demise of One Nation can only be good news for the ALP… and not just at the state/territory level…. 🙂
Bar a (very) few corflutes I have seen nothing whatsoever of One Nation.
Must be close to 50% pre-poll or postal votes cast in some electorates now.
This is despite some odd choices for venues – the least populated retail area in one electorate at least, a venue people discovered at the federal election no longer used and far from widespread advertising of the options.
As for all the theories around the surrender tactic, it is hard to tell. I have actually swung between almost admiring it as a shock tactic to get some attention and getting a vibe that the most extreme polls are not outliers at all (not that we have many to judge).
I wonder if our esteemed host might be able to tell us if this is the election with the least number of polls in modern times?
“A former research officer to Matthew Hughes, the Labor member for Kalamunda, had lodged a complaint against him over “verbal aggression and workplace bullying”, while another two former staffers say they quit over his behaviour. This follows extensive reporting in The West Australian on a former electorate officer’s claim that Roger Cook, Deputy Premier and member for Kwinana, unfairly dismissed her and was responsible for a “toxic environment” in his electorate and ministerial offices.”…
According to ScuMo, these days even if you are accused of raping a staffer or there is a suspicion that you may be the ultimate cause of somebody’s suicide, you should just be asked: “Did you do it?”… and if you answer “Nope!”, then you are okay and everybody should move on.
So, please just ask Hughes and Cook about those staffers… surely the Libs are going to use the same standards for themselves and for the ALP, are they?
Alpo says:
Thursday, March 11, 2021 at 2:08 pm
“According to ScuMo, these days even if you are accused of raping a staffer …you should just be asked: “Did you do it?”… and if you answer “Nope!”, then you are okay and everybody should move on.”
Complete lies – stop making shit up.
Bucephalus @ #4 Thursday, March 11th, 2021 – 11:53 am
What part of that statement isn’t true?
I’ve just read the article by Paul Garvey – it’s amazing the rubbish that passes for political coverage in The Australian these days.
Garvey starts by referring to expectations that were always unrealistic, to begin with, fueled by a Newspoll of 68-32 that is unsupported by what other published polling is available, expectations of Labor or Liberal, or by any sort of sense check. He then goes on to claim that a loss of seats would not be a complete disaster – in what world is going backwards from 13/59 seats after the worst flogging in state election history in 2017, not a disaster?
Concentrating on what they do, not what they say, if Labor are actively campaigning in Nedlands and North West Central, both the bluest of blue seats, then there really is a catastrophe on the cards.
I can’t speak for any seat other than Swan Hills or West Swan. I haven’t seen the Liberal candidate for West Swan (Dave Nesbit) at Ellenbrook EVC and Rod Henderson’s early bout of energy has dried up and he’s now simply going through the motions. Liberal volunteers have certainly been thin on the ground here.
It’s been a strange election campaign, there has been little energy and no heat in the contest.
Today’s absolute Hindenberg of a presser on costings is surely the removal of the bell from the inside of the Libs’ coffin. Utter nonsense around the cost of sinking the rail line in West Perth, support to small business and other issues.
Summed up by accountants saying they were not paid to look into the actual costings, just to add up the numbers made up and supplied by the Liberal Party to get a total. Best viewed or read about while listening to the Benny Hill theme tune.
This is literally the only time I can recall people trying to claim that retaining high single figures in a 59 seat house would be a triumph of some sort. On that logic the Battle of the Little Bighorn was the 7th cavalry’s finest moment.
grimace says:
Thursday, March 11, 2021 at 5:14 pm
What part of that statement isn’t true?
This isn’t true:
“According to ScuMo, these days even if you are accused of raping a staffer …you should just be asked: “Did you do it?”… and if you answer “Nope!”, then you are okay and everybody should move on.”
This has never been said. Who has been accused of raping a staffer and Morrison has said this?
The WA Liberals’ long-awaited costings have immediately come under fire after the Shadow Treasurer was unable to answer questions about key election promises on the second-last day of the campaign.
Shadow Treasurer Sean L’Estrange said the party’s election policies had been costed by independent accounting firm Hall Chadwick, which put the cost of the Liberals’ overall election commitments at $1.4 billion, accounting for “offsets and savings”.
He said this was below Labor’s $2.4 billion projected expenditure over the same period, but Labor has disputed the Opposition costings and labelled it “unreliable”.
The Liberals released a letter from accounting firm Hall Chadwick which stated that its verification of the party’s costings involved mathematical checks, to make sure there were no errors in the calculations.
The Liberals claimed the party’s signature green energy policy would cost $260 million over the next four years, despite Labor’s repeated claims the plan would cost billions of dollars overall.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-11/liberals-under-fire-over-wa-election-costings-days-before-poll/13233926
What result will be a success for McGowan and what will be a failure. The bar is currently set extremely high.
The happiest moments for me so far in the campaign have been those times when sundry Greens have expressed their shock/horror at the prospect of a handsome Labor win. Oh schadenfreude, visit me often.
You had one job… WA Shadow treasurer couldn’t answer questions about his own policies!
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-11/liberals-under-fire-over-wa-election-costings-days-before-poll/13233926
The Liberal costings are rubbish. Inflation makes costs go up, not down. So Roe 8 cannot cost less than last time unless the scope has been reduced. It is $800 million plus for the state share. Likewise undergrounding the city rail line would be expensive – around $250 million per km of track.
I also looked at the energy policy. Assuming $2 billion per GW of solar or wind capacity, I’d say the Liberals policies would cost all up $13 to $16 billion. Their costing is laughable.
A win is a win and if that is the result after Saturday for Labor the rest of the discussion if for the die-hards.
I listened to a small segment on 6PR today when there was a “win/loss” talk in relation to the betting market. After the almost total failure of the prediction based upon following the money after the last Federal election, I would have thought this exercise was one of the more bizarre discussions today…
Despite what happened in Queensland a few years ago, and with the possibility of a very healthy majority coming to Labor, it is not beyond Labor’s hope to have two more governments ahead of them….
The current Labor government is no Newman disaster.
Additionally, despite the Liberals currently deluding themselves they were doing “okay” before CV19, I thought Labor was travelling okay and could have look forwarded to a win on Saturday – regardless…..
Bucephalus @ #10 Thursday, March 11th, 2021 – 3:26 pm
What will be a success for Kirkup and what will be failure? The bar is currently set extremely low.
The only benefit of Kirkup’s surrender strategy is to prompt exactly that framing. Any reduction of the Liberal’s seats would be a decent win, I’d have thought. The holy grail (and just about as obtainable) would be control of the upper house in their own right.
It would be a pretty good outcome for Labor if they can grab somewhere like Kalgoorlie. If the Libs can keep all of their most marginal seats, say from Riverton down inclusive, then it’s a success in terms of saving the furniture. If Riverton downwards go they are down to nine seats. Claiming that as a success would be ambitious.
If Scarborough or South Perth went it’s disastrous for the Libs. South Perth is on a 7.2margin.
Labor has been extremely careful not to buy in to the fuss about the Libs getting reduced to two seats.
@socrates – that’s not how accounting works.
You spend $13-16 billion building an asset. The impact on your budget is $0 because you lost money and gained a physical asset.
Capital expenditure only costs you money when the asset depreciates. But by that point, depreciation is offset against the revenues being earned.
It’s entirely feasible that they got the answer right, in terms of impact on the budget 4 year estimates. I’m not saying they ARE right, I’m just saying your way of debunking their numbers is not correct.
Post election spin usually does Shane Warne proud.
Partisan commentators can always find a way to put a positive light on their team’s accomplishments.
Labor has made a big effort in my seat, Riverton, and they will be disappointed I would think if they can’t win it. Likewise a Liberal victory will be hailed as a triumph against the odds.
If Zak somehow holds his seat and the Libs maybe only lose a couple they will have the problem of what to do with him. I doubt many in the party would see him doing a McGowan, losing and then winning four years later.
Rossmcg @ #16 Thursday, March 11th, 2021 – 7:34 pm
The theatre and the contest is always interesting.
But, at the end of the day, if the Government can deliver on their agenda then absolute numbers don’t mean a lot.
From the little I have seen reported about the presser and the costings, some things are not included because they say they are not going to pay for them. Quoted from The Worst, Kirkup about sinking the railway.
“He said the Liberals had only ever pledged $5 million for a masterplan to examine undergrounding a 1km stretch of the Fremantle line west of Perth Arena and that he expected property developers would shoulder the actual cost in return for land rights.”
This is the level of bumbling. The Liberal “Government” was never going to pay for it. Naturally therefore, it will not cost anything in the budget. Whether their costing of $5M for feasibility is correct is untested. But its smug.
I wonder how much Hall Chadwick were paid for “adding-up”. This is hilarious. To refer to checking the addition as being “costed” is just hoping no on will notice what a lie it is.
The other part is claiming that you can’t cost a project outside of the period of the new parliamentary term again is just rubbish. On a project the magnitude of going fully renewable and only costing the first half is disingenuous at best and a lie at worst.
I am not sure what Voice Endeavour is saying, but budgets and balance sheets aren’t the same thing. But it may not matter. Governments spend money not with the aim of achieving revenue to cover the capital cost, they spend money to achieve a social gain of some sort (in the broadest sense). Unlike in NSW where roads are built to make money for Toll or Transurban, in other parts of the country, a road is built because it will achieve better transport goals, etc. Not revenue, but a societal goal.
Kirkup’s costings announcement today reminds me of the time Joe Hockey used a small Perth accounting firm to cost Federal Liberal policies.
The figures were worse than rubbery.
Voice endeavour @ #15 Thursday, March 11th, 2021 – 4:21 pm
The buyout of electricity, gas and coal contracts would run into the many billions. That would be taken as an expense, it could not be amortised.
A good night for the coalition will be if they can win 10+ seats and for the ALP to win anything safer than Bateman (7.8%) is probably just icing on the cake.
To paraphrase Bruce Willis in Pulp Fiction: “Zak’s dead, baby. Zak’s dead”
Throwing stones at opposition costings is a fairly low risk endeavour. Without a neutral body to do the review it’s kind of pointless and even then both sides will submit their costings too late for any real review anyway. Waste of time.
I agree Joe Booth, that without an independent body, the costings are hyperpartisan. But the strange thing is L’Estrange seems to have confused “costed” with “added up and checked the maths”. Either he was disingenous or he has no idea, which is worse if he were to become treasurer.
A good night is not losing any seats. The 2017 result was amazing. I would count Darling Range as a gain.
A very good night is picking up seats.
A super good night involves picking up Dawesville, AND Riverton or Scarborough. Anything beyond these would be super super.
Front cover of the West Australian has Kirkup down 40-60 in his own seat (not statewide). Pollster not stated on front cover.
I can’t get tomorrows Worst Australian yet. Still digitally today. That figure is a 9% swing. If that was replicated over the metro area it would be a super super landslide.
Pollster is YouGov. Highly unlikely they will miss by 10%.
Over half of all eligible Dawesville voters have already voted.
I suppose we should always be a bit wary of polls, and certainly individual seat polls – but Dawesville already looked lost on only a 0.8% margin. My expectation remains the same as at the start of the campaign, I don’t expect the Liberals to win more than 5 seats. Perhaps they can keep more voters loyal in their strongest blue-blood areas, will be interesting to see if and where the Liberal vote holds up a little more on election night.
Kevin Bonham says:
Thursday, March 11, 2021 at 11:42 pm
Pollster is YouGov. Highly unlikely they will miss by 10%.
Single seat poll….pfffttt….next to worthless.
My thoughts are that most voters will simply choose Labor and that where viable conservative non-Lib candidates are running they will also do well. Prefs from such candidates will also tend to flow in the direction of the wider primary vote trends where they are distributed.
So the Liberals will lose seats to Labor and to non-Lib independent conservatives.
The word is they know they’re cactus. They’ve tried to deflect attention from their failures at the State level and Federally and to focus on ‘local’ affiliations. This will help them….but not a whole lot. The issues in the electorate are in fact State and Federal matters. These will determine voter expression in most cases.
The election is really about two separate sets of things….approval of Labor’s handling of Covid and the economy; and admonishment of the Liberals in relation to Covid, State sovereignty, successive failures of leadership and Lib misogyny. The Libs cannot hide from any of this. They will get smashed. They entirely deserve it.
Voice Endeavour
I do not agree with your statement. Every budget has a statement of income and expenditure, identifying borrowing requirements, and a separate balance sheet showing the issues you raised. The costings the Liberals announced for their budget promises relate to the former, and are clearly wrong by an order of magnitude. I didn’t look at the extra cost of social housing promised, which will easily exceed another billion to my estimate of the real cost. Some of the assets promised could be sold off later, but would still need ot be paid for up front.
The Liberal promises would either blow out the WA state debt by $10+ billion, or lead to massive cuts in other services. Or both.
Libs costings blown out to dry out current leader.