Western Australian election minus eight months

State polls from Western Australia these days are few and far between (and rarer still in South Australia, but that’s another story), so I consider it worth observing that The West Australian today reports on a small-sample private poll for the northern suburbs seat of Hillarys by Utting Research, whose principal is former Labor pollster John Utting – and beg the reader’s indulgence for the over-analysis to follow.

Keeping in mind its sample of 350 and error margin of over 5%, its result of 61-39 in favour of Labor suggests a swing to the Liberals of 8% – impressive in normal contexts, but not where the statewide result from the previous election was 70-30. As the report in The West Australian observes, a uniform swing of that size would bag the Liberals only four extra seats on top of their existing three (the two they won in 2021 and the third gained with North West Central MP Merome Beard’s defection from the Nationals, which will only be retained if she can defeat Nationals leader Shane Love in the new seat of Mid West). To this could presumably be added a Nationals gain from Labor in Warren-Blackwood, getting them to four if they win Mid West and three if they don’t. Barring losses to independents or minor parties, Labor would continue to reign supreme with 49 seats out of 59.

The poll nonetheless shows a dive in the Labor vote primary vote to 45%, compared with my own post-redistribution reckoning of 61.3% in 2021. However, none of this goes to the Liberals, who are at 27% as compared with 26.8%. The Greens are at 15%, after managing only 5.2% in 2021. Roger Cook is at 41% approval and 36% approval; the poll didn’t bother with Libby Mettam and skipped straight to Basil Zempilas, on 38% approval and 40% disapproval but with a remarkable 95% name recognition. The news was less happy for federal Labor – whereas 52% expressed approval of the Cook government and 37% disapproval, the result for the Albanese government was almost exactly reversed at 36% and 53%. The poll was conducted June 3 to 14 for the Home Builders Action Group.

Another benefit from the poll is in providing me with an opportunity to unload the gigantic volume of state preselection news I have accumulated since the last such post six month ago. To make things semi-digestible, seats are gathered below by upper house region for the metropolitan seats:

North Metropolitan

Butler (Labor 32.4%): Attorney-General John Quigley, who is 75, announced in February that he would not contest the next election, after earlier appearing adamant that he would. As detailed in the entry on Landsdale below, there were reports Quigley was under pressure to make way on affirmative action grounds after influential party figure Daniel Pastorelli became set on succeeding Margaret Quirk in Landsdale, and his successor will be Lorna Clarke, who had hitherto been identified as Quirk’s likely successor. Clarke is the party’s state president, a Bayswater councillor and a lawyer with the Economic Regulation Authority, and shares the alignment of all concerned with the Right.

Carine (Labor 4.0%): Liam Staltari, a 28-year-old who works in corporate affairs for Mineral Resources and ran for Kalamunda in 2021, won a Liberal preselection vote in March ahead of Tony Krsticevic, who held the seat before 2021 and is now on Stirling City Council, by 61 votes to 37. A report by Jake Dietsch of The West Australian in April quoted neighbouring business tenants saying Labor member Paul Lilburne was rarely present at an electorate office that was “kept locked from the public”.

Hillarys (Labor 18.9%): The Liberal candidate for the seat is Lisa Olsson, a human rights lawyer and Swedish emigrant. Josh Zimmerman of The West Australian reports Olsson is linked to conservative powerbroker Nick Goiran and the Globalheart Church, a Pentecostal congregation that plays a significant role in local Liberal Party politics.

Joondalup (Labor 25.2%): The Liberal candidate is Michael Dudek, who serves Balga ward on Stirling City Council.

Landsdale (Labor 25.5%): Labor’s candidate to succeed retiring veteran Margaret Quirk is Daniel Pastorelli, former chief-of-staff to Roger Cook and Mark McGowan. Josh Zimmerman of The West Australian reported in February that the hitherto unaligned Pastorelli removed a potential obstacle to his preselection by joining the Right. It had previously been expected to go to state party president Lorna Clarke, but she will instead be accommodated in Butler.

Nedlands (Labor 2.8%): A Liberal preselection vote for the normally blue-ribbon seat produced an upset win for Jonathan Huston, army veteran and current or former owner of Tint-a-Car, Parkside Towbars and Croissant Express, over presumed front-runner Brent Fleeton, a City of Perth councillor who works for public relations firm GT Communications. Fleeton won the most votes in the first round, but Huston pulled ahead after the exclusion of lawyer Sasha Epps. This was despite both Huston and Epps having been called before a meeting of the party’s state executive to answer allegations they had failed to declare past memberships of other parties on their nominations, namely the WA Party in Huston’s case and the Greens for Epps.

Scarborough (Labor 9.3%): A Liberal preselection vote in April was won by real estate agent Damian Kelly ahead of Lidia Kukulj, an advocate for domestic violence victims who is widely described in media reports as an Instagram influencer.

South Metropolitan

Bateman (Labor 6.7%): Josh Zimmerman of The West Australian reported in February on a push to reopen Liberal nominations after the only candidate to emerge was Nitin Vashisht, Indian-born director of NAV Accountants and Advisors, although nothing further has been heard of the idea. Melville councillor Matt Woodall, a factional conservative reported to be close to the ubiquitous Nick Goiran, had earlier been rated the front-runner, but reportedly backed out at the last minute.

Bibra Lake (Labor 26.6%): With Peter Tinley retiring from the seat whose name will change in the redistribution from Willagee, Bibra Lake will be contested for Labor by Sook Yee Lai, chief-of-staff to federal Tangney MP Sam Lim.

Bicton (Labor 15.6%): Jake Dietsch of The West Australian reports a Liberal preselection will be contested between Bill Koul, owner of an engineering consultancy and an unsuccessful candidate for the federal Tangney preselection, and Christopher Dowson, a former policy officer at the Department of Premier and Cabinet and current postdoctoral fellow at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Munich.

Cannington (Labor 30.8%): Labor’s candidate is Ron Sao, former chief-of-staff to the seat’s retiring member, Mines and Petroleum Minister Bill Johnston. Sao has been an adviser to Education and Aboriginal Affairs Minister Tony Buti since Johnston stepped aside from cabinet in December, but Hamish Hastie of WAtoday reports “his links to Johnston stretch as far back as 2008 when he worked in his electorate office”. Both are aligned with the Right, Johnston being closely associated with the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association.

Cottesloe (Liberal 7.4%): David Honey, one of only two Liberal lower house members to survive the 2021 election and the party’s leader from then until January 2023, was defeated for preselection in February by Sandra Brewer, who stood down as executive director of the Property Council to run. Brewer won the local party ballot with 51 votes to Honey’s 28 and 12 for Richard Evans, an entertainment lawyer and son of Court government minister Max Evans. Honey went on the offensive against Brewer in December over her support for the government’s dilution of local government planning powers to pursue higher density, with a Liberal source cited in The West Australian invoking concerns her background could make the seat vulnerable to an anti-development independent.

Jandakot (Labor 18.4%): Yaz Mubarakai, who has held Jandakot for Labor since 2017, will contest the new neighbouring seat of of Oakford, leaving Jandakot for Stephen Pratt, who won a Legislative Council seat for South Metropolitan region in 2021 from the normally unwinnable fourth position on the ticket. Pratt was previously a Cockburn councillor and electorate officer in Kwinana to Roger Cook, and shares the latter’s alignment with the United Workers Union sub-faction of the Left. The West Australian reports Cook “pushed hard” for a lower house berth for Pratt, a “close friend”. The Liberal candidate is Nicole Robins, Melville councillor, schoolteacher and candidate for Bicton in 2021, who won Liberal preselection unopposed. Josh Zimmerman of The West Australian reports Robins is “understood to enjoy the backing of Mr Goiran”.

Oakford (Labor 27.7%): As just noted, the new seat of Oakford will be contested for Labor by Jandakot MP Yaz Mubarakai. Dylan Caporn of The West Australian reports a Liberal preselection ballot held this week was won by Liberal staffer Tait Marston, a research officer to upper house member Tjorn Sibma.

Riverton (Labor 11.0%): Canning deputy mayor Amanda Spencer-Teo was preselected unopposed as Liberal candidate in January. Spencer-Teo’s council ward of Bannister covers the northern end of the electorate.

Rockingham (Labor 37.7%): The Liberal candidate will be former Rockingham deputy mayor Hayley Edwards, a former Labor party member who was competitive as an independent at the July 2023 by-election at which Magenta Marshall succeeded Mark McGowan. Dylan Caporn of The West Australian reports Edwards won a local party ballot on Tuesday ahead of construction worker Patchara Weggers.

South Perth (Labor 10.1%): A Liberal preselection in February produced a surprise win for Bronwyn Waugh, South Perth deputy mayor and co-director of property law firm Cornerstone Legal. The surprise lay in the defeat of Hayley Cormann, high-profile barrister and wife of Mathias Cormann. Cormann in fact finished last out of three in the party ballot, scoring 14 votes in the first round to 33 for Waugh and 22 for South Perth mayor Greg Milner, with Waugh prevailing over Milner by 38 votes to 31 in the second. Josh Zimmerman of The West Australian reported “speculation conservative powerbroker Nick Goiran … had quietly swung his numbers behind Ms Waugh”.

East Metropolitan

Darling Range (Labor 14.2%): The Liberal candidate is sport teacher Paul Mansfield. Serpentine-Jarrahdale shire president Rob Coales was being mentioned as a likely contender last year, but he announced in January that he would not nominate. Serpentine-Jarrahdale councillor Morgan Byas will run for the Nationals.

Forrestfield (Labor 23.2%): The Liberal candidate is George Tilbury, police officer and former chief executive of the WA Police Union, who also ran in 2021.

Kalamunda (Labor 15.1%): With 74-year-old Labor member Matthew Hughes to retire at the election, the new Labor candidate is Mundaring councillor Karen Beale.

Maylands (Labor 29.3%): Following incumbent Lisa Baker’s announcement in March that she would not recontest the seat, Labor has preselected Dan Bull, a Bayswater councillor and former mayor and one-time auxiliary member of rock band Eskimo Joe, who shares Baker’s alignment with the Left.

Morley (Labor 27.8%): Two candidates have nominated for a looming preselection vote in the seat held by Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson: Aswath Chavittupara, whose daughter Aishwarya’s death while awaiting treatment at the Perth Children’s Hospital emergency department in April 2021 was a serious embarrassment for the government, and Nirmal Singh, owner of a beauty services company. Chavittupara had earlier said he would run as an independent.

Mount Lawley (Labor 22.0%): Simon Millman, who gained the seat for Labor in 2017, unexpectedly announced in April that he would return to the legal profession at the next election. Josh Zimmerman of The West Australian reports Millman’s path to the ministry had been blocked by his alignment with the Right-aligned CFMEU, whose designated cabinet position was locked up by upper house member Matthew Swinbourn. The new Labor candidate is Frank Paolino, an electorate officer to Balcatta MP David Michael who shares Millman’s factional alignment. The Liberal candidate is Ben Cornel, policy specialist for the Australian Retailers Association, who won a preselection vote ahead of Erit David, director of a real estate firm, James Fairbairn, a recruitment firm partner who ran as a Conservative candidate for the House of Commons in 2005, and Joe Ferrante, former Stirling councillor and commercial development manager.

Swan Hills (Labor 27.5%): Jessica Shaw, who has held the normally marginal seat for Labor since 2017, announced earlier this month that she would not contest the next election. Josh Zimmerman of The West Australian reports her ministerial ambitions were stymied first by her opposition to the government’s lifting of a moratorium on fracking in 2017, then by her support for Roger Cook to succeed Mark McGowan as leader in defiance of the support of the United Workers Union, with which she is aligned, for Amber-Jade Sanderson. The party moved quickly to preselect Michelle Maynard, a partner with accountancy firm Carbon Group, who shares Shaw’s alignment with the UWU.

Thornlie (Labor 30.2%): With Chris Tallentire to bow out at the election, Labor’s new candidate is Daniel Morrison, a Noongar and Yamitji man and chief executive of the Wungening Aboriginal Corporation and critic of the treatment of detainees at the Banksia Hill juvenile detention centre, who shares Tallentire’s alignment with the United Workers Union sub-faction of the Left.

Non-metropolitan

Albany (Labor 10.8%): A Liberal preselection vote in April was won by Thomas Brough, Albany councillor, army veteran and specialist emergency doctor, over Scott Leary, the candidate from 2021, by a margin described by Jake Dietsch of The West Australian as “clear but not a landslide”. Brough caused a stir in February when he told a council meeting that “the coalition of the LGBTQIA+” encompassed “minor-attracted persons” by way of criticising fellow councillor Amanda Cruse’s support for the Albany Pride Festival, which Liberal leader Libby Mettam described as “bizarre”.

Bunbury (Labor 22.5%): Sean Van Der Wielen of the Bunbury Herald reports the Liberal candidate will be Heather Reid, an environmental compliance adviser.

Central Wheatbelt (Nationals 9.3%): With Nationals member and former party leader Mia Davies to bow out at the election, and perhaps to run for the new federal seat of Bullwinkel, the Nationals have preselected Lachlan Hunter, a former staffer to Victorian Senator Bridget McKenzie and the party’s acting state director ahead of the 2021 election.

Dawesville (Labor 13.1%): The Liberal candidate is Owen Mulder, head of IT strategy and integration at Woodside and candidate for Cockburn in 2021. Mulder was preselected unopposed in January, having won backing from Nick Goiran and federal Canning MP Andrew Hastie. He has since won media attention for past observations on same-sex marriage, which he described in a parliamentary submission in 2008 as “a direct violation of God’s law”.

Geraldton (Labor 9.2%): The Nationals have endorsed Kirrilee Warr, farmer and president of Chapman Valley Shire, who won preselection ahead of former Geraldton mayor Shane Van Styn and Northampton Shire vice-president Rob Horstman. The party has not won the seat at an election since the 1940s, but previous member Ian Blayney defected to it from the Liberal Party in 2019 before being swept up in the tide of 2021. A report by Anna Cox of the Geraldton Guardian last month suggested the Liberals were struggling to attract nominations. (UPDATE: The local Liberal branch’s Facebook page says a preselection vote held last night was won by Tim Milnes, a clinical psychologist).

Kalgoorlie (Labor 12.0%): A Liberal preselection vote in May was won by Rowena Olsen, who works in external relations for Goldfields miner Lynas Rare Earths and ran as the Nationals candidate in 2021, ahead of former local branch president Matthew Eggleston.

Murray-Wellington (Labor 17.4%): Shire of Murray president David Bolt was preselected unopposed as Liberal candidate in February.

Pilbara (Labor 17.0%): The Nationals candidate is Karratha-based mining engineer Kieran Dart. The only time the party previously won the seat was in 2013, when its then leader Brendon Grylls succeeded in his audacious bid to move from the party stronghold of Central Wheatbelt, before current member Kevin Michel recovered it for Labor in 2017. Amanda Kailis, senior assistant state solicitor and member of the family seafood and pearl farming dynasty, won a Liberal preselection vote in May ahead of Exmouth Shire president Matthew Nikkula.

Warren-Blackwood (Labor 2.2%): Local farmer and former Manjimup Chamber of Commerce president Bevan Eatts will run for the Nationals in a seat that appeared safe for them before the 2021 anomaly. Manjimup councillor Wade de Campo will run for the Liberals, who held the seat before 2008.

Now for the Legislative Council, where the old system of six six-member regions is making way for a new system of 37 members elected at large:

Legislative Council: Labor

Labor’s upper house ticket, which will presumably be competitive up to around number fifteen, will be determined next month. Dylan Caporn of The West Australian reports positions will be structured around “blocks of seven”, in which the United Workers Union sub-faction of the Left will get the first and fifth positions of each block, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union sub-faction will get third and seventh, and the Right will get the rest (although the contention of The West Australian’s Josh Zimmerman that the AMWU will only get three of the top fourteen suggests it may not be that simple). Incumbents will fill the top block, with Jackie Jarvis set to take top spot, followed by Pierre Yang, Ayor Makur Chuot and Klara Andric, and then by Kate Doust, Samantha Rowe and Matthew Swinbourn the next three again.

Of the remaining incumbents, Stephen Pratt will contest the lower house seat of Jandakot, Sue Ellery, Martin Pritchard and Darren West have announced their retirements, and Josh Zimmerman of The West Australian reports Sally Talbot and Rosie Sahanna are “heavily rumoured” to be joining them. The former would open a vacancy for Talbot’s AMWU Left colleague Katrina Stratton, who surely has no chance of retaining her lower house seat of Nedlands. Whether Talbot goes will also determine where two further AMWU incumbents, Stephen Dawson and Alanna Clohesy, are placed on the ticket, while UWU-aligned incumbents Sandra Carr and Dan Caddy will get fourteenth and fifteenth.

The eighth and fourteenth positions will reportedly go to newcomers in Lauren Cayoun, assistant state secretary and former Belmont councillor, and Andrew O’Donnell, a staffer for Balcatta MP David Michael. Parwinder Kaur, biotechnician and associate professor at the University of Western Australia, has backing from the Right for a winnable position. This would not seem to leave room for winnable positions for four incumbents: Lorna Harper and Shelley Payne of the UWU, Peter Foster of the AMWU and Kyle McGinn of the Maritime Union of Australia, the latter of whom has not decided whether to recontest.

Legislative Council: Liberal

The Liberals are continuing to use the existing six Legislative Council regions to structure their preselection process, with WAtoday having published a helpful list of nominees by region in February.

The ticket will be headed by rising party powerbroker Simon Ehrenfeld, who won the March preselection vote for the party’s strongest region, North Metropolitan, the only one in which the party won two seats in 2021. With one incumbent, Peter Collier, set to retire, the other, Tjorn Sibma, could manage only the second of the North Metropolitan positions, which places him at number seven. Nick Goiran ally Amanda-Sue Markham came third and will take thirteenth, while Michelle Sutherland, Bayswater councillor and wife of former Mount Lawley MP Michael Sutherland, missed out. Josh Zimmerman of The West Australian notes Markham “attracted headlines when declining to distance herself from her preacher spouse’s views that homosexuals could be ‘cleansed’ and women should ‘submit’ to their husbands”, and that her preselection to a vaguely competitive position was the fruit of an alliance of convenience between Simon Ehrenfeld and her more natural ally, Nick Goiran.

The sole incumbent for East Metropolitan, Donna Faragher, announced in January that she would not seek re-election, having entered parliament in 2005 at 29. The preselection for the region was won by Phil Twiss, who was second on the ticket in 2021 and once ran for Australian Christians, and has since maintained a penchant for socially conservative pronouncements on social media. The lower order candidate for the region will be Anthony Spagnolo, a former adviser to Finance Minister Mathias Cormann and unsuccessful candidate for Riverton in 2021. Both have been linked to the “Clan” faction, presumably reflecting respective associations with Goiran and Cormann, although the notion of such a faction has lost its coherence since Cormann moved to greener pastures.

The preselections for South West and Agricultural were won by the respective incumbents, Steve Thomas and Steve Martin, who will take the fourth and fifth positions. Joe Spagnolo of The Sunday Times reports the lower order candidate in South West is Michelle Boylan, Harvey Shire councillor and candidate for Murray-Wellington in 2021, who will presumably take number ten. Anna Cox of the Midwest Times reports the lower order candidates in Agricultural are Kathryn Jackson, managing director of WA Planning and Logistics, and Randall Starling, a 22-year-old Geraldton bank worker (and an especially enthusiastic student of mine at Notre Dame University a couple of years ago), who will respectively be eleventh and seventeenth.

My knowledge of outcomes in other regions is sketchier. A report by Jack McGinn in Business News seemingly reveals all, but it’s hard paywalled and beyond my price range. Nick Goiran predictably won a preselection in March for South Metropolitan, assuring him of a top three position. Hamish Hastie of WAtoday reports the other contenders, Michelle Hoffman and Ka-ren Chew, were both lawyers and allies of Goiran, but I’m not aware which of the two won the winnable spot. I have the invaluable Twitter account Preselection Updates to thank for my knowledge of the outcome in Mining and Pastoral, where incumbent Neil Thomson will take number six; Dean Wicken, former staffer to federal Durack MP Melissa Price, will take twelve; and Kyran O’Donnell, the lower house member for Kalgoorlie from 2017 to 2021, will take eighteenth.

Legislative Council: Nationals

None of the three Nationals incumbents secured winnable positions at a preselection vote earlier this month. Michael Aldridge announced in April he would not seek re-election; Colin De Grussa announced his withdrawal on the day of the preselection vote, having conceded he could not get a winnable spot (The West Australian cited party sources saying he might be the party’s candidate in South Perth following the withdrawal of the original nominee, Jonathan Shack); and Louise Kingston landed the unwinnable fifth position, then quit the party complaining of “relentless bullying and harassment” by leader Shane Love.

Anna Cox of the Geraldton Guardian reports the top positions have instead gone to Julie Freeman, Mullewa farmer, school teacher and state party president; Rob Horstman, Northampton deputy shire president; Julie Kirby, chief operations officer of packaging company Natraplas and former state party director; and Heidi Tempra, a Manjimup school teacher. Josh Zimmerman of The West Australian reports on a view in the party that Shane Love wanted candidates associated with his Mid West electorate to boost his chances against Merome Beard, who has defected from the Nationals to the Liberals and will take him on following the abolition of her seat of North West Central.

Legislative Council: Greens

The Greens will assuredly do better under the new system than in 2021, when their sole survivor was Brad Pettitt in South Metropolitan, who will head the party ticket. Occupying the seemingly safe second position is Sophie McNeill, former Middle East correspondent for the ABC. The less safe but still strong proposition of number three goes to Tim Clifford, member for East Metropolitan from 2017 to 2021. Next along are Jess Beckerling, executive director of the Conservation Council; Diane Evers, member for South West region from 2017 to 2021; and Clint Uink, a Koreng Noongar man and Greens Institute campaigner.