Voters in the nation’s wealthiest state have started casting their ballots in a poll that’s predicted to hand Labor a third term in office despite a double-digit swing against it.
Voters in the nation’s wealthiest state have started casting their ballots in a poll that’s predicted to hand Labor a third term in office despite a double-digit swing against it.
WAtoday is reporting live from Medina where Roger Cook will later address party faithful once the vote count firms up a winner of the election.
There are currently more media and AV people in the hall than members, but red shirts are constantly streaming in.
Police Minister Paul Papalia is here and told us the vibe at polling booths today was positive.
He wouldn’t be drawn on how many seats won would keep the party happy.
“I’d be comfortable if we return to government, that would be a wonderful outcome, noting of course that since fixed terms were introduced [winning a third term] hasn’t been done,” he said.
We’ve had reports of booths running out of polling papers.
WAtoday understands some voters at Ocean Road Primary School in Dawesville and Beaconsfield Primary School have had to be redirected as stocks dwindle.
A WA Electoral Commission spokesperson said: “Where polling place staff identify low ballot paper stocks, ballot papers are shifted from other polling places within the district to replenish stocks as quickly as possible.”
Of course, voting has now closed and the counting has started. We’re getting closer to seeing some results come through.
Churchlands Liberal candidate Basil Zempilas has addressed the controversy surrounding his party leadership ambitions.
“You don’t have to be the leader to be a leader,” he told Nine News Perth.
But Zempilas says there won’t be any easy victories for Liberals in WA tonight.
Especially in his seat, which has traditionally been a Liberal one.
He reckons he’s copped about $1 million worth of “flack” from his opponents.
Despite all the attention on him, Zempilas said the Liberal campaign had been very strong and consistent.
“I think we won the campaign actually, and Libby has been outstanding,” he said.
Commentating on Nine, Alannah MacTiernan said Churchlands’ Labor incumbent Christine Tonkin “swears” that she’s getting the same winning vibe as in 2021.
All eyes will be on Churchlands from 6pm.
Former Liberal premier Colin Barnett says the last election held in WA could be regarded as being closer to a plebiscite on the COVID response of then-premier Mark McGowan.
Speaking on Nine News Perth’s panel, live now on Channel 9, he said the result where Labor smashed opposing parties reflected the popularity of McGowan’s policies such as closing the state border, which he himself backed at the time.
Today, the vote would better reflect the political beliefs of the population.
WAtoday has just visited the electorate of Jandakot, which is one of the hardest to read seats this election.
It was the seat of Labor MP Yaz Mubarakai who is now running in the new seat of Oakford after Jandakot’s new boundary cleaved off the fast-growing suburbs of Harrisdale, Piara Waters and Forrestdale.
In their place Jandakot now takes in Atwell and most of Leeming but it is still a very disjointed seat, being made up of several local governments and federal electorates.
It is notionally a Labor seat with an 18.4 per cent margin but both parties believe they can win it.
What makes it harder for Labor candidate Stephen Pratt and Liberal Nicole Robins to predict a result is that no party was able to hand out how to vote cards at the pre-poll centre at Cockburn Gateways where much of the electorate would have voted.
The shopping centre did not allow party volunteers to hand out cards in the shopping centre or stand by the shopping centre doors so the parties agreed to abandon that location altogether for the fortnight of pre-polling.
More than 15,000 people voted in Cockburn – one of the highest in the metro area.
Speaking from Atwell Primary School Pratt – a former staffer for Roger Cook and upper house MP – said it would be close.
“Everyone’s been very kind and friendly on both door knocking before today, and on the booth and on pre-poll but I think it’s going to be close,” he said.
Pratt said his commitments to improving access to sports for women at clubs around the electorate had been resonating.
At Leeming Primary School Robins said the vibe on the ground was positive.
“I’ve got a good feeling, but we’ll just have to wait and see. We’ll keep working hard til 6pm and keep trying to win every vote we can and see how it goes,” she said.
Robins said the biggest issues in the electorate were cost of living, housing and the hospital crisis.
Liberal leader Libby Mettam has batted away persistent speculation about the future of her leadership, maintaining she is “comfortable” as the star candidate at the centre of last year’s failed Liberal leadership coup stood alongside.
“There’s no fatigue,” she told the waiting media, playing down the toll that being one of just two elected Liberals left in the lower house after the 2021 WA Labor bloodbath had taken on her.
“I’m very comfortable in my position and we will wait to see what the outcome of tonight’s results are, but we’re working hard.”
Flanked by Scarborough candidate Damien Kelly and candidate for Churchlands and Seven West Media personality Basil Zempilas, Mettam stopped at Yuluma Primary School to greet campaign staff and members of the public.
The WA Liberals are almost certain to regain Churchlands, the blue-ribbon seat WA Labor’s Christine Tonkin secured at the last election and holds with a razor-thin 1.6 per cent margin.
But Independent Lisa Thornton said she was optimistic, telling WAtoday Zempilas was a “divisive” character and the seat was “hard to predict”.
Scarborough was also one of the once-safe Liberal seats to fall to Labor at the last election, with Kelly hoping to wrangle it from Labor’s Stuart Aubrey, who holds the seat in Perth’s north-west with a margin of 9.3 per cent.
There are still long lines at polling booths around the city, with a 30 minute wait for people at East Fremantle Primary School even at 4pm.
In South Perth neither contender was willing to call the result either way but both Liberal Bronwyn Waugh and Labor’s Geoff Baker were confident.
“The overall feel and vibe is really, really positive,” Waugh said at Manning Park primary school this afternoon.
“I’ve been working hard. I don’t know, and I wouldn’t want to predict. I know that I’ve had a whole lot of support, and I’ve learned a whole lot through this process.”
Baker said it had been a good day on the booths.
“It’s lineball but really positive things happening at the booths,” he said.
“Four years of hard work I reckon people are recognising that.”
South Perth was one of the formerly blue ribbon seats to fall to Labor in 2021.
Baker won the seat with a 10.1 per cent margin making it a “safe” Labor seat but it is very much in play and within striking distance if the polls are correct and the Liberals get a statewide swing of 13 per cent.
The headlines on the race for Churchlands have well and truly been dominated by Seven West Media personality-turned-Liberal candidate Basil Zempilas, but independent Lisa Thornton is optimistic.
She says Zempilas is a divisive character and the seat is hard to predict. And on polling day, she’s done the rounds with (at the last count) five booths visited in the final straight before polls close.
Having cast her vote at Doubleview Primary School, Thornton went to Yuluma Primary School – which included a quick TV cross while she was there – then on to Woodlands Primary School, Wembley Downs, and Kapinara Primary School in City Beach.
“A steady stream of voters coming through, with many keen to grab our How to Vote cards,” Thornton said.