The sheer enormity of the Liberals’ drubbing at the hands of Labor at the weekend election in Western Australia came as a shock – even to people who predicted it.
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It wasn’t the fact Labor won, it was the margin of the swing against the incumbent ruling Liberals – almost 16 per cent against it.
New leader Mark McGowan’s Labor team has already secured 37 seats and will likely take 40 in the 59-seat lower house. The Liberals, meanwhile, will likely win just 13 – a fall of 19 seats, with the Nationals claiming five and five still in doubt.
It was also a poor showing by Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party, winning just 4.7 per cent of the primary vote – a far cry from the 13 per cent tipped during the campaign.
Not surprisingly, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull dismissed any suggestion that federal issues had any bearing whatsoever on the devastating WA election result.
That’s nonsense of course.
They always do at every state election.
The Liberals have fared poorly at state and territory elections over the past several years and now hold power in just New South Wales and Tasmania – with an election due here before March 2018.
In November 2014, the Victorian Liberals suffered a 12.4 per cent swing against them, 8.3 per cent against in Queensland in January 2014, a 5.5 per cent swing in NSW in March 2015 (although they did hold that state), 3.5 per cent nationally in July’s federal election last year, and 18.8 per cent against in the Northern Territory in August 2016.
Last week’s EMRS poll in Tasmania saw support for Will Hodgman’s government fall to just 35 per cent – the lowest level since August 2010, while Labor’s edged slightly to 29 per cent, while the poll suggests the Greens approval rating was as high as 19 per cent, which is highly questionable.
Of more interest was the rise in support for One Nation (6 per cent) in Tasmania – despite having no candidates – and a questionable 10 per cent for independents.
Whatever the case, the poll points to a hung parliament, which wouldn’t be ideal.
At no stage in recent memory has a hung parliament in this state bought with it economic prosperity and an overall improvement in services to the wider public.
One only has to cast their memories back to the last accord between Labor and the Greens to see quite the opposite was the outcome.
