Western Australia 2025: Can The Liberals Get Back To 2017?

There hasn't been a lot of polling to talk about for the WA 2025 state election but I just thought I should do a quickish writeup on a general view of this election, which Labor is universally expected to win.  In 2017 the Barnett Liberal Government suffered what was at the time a historically lopsided dumping, losing the 2PP 44.5-55.5, with the new Labor government of Mark McGowan winning 41 seats to 13 for the Liberals and 5 for the Nationals.  Some people were more surprised when this outcome loomed than they should have been; the state government was eight years old and federally dragged, and signs of its doom had been growing in the polling over years. 

2021 then saw WA become a one-party state, with McGowan polling through the roof and then some and a rabble of an opposition hopelessly tied to unpalatable views on COVID management.  Now McGowan has moved on and COVID politics have faded, and now it's Labor who have an eight year old government that's facing the headwinds from Canberra.  And yet the polling picture so far is that the Liberal and WA National parties are not yet sure to get back to where they were in 2017.  

This is actually consistent with the federal drag pattern, because it predicts only that governments of this age and federal status will lose a lot of seats; whether they lose office or not depends on their buffer.  In this case, the federal drag model expects about 17% of seat share or ten seats to go (with plenty of variation), though this could be an underestimate given just what a blowout 2021 really was.  (Campbell Newman in Queensland, after all, managed to lose 38% of seat share after just three years in office.)  

The current Newspoll pretty much lines up with this.  It has primary vote figures of ALP 42 Liberal 32 Nat 3 Green 12 ON 4 others 7 with a 2PP of 56-44 to ALP.  By uniform pendulum swing this would be good for a recovery of eleven seats leaving Labor with 42, noting that the Nationals lost one in the redistribution.  Other polling now is too old to have much currency, but it is worth noting that in the latter half of 2024 one poll by DemosAU, two by Freshwater and one by Wolf+Smith (an enigmatic Resolve spinoff) all had Labor at 55 or 56 2PP.  

There's not too much to say on the leadership polling front but for now Roger Cook is polling a healthy net +18 (55-37), Libby Mettam net -2 (39-41) and Cook leads 54-34 as "Better Premier" (which skews to incumbents, but not that much).  Mettam's polling is OK in the circumstances.

As usual I have set up a conditional probability seat model and it has a similar view of the Newspoll to the uniform swing model, putting Labor on 42.3 seats for that 2PP.  There are some factors slightly in Labor's favour in the seat model - around the Newspoll swing of 13.7% there are some close seats where Labor has personal vote advantages (Kalgoorlie, Dawesville and Darling Range) but with one exception (Kalamunda) most of Labor's eleven retirements are far enough up the pendulum to not do much harm to their chances.

Australian Election Forecasts has things a fair bit closer - off a current estimated 2PP of 55-45 AEF puts Labor on a nowcast estimate of 38 seats (the forecast estimate is only 36, which would be a robust recovery for the conservatives to 23, up five on 2017).  My much simpler model would put Labor on 41 seats for 55-45.  One factor here is that AEF includes a "reversion from previous swing" factor which mostly favours the conservative parties in the seats projected as competitive. 2021 swings to Labor were on average stronger in these seats than in the uncompetitive seats and so all else being equal there may be more swing back.  

Should we expect minor or perhaps even substantial narrowing compared to what current polling we have, either in the final polls or at least at the election?  There is a history of state governments slightly underperforming their final polling, but in the 2021 blowout, Labor outrperformed even the extreme 68-32 and 66-34 Newspolls in the campaign period, and this continued a trend of blowout elections failing to show any underdog effect.  2025 is not a blowout election however, so maybe the Liberals can get closer than they are at present, especially with overlapping noise from the federal pre-campaign.  They don't sound all that hopeful though.  

Something notable about the current pendulum is just how far it skews to Labor in the event that the 2PP was actually close.  By uniform swing a 50-50 2PP would only recover 20 seats leaving Labor still with 34.  In my model with variable swing, to get Labor to lose, I have to put their 2PP down to 47.5.  

Others

Outside of Labor, the Liberals and Nationals nobody has won a lower house seat at the last three WA general elections.  In theory the Fremantle margin of 14.6% ALP vs Greens might inspire some sort of hope in the latter, but the margin was only that close because the Liberals recommended preferences to the Greens in 2021.  In the probably unlikely event of the Greens beating the Liberals into the top two this time around they will be progressing no further as the Liberals have put them last.

There are a number of independents in currently Labor-held seats that fall within the expected 2PP swing range.  These campaigns can be loosely classed as tealoid (Churchlands, Nedlands, Fremantle) and Liberal/National diaspora (Geraldton, South Perth, Kalgoorlie). Churchlands and Nedlands are of some interest because of the federal seat of Curtin, where Kate Chaney's success could boost independents (or if it doesn't, might be seen as a pointer to her prospects).  I don't have any reliable info on the prospects of any of these at this stage.

Legislative Council

What a breath of fresh air it is to talk about a WA Legislative Council election where the result will be decided by the people and not contaminated by Group Ticket Voting with its nonsense preference flows!  How fine it is to not have to warn voters that they need to number every box below the line or else they could elect an antivaxxer!  

I did have fears that the use of a single 37-member electorate with a quota of a mere 2.7% would lead to a flood of minor parties and potentially a few parties jagging undeserved seats via good ballot position on a big paper.  However this time around the long registration leadup and the 500 member requirement have done a great job in keeping things manageable.  There are 12 party groups, an independent group (consisting mainly of refugees from other parties) and five ungrouped candidates without an above the line square.  

I have seen some people trying to map the Newspoll onto the upper house and I had reservations about this, because often party primary votes in upper houses are lower than in lower houses.  But in Western Australia, at the past five elections the Labor and Green primary votes have been more or less the same on average in both houses.  Both Liberal and National votes have on average been 1% lower.  Applying this to the recent Newspoll, Labor would have 15.6 quotas, the Liberals 11.5, Greens 4.4, I'll give the Nationals 0.7 (but I would think they would get more), One Nation 1.5, with 3.3 quotas left for other parties and 32 seats already filled.  I'd expect here that the remaining parties would claim at least two of these seats, probably three or maybe even four, since any party that gets about 1.6% here would be likely to get up.  In any case Labor and the Greens would have a combined majority, and Labor should have other viable paths for passing legislation.  

Looking at the 2021 Others vote, the leaders were Legalise Cannabis 1.98% Australian Christians 1.95% and Shooters Fishers and Farmers 1.47%. The first two at least are very likely to be good for a seat if they can hold their 2021 vote, but the Shooters may not have helped themselves with an alphabet soup party name on the ballot of SFFWPA.  The Liberal Democrats (now Libertarians) were surprisingly terrible last time, not polling even 1% in any region.  There are also Sustainable Australia and Animal Justice, neither of which polled 1% in 2022, but Sustainable Australia have drawn pole position on the ballot if that turns out to be good for anything, and maybe the decline in the Labor vote and the smaller number of competing micro-parties could lift AJP.  It is worth noting also that One Nation only managed 1.48% in 2021.  All up I would expect at least three of these parties to get up.  

There is also a party called "Stop Pedophiles! Protect kiddies!" (not even "kids" but "kiddies", sheesh).  This is the former Democratic Labour which was forced to change its name after Labor passed a version of federal party names legislation.  The DLP doesn't have a recent history in recent WA Legislative Council elections so it's hard to know what to expect here, but given my views of silly party names and political vigilantism I'd be pleased with not that much.  

As an alternative it may be interesting to look at the WA 2022 Senate results, given that Labor got a convenient 55-45 in the House of Reps.  If the 2022 WA Senate results had occurred in this Legislative Council election there would have been 13 seats for Labor, 12 for Liberals (Nationals didn't run), 5 for Greens and a long string of seven 1s: Legalise Cannabis, Christians, LDP (now Libertarians), AJP and three parties that aren't contesting the state election.  But that election had a huge collective "others" Senate vote of 16% (it was just below 12% in the Reps), which seems unlikely to be seen here.  

I would find it a little bit surprising if, with the Labor primary vote bound to decline by double digits, the collective Others vote in the lower house was only about on a par with 2022 as Newspoll has it, so I think that in the upper house at least it's possible the Others will therefore do a bit better than the 9% that projects to them in the above model.  But we will see.  Either way while the model off Newspoll has a combined Labor/Greens majority it would not take much of a weakening in Labor's position or much of a spill to others before this is no longer quite the case.  If Labor wins comfortably though, they should have a very manageable time upstairs.  What's important is that whatever minor parties do get up will now be there on merit and accountable to people who voted for them if they want to stay there.  

At this stage I don't expect to do live coverage of this election on the night of March 8, because of a clash with my state's chess championship.  However I may do something low-key if my game finishes early.  If there is enough of interest going on I may cover the Legislative Council postcount, probably from March 11 onwards.  

I defer of course to William Bowe for local expert coverage of this election.   I have used William's seat margin estimates in my model this time around; slightly different estimates can be found via Ben Raue and Antony Green.