Western Australia 2025: Final Polls Predict Another Drubbing

Note for Saturday night:  I have a clash with a chess tournament on the weekend and it is not clear whether or not I will be able to do live coverage or how much, though the time difference helps. If there is live coverage it may start late.  If I can do live coverage there will be a thread that I will keep open for a few days and then aim to have a more detailed look at how the Legislative Council contest is going (if still interesting) on Monday evening or Tuesday.  

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This will be a pretty quick post but I should note the two polls released today re the WA state election.  The campaign opened with a 56-44 Newspoll and some degree of narrowing from there would not have been a huge surprise, but two polls out today have slightly more lopsided readings.  The two sets of numbers are in fact as good as identical:  Newspoll has 57.5-42.5 off primaries of Labor 44 Liberal 29 Nationals 5 Green 10 One Nation 3 others 9.  DemosAU has 57-43 off Labor 43 Liberal 30 Nationals 5 Greens 11 and others (which includes One Nation) 11.   So between them about a 12.5% swing back.  

For a 2PP in this range my seat model estimates that Labor will win the 2PP in 44 seats and the conservative parties in 15 (one better for Labor than a simple pendulum expects); some small number of either might actually be won by independents, regarding whom there's just no data.  Major party sources have been reported as considering the pendulum-predicted gain of 11 seats to be at the low end.  

There has been some speculation about a non-uniform swing, ie that Labor might get a bigger swing against it in the bush and less in Perth.  If that happens, that can make things dicey for the Liberals in the seats around or just below the swing line where Labor has sophomore effect (Scarborough, South Perth, Riverton, Dawesville) but it doesn't bring much joy above the expected swing line until one gets up to seats like Pilbara (ALP vs Nat 17%) and Murray-Wellington (ALP vs Lib 17.4%) both of which were won by Labor in 2017.  Labor sources are even making somewhat optimistic noises about Albany though the opponent there might have something to do with it.  If the result comes out about what the current polls are saying, the Nationals could win at least five seats (from their present base of three) with some prospects of a couple more.  Australian Election Forecasts with its more bells-and-whistlesy version has a projection of around 40 Labor, 14 Liberal and 4 National (doesn't sum to 59 because of rounding) but that does assume a slight narrowing to 56.6% as a final 2PP (which would not be unusual historically), and also expects reversions from previous swings to work in the Liberals' and Nationals' favour.  

So remarkably low are the expectations that the Newspoll has been greeted by The Australian describing ten seats won as an "internal pass mark" for the Liberal opposition to an eight-year old federally-dragged state government - though such a result would be the worst for any state opposition in that situation since Victoria 1967.     

The election as a whole has seen a great shortage of polling, with nothing between the start and the end of the campaign.  The shadow of the federal election and the perception of a done and very boring deal have not inspired media clients to shell out.  Two final polls aren't a lot of data and if Labor does underperform by a modest amount there will be acres of newsprint wasted on federal speculations or talk about the impact of Premier Cook giving JD Vance a character reference.  (The latter in fact happened while both polls were still in field).  I haven't even seen a complete set of seat betting though one set of a few seats had Labor narrowly favourites in Albany and Darling Range and narrowly trailing in Geraldton, Kalamunda (which is on 15.1%) and Kalgoorlie, and more significantly trailing in South Perth.  

While the Liberals appear uncompetivive, Libby Mettam is polling very respectable personal ratings, a net +1 in Newspoll and a reasonable showing on Better Premier in both polls (34-53 in Newspoll and 32-47 in DemosAU - the indicator favours incumbents).  Roger Cook's Newspoll net rating has barely budged at net +17 (55-38, down one point from the start of the campaign).  Some Labor internal "polling" showing Liberal aspirant Basil Zempilas on net -12 with women and net -3 with men was doing the rounds on radio today as an explanation for the party seeing him as a negative for the Liberals, but these numbers are hardly fatal if true.  

The only other thing to mention here quickly is the Legislative Council.  I had a rough go at projecting this in the previous episode, and not a great amount has changed.  On the recent polls Labor would get around sixteen seats, the Greens four, Liberals about eleven, Nationals a fair shot at two (but maybe only one), One Nation at least one (a fair shot at two since they are not contesting all Lower House seats so their Legislative Council vote should be higher) and about three for other minor parties - Legalise Cannabis, Australian Christians and maybe SFFPWA if anyone works out what that is.