Western Australian Election 2001
Glenn Worthington
Politics and Public Administration Group
6 March 2001
Contents
Introduction
Background to the Election
The Announcement of the Poll
The Campaign
The Coalition
Liberal Party
National Party
Australian Labor Party
Major Party Policies
Minor Parties
Australian Democrats
Greens (WA)
Liberals for Forests
Pauline Hanson's One Nation
The Result
Legislative Assembly
The Minor Parties
One Nation and Greens
Preferences
Democrats
Electorates of Interest
Albany
Alfred Cove
Avon
Ballajura
Bunbury
Collie
Darling Range
Dawesville
Geraldton
Joondalup
Kalgoorlie
Kimberley
Mitchell
Nedlands
Ningaloo
Pilbara
Yokine
Legislative Council
Implications
Minor Parties
Rural and Regional Backlash
Conclusion
Endnotes
Tables
Table 1: Party Seats and First Preference Vote
in 1996 Legislative Assembly
Table 2: Number of Candidates Standing for
Legislative Assembly Seats 1993-2001
Table 3: Number of Candidates Standing for
Legislative Council Seats 1993-2001
Table 4: Major Party Policies
Table 5: Results by Party for Legislative Assembly
in Metropolitan and Non-Metropolitan Districts 1996-2001
Table 6: One Nation and Green Preferences to Labor
and Coalition Parties 2001
Table 7: Results by Party for Legislative
Council in Metropolitan and Non-Metropolitan Districts
1996-2001
Table 8: Decline in Major Party Support
Glossary
Australian Democrats
|
Democrats
|
Australian Labor Party
|
Labor
|
Greens (WA)
|
Greens
|
Liberal Party
|
Liberal
|
National Party
|
National
|
Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party
|
One Nation
|
Introduction
The statistical data arising from the 2001
election will be published on becoming available.
Western Australia is often thought of as a state in which Labor
has inhabited something of an electoral wilderness. This view is
supported by the extensive periods of government enjoyed by the
Coalition parties in the recent and intermediate past; first under
the Premiership of Sir David Brand (1959-71) followed, after a
three year period of Labor, by a further nine years of Coalition
Government under the Premierships of Sir Charles Court (1974-82)
and Ray O'Connor (1982-83). More recently Richard Court, Sir
Charles' son, led Coalition Governments through two parliamentary
terms (1993-2001). The Coalition parties held government for all
but one of the last four decades of the twentieth century. However,
this view overlooks the earlier electoral history of Western
Australia in which 'Until its narrow and unexpected defeat in 1947,
Labor's only failures at the polls after [1911] were when it was
badly divided on the issue of military conscription for overseas
service and in the immediate wake of the 1929 Wall Street
Crash.'(1) From 1911 Labor governed for twenty-five of
the following thirty-six years.
Since the 1970s Labor has ascribed the success
of the Coalition to electoral malapportionment, an arrangement that
disproportionately increases the representation of rural and
regional voters.(2) Western Australia is the only
jurisdiction in Australia to have persevered with a system of
electoral malapportionment but in terms of the overall history of
the lower house this arrangement cannot be said to have exclusively
favoured one major party or the other. This fact is driven home by
the dominance of Labor who formed government through the decade
from 1983. Until recently, however, the same could not be said for
the prospects of each of the major parties in successfully
implementing their platforms and policies; before 1996 the upper
house had always been in the control of non-Labor parties.
Whatever else can be said about Western
Australian electoral arrangements, this very brief sketch shows
that for the most part the party forming government has occupied
office for more than a single term. In fact since 1950 there has
only been one single term government, that of John Tonkin's Labor
Government (1971-74). However, the 2001 election confirmed a trend
among voters to direct support away from the major
parties-delivering substantial power to minor parties and
independents who gained 28.3 per cent of the primary vote. Despite
the strong primary vote to minor parties and independents, there is
strong evidence that many voters did not follow the recommendations
of these candidates in allocating preferences for Lower House
seats.
This paper sets out the political landscape
prior to the 2001 poll. It proceeds to explore the ways in which
the major parties dealt with their minor counterparts and,
obversely, the attitude towards and effectiveness of the minor
parties in regards of their major counterparts. The result in
Western Australia has confirmed a broader trend in Australian
politics in which major parties can rely on a far smaller
proportion of voters who vote because they identify with a
party.
Background to the
Election
The Western Australian election was one in which
victory to either of the major parties would constitute an
impressive achievement. On the one hand, Liberal Premier Richard
Court was attempting to secure his third four-year term which would
enable him to become the state's longest serving Premier passing
Sir David Brand's record twelve years in office. On the other hand,
Labor's Geoff Gallop required an increase of at least eleven
Assembly seats to gain a parliamentary majority, a feat not
achieved since the Labor victory of 1911, in which the party
secured twelve additional seats under Jack Scadden to oust Frank
Wilson's Liberal Government.
The magnitude of the task confronting the
Australian Labor Party and the proportionate degree of security
enjoyed by the Coalition parties appeared vast in terms of the
numbers of seats occupied in the Legislative Assembly. This
apparent advantage was greatly diminished, however, when the number
of marginal seats was taken into account. The Liberal Party held
twelve and Labor held five Assembly seats by a margin of seven per
cent or less. With polls predicting a probable strong showing by
minor parties, these seats were more vulnerable than they might
otherwise have been. Premier Court recognised the closeness of the
electoral situation of the parties when he observed that losing a
mere 3700 votes could put the government into
opposition.(3) The election was set to run down to the
wire.
Table 1: Party Seats and First Preference Vote in 1996
Legislative Assembly
Party
|
Number of Seats
|
% of First Preference Vote
|
Liberal
|
29
|
39.9
|
Labor
|
19
|
35.8
|
National
|
6
|
5.8
|
Democrats
|
0
|
5.1
|
Independent
|
3
|
7.7
|
Other
|
0
|
1.0
|
The
Announcement of the Poll
Unusually, the naming of the date for the
election was itself a matter of some controversy. The fourth
anniversary of Court's second term fell on 14 December 2000.
However, he was not required to request an election until the
expiry of the Legislative Council in May 2001. The customary time
to go to the polls in Western Australia is January or February
because the fixed term of the Legislative Council expires in May.
Court simply followed the norm in this respect. The reason that his
four years had come up prematurely was because the previous
election was held in December 1996. Despite this, the Opposition
took advantage of the earlier than usual four year anniversary and
claimed that his Government had gone beyond the four years expected
of it by the electorate. On 10 January 2001 Court announced a
general election would be held on 10 February for all the seats of
Parliament-57 Legislative Assembly seats and 34 Legislative Council
seats.
The record number of candidates standing for
election increased the uncertainty of the election result. The
increased numbers were the result of an increase in independent and
minor party candidates, and in particular the entry of One Nation
into Western Australian state politics. One Nation stood candidates
for 54 of the 57 Assembly seats and 15 of the 34 seats on the
Council. The high number of candidates also increased dramatically
the likelihood of seats being decided on preferences.
Table 2: Number of Candidates
Standing for Legislative Assembly Seats 1993-2001
Year
|
Number of Candidates
|
1993
|
283
|
1996
|
232
|
2001
|
364
|
Table 3: Number of Candidates
Standing for Legislative Council Seats 1993-2001
Year
|
Number of Candidates
|
1993
|
126
|
1996
|
129
|
2001
|
160
|
The
Campaign
Court's reticence to go to the polls was
presented as an attempt to distance his administration from the
political fallout of a finance broking scandal in which many
self-funded retirees lost their savings.(4) The Minister
for Fair Trading, Doug Shave, was portrayed as untrustworthy and
Court as a weak leader because of his refusal to dismiss the
Minister despite demands from within and without his
party.(5) Federal factors may also have played a part
if, in fact, Court was delaying the poll. He was concerned to allow
time for the public to become less hostile to the new Goods and
Services Tax regime and for the concerns of small business over the
Business Activity Statement to be allayed.(6) He may
also have hoped that the high price of petrol would fall. Whether
or not these factors affected Court's decision on naming an
election date, the opposition used the time after December to exert
pressure upon the government.
The importance of rural and regional seats was
clear from the outset. Of the eleven most marginal seats held by
the Liberals in which Labor ran candidates (remembering that Labor
required eleven seats to gain a majority in the lower house) four
seats were drawn from non-metropolitan regions. Court acknowledged
the importance of non-metropolitan districts when he broke with
tradition and announced the election in the regional seat of
Bunbury. He used the occasion to commit $100 million to
infrastructural projects in this and the adjacent seat of Mitchell.
The 2001 campaign would be won or lost in the non-metropolitan
electorates.
The
Coalition
Liberal
Party
Richard Court led the Coalition to victory in
1993 when the electorate turned against Labor as light was shed on
the opaque financial dealings of former Labor governments,
popularly known as 'WA Inc'.(7) In the 1993 election
Labor lost seven Assembly seats and the electorate confirmed its
disapproval of the party in 1996 when it lost a further five.
Fairly or unfairly, Court's two terms were presented as a
consequence of the 'WA Inc' years.(8) The 2001 campaign
was to be the first occasion on which the Court Government would
have to stand on its own credentials rather than simply appealing
to the memories of an electorate hostile to the past indiscretions
of their opponents.
Despite this, the Liberal Party remained keen to
extract further mileage out of 'WA Inc'. Their campaign began with
a series of negative advertisements that referred to the 'WA Inc'
years and hinted at Gallop's guilt by association as Minister
Assisting the Treasurer from 1991 to 1993. However, the
effectiveness of this tactic may have been blunted by the Liberal
Government's own recent difficulties such as the finance broking
scandal, and in the final week of the campaign a Liberal
backbencher, Bob Bloffwitch, was found to have failed to declare
his interest in Kingstream Steel. Bloffwitch had lobbied for the
company to be permitted to construct a steel mill in his electorate
of Geraldton.
Nowhere was the importance of preferences more
evident than in the Liberal Party's dealings with One Nation. Early
in the campaign Court maintained an ambivalence towards One Nation.
For instance, he commented that the Party's policies might not be
as racist as commonly thought.(9) Court's ambivalence
allowed the Liberal Party State Executive flexibility in deciding
whether to place One Nation above Labor or last on their
how-to-vote cards.
Despite the room left to strike a preference
deal with One Nation, the Liberal State Executive followed the
other parties in placing One Nation last on Liberal how-to-vote
cards. Early in the campaign One Nation declared that they would
target the National Party and this may have resulted in pressure
upon the Liberals from their Coalition partners to place One Nation
last. The Australian Democrats had also pledged to withdraw their
preferences from any party exchanging preferences with One Nation.
The inevitable loss of Democrat support may also have contributed
to the State Executive's decision to place One Nation last.
The precarious situation of the Liberal party
was apparent late in the campaign. Court acknowledged the
likelihood of a low primary vote for the Liberals and the
significant levels of support for the minor parties and
independents when he asked voters disaffected with the Government
to place Liberal candidates second. In doing so he was following
Labor's successful campaign tactic employed in the 1990 election
when the Hawke administration was returned after gaining 39 per
cent of the primary vote.
National Party
After the 1996 election the Nationals were
included in government in order to maintain the Coalition rather
than out of any necessity. The Liberal Party had the numbers to
form government in its own right. During the 2001 campaign the
Nationals' leader, Hendy Cowan, argued that if the Liberals had to
rely on the Nationals to form government, then non-metropolitan
issues and interests could be given far greater prominence than
they had gained in the previous Parliament.
The Nationals focused on increasing their
numbers and did not stand candidates in districts where they had no
chance of winning the seat. This policy was potentially damaging to
Liberal prospects because National preferences had helped Liberal
candidates to mount a strong challenge to Labor in the seat of
Burrup and to win the seat of Ningaloo in 1996. The National's
decision not to run candidates in these districts may have invited
disaffected Liberal voters to support One Nation candidates and
ultimately to direct their preferences to Labor.
In recent years three-cornered competitions have
been a matter of dispute amongst Coalition parties in various parts
of Australia.(10) The Coalition agreement in Western
Australia required that neither party contest seats held by members
of cabinet (in 1996 this prohibition extended to all sitting
members). The National Party looked to increase its presence in the
Legislative Assembly at the expense of the Liberal Party by
challenging in four Liberal-held seats of Geraldton, Greenough,
Moore and Vasse. Court accepted the Nationals position and the
Liberals stood candidates in the National-held seats of Avon,
Collie, Wagin and Roe. Both parties stood candidates for Kimberley
where the ex-Labor independent, Ernie Bridge, decided not to
re-contest the seat. In 2001 the Nationals lost Collie and the
Liberals lost Geraldton both to Labor.
Australian
Labor Party
Early in the campaign much attention was focused
upon Labor's policy of one-vote one-value. The issue was kept alive
with comments by federal leader, Kim Beazley, who described Western
Australian supporters of malapportionment as 'engaging in the
greatest act of political corruption in Australia.'(11)
Gallop argued consistently that electoral malapportionment had not
guaranteed government action on regional issues and conditions. He
juxtaposed the construction of an unpopular belltower in Perth with
a decline in regional services to build a perception of a
metro-centric disposition in the Court Government. The Nationals
contesting Liberal-held seats may have increased the view that the
Coalition Government had ignored non-metropolitan areas. Gallop
proposed to resurrect the practice of charging ministers with
responsibility for particular regions, as well as designating a
minister with special responsibility for salinity, as a more
effective mechanism than rural vote weighting for ensuring that
rural and regional interests were on the government's agenda.
Gallop refused to consider any preference deal
with One Nation, but Labor stood to gain from One Nation's policy
of placing sitting members last. Labor was also able to attract the
preferences of other significant minor parties, such as the Greens
and the Liberals for Forests, because of their policy to cease
immediately the logging of old growth forests. Labor pledged funds
for re-training those in the timber industry who would lose their
jobs and promised to explore increasing plantation timber
production to offset the loss of jobs. Labor's policy of immediate
cessation of logging old growth forests as well as the proposed
compensation package provoked criticism from the Construction,
Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) and Australian Workers
Union (AWU) because of Labor's lack of consultation and concerns
that their members' jobs would be lost. In addition to attracting
the preferences of the Greens and Liberals for Forests, criticisms
by the CFMEU and AWU may have worked in Labor's favour by
dispelling the appearance of a party that was hostage to sectional
interests.
Major Party Policies
The major parties committed themselves to
increase funding in the areas of education, health and law and
order. Their policies on the environment and industrial relations
were also gained public attention. The main issue arising out of
the policy debates related to the cost of the programs and how they
would be funded. The bidding war that erupted between the major
parties may have increased the level of cynicism in an electorate
that was already in a critical mood.
Table 4: Major Party Policies
Education
|
Coalition
|
-
- Additional funds for training teachers as literacy and numeracy
specialists.
|
|
-
- Air-conditioning in 60 government schools at cost of six
million dollars.
|
|
-
- $100 million for computers in schools.
|
|
-
- The provision of greater opportunities for students to attend
single-sex classes in government secondary school.
|
Labor
|
-
- An extra $40 million for school maintenance.
|
|
-
- After hours access to schools.
|
|
|
Environment
|
Coalition
|
-
- Cessation of logging in old growth forests by 2003.
|
Labor
|
-
- Immediate cessation of logging in old growth forests.
|
|
|
Health
|
Coalition
|
-
- Increase salary of health workers by 13.5 per cent over three
years at cost of $111 million.
|
Labor
|
-
- $109 million to upgrade emergency departments at metropolitan
hospitals.
|
|
-
- Funding to make available an extra 100 beds.
|
|
|
Industrial Relations
|
Coalition
|
-
- Maintain individual workplace agreements.
|
|
-
- Increase the role of the WA Industrial Relation Commission in
determining the minimum adult wage.
|
Labor
|
-
- Requirement that individual workplace contracts must not offer
below minimum award conditions.
|
|
-
- Individual workplace agreements would not be possible if there
is an existing collective agreement at the workplace.
|
|
|
Law and Order
|
Coalition
|
-
- Increase of 200 police officers over four years.
|
|
-
- Increase in numbers of country work camps for non-violent
offenders.
|
|
-
- Public list of convicted drug dealers.
|
|
-
- Extending the scope of three-strikes mandatory sentencing
legislation.
|
Labor
|
-
- Increase police officers by 250 over four years.
|
|
-
- Re-institute special squads covering areas such as Asian crime
and sexual assault.
|
|
Petrol
|
Coalition
|
|
Labor
|
-
- Introduction of price-caps on petrol in non-metropolitan
regions.
|
|
|
Representation
|
Coalition
|
-
- Maintain the system of weighting non-metropolitan
representation.
|
Labor
|
-
- Implement one-vote one-value electoral arrangements in both
chambers of Parliament.
|
|
-
- Appointment of ministers with special responsibilities for
individual regions.
|
|
-
- Decrease the number of ministers and senior bureaucrats.
|
Minor
Parties
Australian Democrats
The Democrats had hoped to increase their
numbers in the Legislative Council from two to four seats. They did
not poll as well as expected. This may have been largely a result
of perceptions in the electorate that the Democrats were no longer
the primary party of protest because, for instance, of the federal
party's support for an amended Goods and Services Tax. The state
party ran a campaign that heavily featured the images of the
federal leaders, Senators Meg Lees and Natasha Stott-Despoja, as
exemplifying Democrat values. It also spoke of the advantages of an
upper house of review in which the party forming government did not
hold the balance of power.
However, the electorate had available to it an
alternative party of protest in One Nation whose spoiling tactic of
placing sitting members last may have appealed far more directly to
those inclined to exercise a protest vote. The impression of the
Democrats as a less extreme party of protest than One Nation may
have been increased by their not suggesting how voters should
distribute their preferences. They threatened to direct preferences
away from the parties of any candidates who did not place One
Nation last on their ticket.
Greens
(WA)
The Greens campaigned on the importance of
preserving Western Australia's old growth forests. They also spoke
of the need to protect prominent coastal sites from tourist
developments particularly Smith's Beach in the south and Coral Bay
in the north. The party may have benefited from a decline in the
Democrats' vote. Although the two additional seats won by the
Greens in the Legislative Council, one by Dee Margetts former
Senator for Western Australia from July 1993 to June 1999, came
from non-metropolitan regions and the seats lost by the Democrats
were both metropolitan.
Liberals for Forests
The Liberals for Forests are a grouping specific
to Western Australia. They are not so much a faction of the Liberal
Party as an association who have sought the preservation of the
forests in the south west. Use of the term 'Liberals' may be an
attempt to distinguish the group from environmentalist groups and
parties who are perceived to appeal to the Labor constituency.
The Western Australian Electoral Commission
refused to register the Liberals for Forests as a political party
because of the potential confusion with the Liberal Party. Liberal
party spokespersons pointed out that a number of those involved in
Liberals for Forests had never been members of the Liberal Party
and, indeed, in terms of the 2001 election the party's constitution
required that candidates direct preferences away from Liberal
candidates. The constitution requires that preferences be directed
to candidates from the party with the closest policy to the Liberal
for Forests. In the circumstances this meant the Greens and Labor
would be preferred.
Because of the ruling by the Electoral
Commission, Liberal for Forests candidates stood technically as
independents and this enabled individuals to direct preferences
without reference to the party's constitution. In the seat of
Darling Ranges, the Liberal for Forests candidate, Frank Lindsey,
split his preferences to gain the support of disaffected Liberal
voters.(12) This decision may have been significant in
returning Liberal John Day.
Pauline
Hanson's One Nation
The 2001 election marked One Nation's first
state campaign in Western Australia. As already mentioned One
Nation announced that they would target the National Party and thus
take advantage of the perception that the Nationals had little
success in placing rural and regional issues on the government's
agenda. One Nation took a seemingly more conciliatory approach to
the Liberal Party when its national Vice-President, John Fischer,
declared that he would prefer the return of a Liberal government
because he doubted that Labor had the personnel to field a
competent frontbench.(13) One Nation also rejected
Labor's policies of one-vote one-value as disenfranchising the
country as well as its policy of immediate cessation of logging in
old growth forests. Despite One Nation's declamations against a
Labor government, its policy of suggesting that voters direct their
preferences away from all sitting Members (bar four Liberal
candidates) could not but be understood as disadvantaging the party
it declared to be the most suited to government.
The Result
Legislative Assembly
The Legislative Assembly consists of 57 seats,
34 of which are drawn from metropolitan and 23 from
non-metropolitan regions.
Table 5: Results by Party for Legislative Assembly in
Metropolitan and Non-Metropolitan Districts
1996-2001
Party
|
1996
|
|
2001
|
|
|
Non-Metropolitan
|
Metropolitan
|
Total
|
Non-Metropolitan
|
Metropolitan
|
Total
|
Liberal
|
12
|
17
|
29
|
9
|
7
|
16
|
National
|
6
|
0
|
6
|
5
|
0
|
5
|
Labor
|
3
|
15
|
18
|
8
|
24
|
32
|
Independents
|
2
|
2
|
4
|
1
|
3
|
4
|
The Minor Parties
Much was made of the importance to Labor's
victory of One Nation's policy of directing preferences away from
the sitting member. In judging the effect of voters who chose minor
parties and independents as their first preference (and
specifically One Nation) two considerations ought to be taken into
account:
-
- the proportion of voters who chose to follow the preference
suggestions of the candidate of their first choice, and
-
- the uncertainty of how voters would have behaved if One Nation
or other non-major party candidates had not stood. This point
refers to the level of voter dissatisfaction with the major
parties. Was the level of such magnitude that voters would have
protested in some other way?
It has been observed that the One Nation vote
constituted approximately one-third of the overall non-major party
vote and thus its 'spoiling' effect may not have been as
significant as some elements in the media have
claimed.(14) It is reasonable to suggest, however, that
voters who gave their first preference to a non-major party
candidate would have sympathies with a major party constituency;
that is, they would be 'natural' Labor, Liberal or National voters.
Thus a Greens' or Democrats' first preference would usually fall to
Labor and a One Nation to either to the Liberals or Nationals. The
One Nation policy of directing preferences against sitting members
regardless of voters' traditional sympathies, is likely to have
interfered with this tendency.
One Nation and
Greens Preferences
The impact of the minor parties on the result of
the Western Australian election has been the subject of much debate
in the media. Table 6 shows that while even though One Nation had
targeted National Party candidates and advised voters to place
sitting members last, a policy that would disadvantage Liberal
candidates, the Coalition parties actually picked up a greater
proportion of One Nation preferences in metropolitan and
non-metropolitan regions. The statistics raise substantial doubt as
to the ability of One Nation to control the preferences of its
voters. In contrast, those who voted Greens were far more prepared
to follow the party's how-to-vote card in allocating preferences to
Labor.
The following statistics show the average
percentages of how the preferences of those who voted One Nation
and Greens were distributed directly after the One Nation or Green
candidate left the race. The figures refer to votes for Assembly
seats.
Table 6: One Nation and
Green Preferences to Labor and Coalition Parties
2001
|
% of Preferences
|
One Nation
|
|
Preferences to Labor in metropolitan
districts
|
32.0
|
Preferences to Labor in non-metropolitan
districts
|
41.2
|
Total average
|
36.6
|
Preferences to Liberal in metropolitan
districts
|
34.3
|
Preferences to Liberal in non-metropolitan
districts
|
44.0
|
Preferences to National
|
45.8
|
Total average
|
41.4
|
|
|
Greens
|
|
Preferences to Labor in metropolitan districts
|
56.5
|
Preferences to Labor in non-metropolitan districts
|
36.8
|
Total average
|
46.6
|
Preferences to Liberal in metropolitan districts
|
26.0
|
Preferences to Liberal in non-metropolitan districts
|
17.6
|
Preferences to National
|
23.8
|
Total average
|
22.5
|
Democrats
The Democrats' primary vote fell from 5.1 per
cent in the 1996 election to 2.6 per cent in the 2001 election.
Senator Lees qualified claims that the party had been dealt a
significant blow by arguing that the 1996 levels of support were
well above the support in 1993 of 2.3 per cent and, in fact
the 2001 result indicated a return to the status
quo.(15) Lees' qualification is worthy of note, however
given the increased levels of support for other minor parties, the
levels of support for Democrat candidates in both the Assembly and
the Council was disappointing.
Electorates of Interest
I have highlighted those electorates in which
One Nation and/or Green preferences appear to have played a major
role in determining the outcome of the poll, as well as those
contests in which specific issues are likely to have influenced the
result.
References to the distribution of One Nation and
Green preferences indicate the percentage of votes that flowed to
the Labor, Liberal or National candidate immediately the One Nation
or Green candidate was eliminated.
Albany
Kevin Prince, Minister for Police and Emergency
Services had been the Member for Albany since 1993. The seat had
been Liberal since 1974. Prince won the seat in the 1996 election
capturing 57.9 per cent of the primary vote, but in 2001 he won
only 33 per cent. Labor's candidate, Peter Watson, won 31.6 per
cent and collectively the minor parties and independents won 35.3
per cent of the primary vote. One reason for the large reduction in
Prince's primary vote may have been his being forced to defend
himself in the Supreme Court against allegations that the
negligence of a law firm in which he was a partner had contributed
to the loss of $60 000 from a deceased estate.
Although Prince won the largest number of
primary votes he was defeated by the Labor candidate, John Watson,
with the aid of 58 per cent of One Nation preferences and
27 per cent of Green preferences. Prince received 39.4
per cent of One Nation preferences and 10 per cent of Green
preferences.
Alfred
Cove
Doug Shave, the Minister for Fair Trading had
held the metropolitan blue ribbon Liberal seat of Alfred Cove by a
margin of 19.3 per cent. However, Shave entered the election under
the cloud of the finance broking scandal. Independent Denise
Brailey challenged him directly on his handling of the scandal.
Liberal for Forests candidate, Janet Woollard, was also a prominent
anti-Shave campaigner.
Shave obtained 32.8 per cent of the primary vote
as opposed to 40.2 per cent achieved by the 'anti-Shave alliance'.
Woollard won the seat on preferences from Brailey and the Greens
candidate Liz Peake. Labor did not run a candidate so as to
increase the independent vote with disaffected Liberal voters.
Avon
The non-metropolitan seat of Avon promised to
deliver one of the shock decisions of the election after a
pre-election poll run by local newspaper The Avon Valley
Advocate showing support for the One Nation candidate, Ken
Collins, running at 46 per cent. National Party incumbent, Max
Trenorden, had held the seat since 1986. Trenorden faced a further
challenge from independent, Peter Morton, who campaigned against a
government decision to begin a Naltrexone heroin treatment clinic
in Northam, one of the principal towns in the seat. Morton received
24 per cent support in The Advocate's poll.
Trenorden gained 24.9 per cent of the primary
vote and defeated a strong Labor challenge from Phil Shearer who
gained 23.9 per cent. Trenorden won by gaining the lion's share of
Liberal distributed preferences and also received 42.2 per cent of
the One Nation candidate's distributed preferences. Despite
standing against an incumbent National, the primary target of One
Nation's protest vote, Shearer only gained 53.3 per cent of their
re-distributed preferences.
Ballajura
Liberal, Rhonda Parker, won the most marginal
seat of the 1996 election by 44 votes (0.2 per cent) after
preferences. Her outspokenness against One Nation guaranteed that
the party directed preferences away from her. Labor's John
D'Orazio, who was beaten by Parker in the 1996 campaign, gained
47.1 per cent of the primary vote and Parker
38.5 per cent. The seat was won convincingly by D'Orazio
who received 53.3 per cent of the Greens' and 52.7 per cent of One
Nation's later preferences. Parker received 27.9 per cent and 42.8
per cent of the respective preference re-distributions.
Bunbury
Despite the Liberal pledge of a $100 million
package allocated to develop infrastructure in Bunbury and the
adjoining seat of Mitchell (compared with the Labor pledge of
$13 million), Bunbury continued its reputation as a litmus
test for the election result. Since 1974 Bunbury has elected a
member who belonged to the winning party. Labor candidate Tony Dean
won the seat despite an expected backlash because of his party's
policy to stop the logging of old growth forests. The loss of
support caused by Labor's anti-logging old growth forests may have
been balanced by the proximity of Bunbury to Perth. Voters from the
non-metropolitan district could see very clearly the disparity
between city and country petrol prices. The Liberal incumbent, Ian
Osborne, actually gained a higher primary vote with 36.2 per cent
as opposed to Dean's 34.7 per cent but lost the seat on One Nation
and Green preferences.
Collie
The National Party's Hilda Turnbull had held
Collie since 1989. In the 1996 election she gained 59.3 per cent of
the primary vote in a two-party race. In the 2001 campaign Labor
candidate Mick Murray won 34.7 per cent of the primary vote
compared with Turnbull's 24.4 per cent. The Liberals also ran a
candidate who polled 15.8 per cent of the primary vote. One Nation
polled 15.1 per cent of the primary vote and their first and later
preferences were almost equally distributed between Labor (48.9 per
cent) and the Nationals (47.6 per cent). The Greens candidate who
polled seven per cent of the primary vote distributed preferences
with 51.5 per cent going to Labor and 28 per cent going to
Coalition candidates. Labor eventually won the seat by 34
votes.
Darling Range
John Day, Minister for Health, narrowly avoided
losing the seat he had won in 1996 with 54.9 per cent of the
primary vote. Day's prospects were compromised by industrial action
by the Nurses Federation to focus public attention on
under-staffing of hospital wards. Late in the campaign Day
distributed how-to-vote cards placing One Nation above Labor. Day
explained the cards as an oversight at the proofreading stage. Day
won 36.1 per cent of the primary vote compared with Labor's 31.5
per cent and gained 22 per cent of One Nation distributed
preferences compared with 16.7 per cent gained by Labor. Day
retained the seat by a margin of fewer than 200 votes.
Dawesville
One Nation preferences may have helped incumbent
Liberal, Arthur Marshall, retain the seat despite a strong
challenge from the Labor candidate, John Hughes. Marshall's primary
vote fell from 50 per cent in 1996 to 41.3 per cent in 2001 and
Hughes increased his primary vote from 33.1 per cent to 36.3 per
cent. One Nation gained 12.7 per cent of the primary vote and 54.8
per cent of these were distributed to Marshall.
Geraldton
Liberal incumbent Bob Bloffwitch was involved in
a scandal when he was discovered to have failed to declare 84 000
shares worth about $15 000 in Kingstream Steel, a corporation that
had proposed a $1.6 billion steel mill in his
electorate.(16) Bloffwitch secured 24.4 per cent of the
primary vote but was closely pushed by Labor candidate, Shane Hill,
with 26.8 per cent. One Nation won 21 per cent of the primary vote
and 56.8 per cent of their preferences were distributed to
Labor and 39.4 per cent to Liberal. Hill won the seat from
Bloffwitch by a margin of 8.1 per cent.
Joondalup
Labor launched its campaign in this outer
suburban seat. The Liberal candidate, Chris Baker, held the seat by
a 5.5 per cent margin and made headlines by claiming that a future
Labor government would liberalise anti-drug laws. Baker was also an
outspoken critic of One Nation. The Labor candidate, Tony O'Gorman,
won 37.6 per cent of the primary vote compared with Baker's 39.1
per cent. The re-distribution of 67 per cent of Green preferences
to O'Gorman gave him victory compared with the 31.1 per cent to
Baker.
Kalgoorlie
Kalgoorlie defied the swing against the
Coalition being lost by incumbent Labor candidate Megan Anwyl. The
Liberals won the seat for the first time in 2001. Furthermore,
Kalgoorlie was the only seat to be lost by Labor in the 2001
election. Liberal candidate, Matt Birney, required a 4.4 per cent
swing to win. He secured 38.83 per cent of the primary vote
compared with Anwyl's 38.91 per cent. After the re-distribution of
preferences Birney won the seat by 2.16 per cent.
Birney campaigned against Anwyl with the support
of ex-federal Labor Member for Kalgoorlie Graeme Campbell. He
highlighted her support for the Commonwealth Senate's veto of
Native Title agreements and Labor's one-vote one-value policy.
These issues may have aided Birney's campaign and were responsible
for him receiving One Nation support on its how-to-vote cards. On
the distribution of One Nation preferences, Birney took
56.7 per cent compared to Anwyl's 40.6 per cent.
While issues such as Native Title and electoral
distribution might be expected to play a part in campaigns for
mining seats such as Kalgoorlie, it should be noted that Labor
retained the seat of Eyre that surrounds Kalgoorlie. The Labor
candidate for Eyre, John Bowler, won 42.4 per cent of the primary
vote and the Liberal candidate, Laurie Ayers, won 25.9 per
cent.
Kimberley
Ernie Bridge, the first Aboriginal member of the
Western Australian Parliament, held the seat of Kimberley for
twenty years before breaking from the Labor Party and becoming an
independent in 2000. He announced that he would not stand for the
seat that he held by a margin of 11.5 per cent at the 2001
election. Liberal candidate, Lyn Page, was given a possible chance
of winning the seat because of the uncertain level of Bridge's
personal following as distinct from the level of loyalty to the
Labor Party in the electorate. A further factor was the entry of
Derby-West Kimberley Mayor, Peter McCumstie, a popular local
figure, who ran as the National's candidate. One Nation directed
preferences to Page and she picked up 42.1 per cent compared with
Labor's Carol Martin who gained 22.4 per cent. Martin
gained 42.23 per cent of the primary vote compared with Page's
16.17 per cent and McCumstie's 15.98 per cent. Martin won the seat
easily to become the first Aboriginal woman elected to the Western
Australian Parliament.
Mitchell
In spite of the Labor victory in Bunbury the
Liberal candidate for the adjoining seat of Mitchell, Daniel
Barron-Sullivan, maintained his 48 per cent primary vote against
the state-wide trend. Barron-Sullivan ran a strong campaign on
regional issues and drew attention to the possibility of Mitchell's
being broken up as a result of Labor's one-vote one-value policy.
Geoff Gallop congratulated him on a strong campaign.
Nedlands
The seat of Nedlands had been held by a member
of the Court family for the past 37 years. The main challenge to
Court came from Liberals for Forests candidate, high profile
fashion designer Liz Davenport, who directed her supporters to
preference Labor. Court held the seat by a margin of 14.9 per cent,
however, Davenport gained the support of the Labor and Greens
candidates. Court attracted 49.2 per cent of the primary vote and
held Nedlands easily by a margin of 9.6 per cent. Davenport may
have gained greater success had she directed preferences to Court
thus opening the possibility of attracting any protest vote.
Ningaloo
Rod Sweetman, the incumbent Liberal candidate,
only held Ningaloo by 119 votes or 0.7 per cent. Sweetman
gained 38.2 per cent of the primary vote compared with Labor
candidate, Samantha Ogden's 33.3 per cent. The One Nation candidate
John Cope won 15.8 per cent of the primary vote and, between them,
the Democrats, Greens and an independent candidate won 12.6 per
cent. Despite One Nation directing preferences away from Sweetman,
the Liberal gained 51 per cent of One Nation's re-distributed
vote.
Sweetman was disadvantaged by the decision of
the Nationals to run a candidate. In the 1996 election National
preferences had helped Sweetman win the seat. Despite the Nationals
decision and One Nation's hostility to the Liberal sitting member,
like Kalgoorlie, Ningaloo defied the state-wide trend as Sweetman
increased his margin to 4.5 per cent.
Pilbara
Larry Graham ran as an Independent after being
disendorsed by the ALP following a factional dispute. The seat had
been held by Labor for 18 years and represented by Graham for 12 of
these. Graham made no preference deal with Labor deciding instead
to split preferences on a double sided how to vote card. Labor ran
a candidate against Graham but Graham polled a resounding 65.9 per
cent of the primary vote and won with 67.6 per cent of the vote
after distribution of preferences.
Yokine
Labor required a 3.3 per cent swing against the
sitting Liberal member, Minister for Water Resources Kim Hames.
High-profile candidate, Bob Kucera, a former Assistant Commissioner
of Police stood for the seat. Kucera was touted as a future
minister and even a future leader of the Labor Party. Hames focused
on grassroots issues claiming that the high profile Kucera would
have little time for his electorate. Kucera gained
36.2 per cent of the first preference vote compared with
Hames' 38.2 per cent. Kucera consolidated his lead receiving 62 per
cent of the Greens preferences on the final distribution and won
the seat.
Legislative
Council
The 34 seats on the Legislative Council are
drawn from six regions by proportional representation. Collectively
the three non-metropolitan and three metropolitan regions return 17
members each. Each region returns either five or seven members. The
Western Australian Legislative Council is the only upper house in
Australia to be elected in its entirety; there are no half-Council
elections.
Table 7: Results by Party for Legislative Council in
Metropolitan and Non-Metropolitan Districts
1996-2001
Party
|
1996
|
|
2001
|
|
|
Non-Metropolitan
|
Metropolitan
|
Total
|
Non-Metropolitan
|
Metropolitan
|
Total
|
Liberal
|
7
|
7
|
14
|
5
|
7
|
12
|
National
|
3
|
0
|
3
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
Labor
|
4
|
6
|
10
|
5
|
8
|
13
|
Greens
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
3
|
2
|
5
|
Democrats
|
0
|
2
|
2
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
One Nation
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
3
|
0
|
3
|
Implications
Western Australia was the first poll in a busy
electoral year with Queensland following a week later, and the
governments of the Australian Capital Territory, the Northern
Territory, the Commonwealth and South Australia all required or
likely to go to the polls within the year. It is commonly held that
state elections are primarily concerned with state issues and the
Western Australian election was in this respect unexceptional. The
campaigns were fought over bread and butter issues like financial
management and the provision of services such as health, education
and law and order. The logging of old growth forests was also an
important electoral issue that had an impact upon the direction of
preferences from the Greens and the Liberal for Forests and
ultimately contributed in a significant way to the demise of the
Coalition Government. Furthermore, Court faced the commonly
acknowledged difficulty of gaining a third term in office. However,
there are a number of areas that contain Federal implications. The
Western Australian election may also serve as an indication of more
general electoral trends in Australia.
Minor
Parties
One of the most significant features of the
Western Australian election was the performance of minor parties
and independents. The Greens were impressive in increasing the
percentage of their vote from 5.5 per cent in 1996 to 7.3 per cent
in 2001 and their representation in the upper house from three to
five seats. The Democrats suffered the greatest losses of the minor
parties losing two seats and seeing their vote drop from 6.6 per
cent in 1996 to 2.6 per cent in 2001. The high levels of support
for the minor parties and independents indicated an electorate that
wished to express its displeasure with any parties seen as
responsible for government. While there was a swing against the
Liberals of 8.8 per cent, Labor only picked up 1.8 per cent of
this vote. However, the reticence of voters, particularly those who
supported One Nation with their primary vote, to follow the
recommended distribution of preferences made the election result
far more uncertain than in previous years. The result in Western
Australia has confirmed a broader trend in Australian politics,
that is the reduction of the core vote to major
parties.(17) This trend can be tracked with reference to
the decline in the primary vote gained by the two major
parties.
Table 8: Decline in Major Party Support
Year
|
% of Primary Vote Gained by Major
Parties
|
2001
|
68
|
1996
|
76
|
1993
|
81
|
1989
|
85
|
1986
|
94
|
Rural and
Regional Backlash
Between them the Coalition parties lost five
non-metropolitan seats to Labor and won the Mining and Pastoral
region seat of Kalgoorlie from Labor. The feared rural and regional
backlash against the Coalition parties was possibly ameliorated by
Labor's policies of immediate cessation of logging in old growth
forests and the introduction of one-vote one-value to cancel the
weighting of non-metropolitan votes.
Gallop's pledge to re-introduce price capping of
country petrol, diesel and LPG clearly appealed to country voters
in a manner that Court's attempts to distance his administration
from petrol prices, declaring it a federal matter, did not.
Evidence drawn from the Western Australian election result suggests
that electors required state government action on the issue of high
petrol prices, regardless of whether or not they held this agency
responsible or not.
A second event that may have contributed to the
downfall of the Court Government was the unfortunate proximity of
the election date to the return of the second Business Activity
Statement. Once again, these matters did not fall within the
parameters of state politics, however, voters may have used the
election to send a message of their dissatisfaction to the federal
government.
Conclusion
The Western Australian election of 2001 was
notable in consolidating a trend in electoral support for minor
parties and independents, and it set the scene for the entry of One
Nation into Western Australian state politics. The election saw the
routing of a Coalition Government seeking a third term in office.
Labor won a record number of districts and five Liberal ministers
lost their seats. The results have provoked much debate concerning
the impact of minor parties and independents upon the outcome.
These once minor players are exhibiting a new level of willingness
to use preferential voting arrangements to influence the policies
of the major parties. The election showed that while One Nation was
more successful in attracting primary votes than other minor
parties, the party was unable to control the subsequent
distributions of these preferences. The Greens emerged as a more
vigorous force in state politics than they had been by radically
influencing Labor's environmental policy. Minor parties also
consolidated their hold on the balance of power in the upper house
in which the Greens and One Nation were particularly
successful.
While state issues figure as the primary
concerns in state electoral campaigns, electors have shown that
they are not averse to expressing their displeasure on issues for
which state governments are not responsible. Furthermore, electors
appear willing to express their dissatisfaction whether, as in the
case of fuel prices, the state government is able to mitigate, or,
in the case of the Business Activity Statement, where it is
relatively powerless. While voters are prepared to use minor
parties and independents to register their dissatisfaction, voters
were not able to undermine completely the stability guaranteed by
the major parties through the use of preferences.
Endnotes
-
- David Black, 'Factionalism and Stability, 1911-1947', in D.
Black, ed., The House on the Hill: A History of the Parliament
of Western Australia 1832-1990, Parliament of Western
Australia, Perth, 1991, p. 97.
- Harry Phillips, 'The Modern Parliament 1965-1989',in
Ibid., pp. 190-1. Phillips observes that from the mid
1960s Labor Parliamentarians questioned which seats ought to be
classified as metropolitan and which as non-metropolitan, but
accepted electoral malapportionment in principle. For the
increasing momentum behind Labor's critique of electoral
malapportionment through the 1970s see ibid., pp. 217-7.
- Australian, 31 July 2000.
- Australian, 27 December 2000.
- Australian, 30 June 2000.
- The Australian Financial Review, 5 June 2000 and
The West Australian, 14 June 2000.
- For instance, see Bruce Stone, 'Taking''WA Inc'' Seriously: An
Analysis of the Idea and its Application to West Australian
Politics', Australasian Journal of Public Administration,
56 (1), March, 1997, pp. 71-81.
- The Australian Financial Review, 5 June 2000.
- Australian, 25 October 2000 and The West
Australian, 20 January 2001.
- See Scott Bennett and Gerard Newman, 'Victorian Election 1999',
Department of the Parliamentary Library, Research Paper no.
19, 1999-2000, pp. 25-6 and their 'New South Wales Election
1999', Department of the Parliamentary Library, Research Paper
no. 22, 1998-99, pp. 14-5.
- The West Australian, 25 January 2001. The
issue continued before the public with an editorial in The West
Australian against weighting of rural and regional votes.
Published 31 January 2001.
- The West Australian, 24 January 2001.
- The West Australian, 23 January 2001.
- Professor John Warhurst in The Canberra Times, 16
February 2001.
- 7.30 Report, 27 February 2001.
- Editorial in The West Australian, 6 February
2001.
- For more on this trend see Scott Bennett, 'The Decline in
Support for the Major Parties and the Prospect of Minority
Government', Department of the Parliamentary Library, Research
Paper no. 10 1998-99.