WA State Election Result

[Pies4shaw]

The Legislative Council seats were finalized today. I'm providing the ABC's summary because the WA Electoral Commission site doesn't give a summary of the House anywhere that I can see:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/w ... lc-results

The ALP has a majority in both Houses. Strangely, the Daylight Savings Party has a seat in the Council, with just 98 primary votes and the Legalise Cannabis Party has two Council seats - that is, 5.6% of the Seats, although it got less than 2% of the vote.

"Above the line" preferential voting is probably now dead in WA, you'd think.

[David]

Strange times when the Greens only get one seat and a party that more or less resembles parodies of the Greens from ~20 years ago manages to get twice as many.

[Pies4shaw]

^ with a third of the vote!

The Libs and Nats also copped it, as did the minor Right parties like PHONy, the Shooters etc, so I don’t think they’ll be too eager to see the minor, single issue parties getting advanced as the LNP tries to bounce back. You’d think the LNP would believe it has a chance of taking back the Council at the next election, irrespective of what happens in the Assembly.

[roar]

Strange times when the Greens only get one seat and a party that more or less resembles parodies of the Greens from ~20 years ago manages to get twice as many.

I think that says something about how people feel about the direction the Greens have taken in the last 10 or so years.

[David]

[Pies4shaw]

The Greens (92,000 first preference votes in the Council) remain the third party, after the ALP (868,000) and the Libs (254,000) in WA. They receive more than double the vote of the Nats (40,000). The loss of seats in the Council is more a by-product of a general swing to the Government than a swing against the Greens. 4 parties lost representation in the Council altogether - Pauline Hanson’s One Nation (-2), the Liberal Democrats (-1), Shooters, Fishers and Farmers (-1) and the Western Australian Party (-1). The Libs and Nats lost 3 seats between them and the Greens lost 3. 3 seats went to minor parties with almost no primary vote as a consequence of the "above the line" voting option. It is fair to say that virtually any of the other parties might have achieved those 3 quotas, or some of them, on a different day - that is, they are preference-counting phenomena, rather than voting trends.

[Tannin]

Hey, look at it this way: the WA Liberals came in third, behind Labor (61%), and All Others (21%). That's a podium finish, isn't it?

[Pies4shaw]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-23/ ... /100023008

I missed this hilarity, at the time:

Dr Honey has been formally declared leader unopposed after the only other Lower House Liberal MP, Libby Mettam, decided not to stand for the top job. Ms Mettam was elected as deputy leader ....

On the serious side of governing the State, the Nats apparently rejected the formal coalition the Libs wanted, as appears from this article:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-19/ ... /100025454

[David]

[stui magpie]

That probably says more about Bandt.

[David]

Not really, I think it just signalled that they were working with a small pool and couldn't afford to be fussy about who was from which house. Bandt is leader now and seems to be a good fit. (I understand though that, in state and federal politics alike, there would be a distinction between party leadership and formal roles like opposition leader and deputy opposition leader that probably preclude upper-house members from serving.)

[Pies4shaw]

Well, this is pretty funny. The Libs have done an internal review in WA and apparently decided that some of them engaged in unethical and underhand conduct. The word "corruption" was used and the review has described their own party as a "wasteland devoid of values".

Talk about giving yourself an uppercut: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-28/ ... /100415422

[roar]

I'd like to see more political parties give themselves an uppercut.

[Pies4shaw]

^ They're all "wastelands devoid of values" - but they don't all publish reports confirming it.

[Pies4shaw]

The Nats had, until yesterday, 7 MPs - in total, across both Houses - and then this:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-03/ ... /100672814