Liberals walloped, Labor returned in WA state election

West Australian voters have returned Labor to office in another landslide. Labor won 42 percent of the primary vote, compared to the Liberal’s 28.5 percent, making this the second largest Labor vote ever—topped only by the party’s stomping 2021 victory.

At the close of counting on election night (8 March), Labor had secured 40 of the 59 seats in the state’s Legislative Assembly. The Liberals had secured five and the Nationals four, with ten seats remaining in doubt.

Labor is now set for a third term in office. Only in the 1980s did WA Labor enjoy such a long period of government, beginning with the election of Brian Burke and ending with the stench of the WA Inc. scandal.

Since the Pilbara iron ore industry came to dominate the state’s economy in the late 1960s, successive state governments—both Labor and Liberal—have dutifully served mining interests. The Cook Labor government has been no exception. Premier Roger Cook lashed Midnight Oil singer Peter Garret for “sowing seeds of hatred” a week out from the election, after Garrett sledged Australia’s richest person, mining magnate Gina Rinehart, at a Perth Festival gig.

In 2017, Labor came into office under the leadership of Mark McGowan. In that election, the Liberals suffered a 16 percent swing, their worst electoral defeat on record. The outgoing Barnett government had presided over the largest mining boom in the state’s history. However, it had been an opportunity squandered. When the Liberals proposed to sell 50 percent of the state’s electricity corporation to pay off mounting state debt, voters gave them a drubbing.

In 2021, Labor secured nearly 60 percent of the primary vote, while the Liberals faced near annihilation. Labor won 53 Legislative Assembly seats, the Nationals four and the Liberals just two. The Liberals faced the shame of losing their opposition party status.

McGowan’s strategy of insulating the state from the ravages of Covid-19 behind tightly controlled borders proved a winner with voters. While the measures provoked ire from Liberal Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Qantas chairman Alan Joyce, and a High Court challenge from Queensland mining magnate Clive Palmer, they were popular with mining bosses in the West. Hancock Prospecting, BHP, Woodside and Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) profited handsomely from having mine workers work the Pilbara mines non-stop without the interruption of lockdowns that had plagued industry elsewhere.

McGowan quit unexpectedly mid-term, in May 2023, handing the baton to deputy leader Roger Cook. Back in 1986, during his Murdoch University student days, Cook became the National Union of Student’s first president before becoming a staffer for various Labor politicians. In 2008, he entered state parliament as the member for Kwinana, an industrial suburb south of Perth. Cook became deputy Labor leader ten days later and held senior ministerial posts during the six years of the McGowan government.

When Cook became premier, the state’s mining industry was once again booming. In the wake of the disruption to global trade during the pandemic, commodity prices were sky high. So were mining royalties. The state recorded a $4.2 billion surplus in May 2023 and a $3.2 billion surplus last year.

Spending splurge amidst a cost-of-living crisis

With cash in the bank, the Cook government has been spending heavily on infrastructure. Last year’s budget committed $12.1 billion, including an expansion of Perth’s rail network (Metronet) and spending on healthcare and school infrastructure.

Election promises included a major upgrade to Royal Perth Hospital, another round of student assistance payments for families with school-age children and an expansion of the school breakfast program. Property developers have been offered substantial subsidies to construct large apartment complexes to boost rental availability. Keystart, a shared equity scheme to assist home ownership, will also receive a funding boost.

However, none of these measures have eased the spiralling costs for working-class people. Under two terms of a Labor government, house prices and rents have soared, making WA an increasingly unaffordable place to live. Since Labor was elected in 2017, average house prices in WA have increased from $564,000 to $913,000. Rental vacancy rates have slumped from 4.7% to 1.4%, resulting in a median rent hike from $365 to $660 per week.

Social housing unit numbers dropped in McGowan’s first term and are now barely above 2017 levels. Forty-four thousand social housing units make up just 3.7 percent of all housing stock in the state. Consequently, Perth has become one of the worst cities in the developed world for finding a rental, with tenants often bidding well above the advertised rent to secure an abode.

According to Shelter WA, 61 people are turned away from emergency accommodation each day, the highest rate in the country. And more working people are experiencing homelessness: 15 percent of those accessing emergency accommodation in WA are employed, up from 10 percent five years ago.

Liberals anti-woke agenda

Unable to differentiate themselves from Labor on economic policy, the Liberals attempted to mimic Dutton and Trump’s “anti-woke” agenda. Liberal leader Libby Mettam promised to defund the Environmental Defenders Office, stating that “taxpayer money should not be spent propping up activists”. She also declared that she would not stand in front of the First Nations’ flags during media conferences.

Mettam also promised to “ban the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone treatments and surgical intervention for children under the age of 16 for the purpose of gender transition”.

This stance backfired spectacularly.

Several Liberal candidates found themselves in hot water for racist, sexist and homophobic comments. The Liberals’ Kimberley candidate, publican Darren Spackman, was forced to stand down after a slew of racist social media posts denigrating Aboriginal people were uncovered.

During an awkward press conference at which the Liberals were set to unveil new domestic violence policies, Darling Range candidate Paul Mansfield was confronted with what the ABC described as “a series of derogatory social media posts, including homophobic slurs and two lewd posts about women”.

Albany candidate Thomas Brough was ordered to take workplace training with the Australian Human Rights Commission after making statements linking LGBTQIA+ people with paedophilia. The Medical Board also referred Brough, a doctor, to the State Administrative Tribunal for his comments.

Unsurprisingly, none of this helped the Liberal Party’s electoral fortunes. While Labor suffered a negative 18 percent swing, the Liberal vote was up only 7.3 percent (after the previous electoral wipeout). The National Party vote climbed only 1.1 percent and One Nation was up 2.4 percent. The Greens’ vote was up 3.6 percent, and votes for independents increased by 2.9 percent.

Labor’s Fremantle upset

Nowhere was voter discontent more starkly demonstrated than in the electorate of Fremantle, where sitting Labor member and industrial relations minister Simone McGurk faced a 22 percent swing against her. Traditionally a working-class seat, Fremantle has been held by Labor for a century—apart from a 2009 byelection upset when it was lost to Greens candidate Adele Carles. Labor regained the seat at the next state election in 2013.

Today, Fremantle is not the working-class suburb it once was. A once lively port city, its old warehouses have been converted into expensive, trendy apartments. Despite its gentrification, however, it has been the site of protests around issues such as homelessness, fracking, AUKUS ship visits and Palestine.

Though the seat is still too close to call, it appears that McGurk is set to lose to independent Kate Hulett, a Fremantle business owner. Hulett campaigned on climate action, expanding public and affordable housing and transparency in government dealings with industry. Hulett won support from both traditional Labor and Greens voters for advocating a statewide ban on fracking, a ban on new or expanded fossil fuel projects, the retention of Fremantle as a nuclear-free zone, and opposition to AUKUS.

While Hulett tailed McGurk’s primary vote, she looks set to win on Greens preferences. McGurk won 33 percent of the primary vote, compared to 29 percent for Hulett and 16 percent for the Greens. McGurk’s re-election prospects hang narrowly on a flow of Liberal party preferences.

A business-friendly government

The morning after Cook’s thumping election victory, the state’s business tycoons lined up to congratulate the premier and cash-in their election donations. Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA CEO Rebecca Tomkinson and Wesfarmers boss Rob Scott each praised Cook for his contribution to the profitability of their businesses. Cook’s seat of Kwinana is home to Wesfarmers’ new lithium hydroxide refinery.

Scott told the West Australian he looked forward to working with the premier to ensure “competitive, reliable gas for domestic industry”.

“With a seat that covers the Kwinana industrial strip, one of Australia’s leading manufacturing hubs, the premier understands the important role that gas and WA can and will play, to support the climate transition”, Scott said.

Tomkinson called on the premier to unlock cheaper electricity and more land, telling the West that Cook must advocate to the federal government for policy that includes “repealing productivity-killing industrial relations reforms and changes to improve and streamline project assessment processes, enhancing environmental outcomes while eliminating duplication and providing certainty over timeframes”.

Cook has already proved his worth to the big end of town, having advocated strongly to kill federal Labor’s proposed (and largely symbolic) “nature positive” legislation that would have enabled the creation of a federal Environmental Protection Agency. In January, Cook lashed out at Labor backbenchers who continued to push the legislation, telling them:

“Your standard of living, the reason why you can afford your long mac and your lattes, is because of WA industry and the WA economy. Do not for a moment think that we will stand by idly and allow you to damage our economy because, ultimately, it will damage your standard of living. I think the prime minister is highly attuned to the issues which impact on Western Australia’s economy and Western Australian industry.”

In August 2023, in the middle of the Voice referendum campaign, Cook bowed to mining and pastoral industry pressure to roll back the state’s newly introduced Aboriginal cultural heritage legislation. Acting on behalf of mining interests, the Cook government has also advocated for a watering down of already threadbare native title rights for traditional owners. The Australian reports that current and former state mining ministers have written to the federal government urging amendments to the Native Title Act.

As the dust settles, Albanese will look to WA Labor’s win as an opportunity to spruce up Labor’s credentials in the upcoming federal election. However, Labor has never been and will never be a party that represents the interests of working-class people. The challenge remains to build a serious political alternative.