Dutton and Albanese can learn three lessons from this weekend’s WA election results

Famously parochial, West Australians have always hated the fact that they’re something of a political afterthought on federal election night; the race done and dusted by the time Perth’s polling booths have closed.   

But that all changed three years ago in a late-night nail-biter that saw Anthony Albanese win a total of 10 seats in the west and fall over the line to form a majority government.

Shortly after his win, recognising the pivotal role the state played, he promised to visit the state 30 times as prime minister.

Albanese was planning to make it 29 this weekend – to coincide with the WA state election – but Tropical Cyclone Alfred has thrown those plans into disarray. 

Having witnessed the fall of Labor governments in Queensland and the Northern Territory, he was eager to bask in the afterglow of a guaranteed Labor victory in the west, even if it’s a terribly lopsided contest.

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A preview of voter sentiment 

Coming on the eve of the federal election, both sides see this weekend as a dry run that’ll offer a real time test of voter sentiment and possibly provide a glimpse of the prime minister’s future.  

In particular are two questions they’re seeking answered. Can Labor hold its outer-suburban seats and can the Liberals turn cost-of-living anger into votes?  

Unlike the national poll, the result in WA is a foregone conclusion: Labor, led by premier Roger Cook, will comfortably win a third term for his party. One source joked that the election – having already been decided – rarely makes the front page of the West Australian, the state’s only daily newspaper.

Two history-making landslides in 2017 and 2021 have left Labor with control of both houses of Parliament and a staggering 52 of 59 seats in the lower house. It’s wall-to-wall Labor in the West.

Not only that, but the margins are inflated, making the Liberals’ journey out of the political wilderness even more difficult. 

Reduced to just two seats in the lower house, the Liberals’ humiliating defeat was compounded by the fact that they lost their official party status, pipped by the Nationals who finished with three seats. The Liberal brand is weak in the west because there are so few MPs and staffers to promote it.

There will almost certainly be a correction at this election, with the Liberals expected to regain between eight and 10 of the seats it lost in 2021.

But it’s the location of those seats that federal MPs are most interested in. Pollsters reckon the federal election will be decided in the outer suburbs of Australia, in the mortgage-belt seats where voters are feeling the cost-of-living pain.

One Labor source told the ABC that while the party’s suffering in states like Victoria, its brand remains reasonably strong in WA and at this stage of the game, its numbers are ticking along fine.

Albanese makes much of his frequent visits to the west and has gone above and beyond not to upset WA voters, famously dumping a planned overhaul of environmental laws after lobbying from the state’s premier.

But Labor might also be getting a false sense of security. A huge backlash against Scott Morrison in 2022 has left Labor with decent margins at a federal level too; after Tangney (2.8 per cent), Labor’s next most marginal seat is Pearce in Perth’s northern (8.8 per cent). 

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The seats to watch

Both sides agree that at least three federal seats are in play: Tangney, which Labor’s fighting “tooth and nail” to protect, the new seat of Bullwinkel (where the Liberals are ahead), and Curtin, a once-safe Liberal seat in Perth’s leafy western suburbs lost to teal independent Kate Chaney at the last election.

Figures provided to the ABC show Chaney’s campaign has spent $29,000 on advertising on Meta in the past seven days, dwarfing the $1300 spent by her Liberal opponent Tom White.

The Liberals are looking to regain Curtin and Tangney and win Bullwinkel, but they concede it’ll be tough; when it comes to campaign resources, they’re outnumbered and outgunned by Labor at both a state and federal level.

On Saturday night, they’ll be closely watching for swings in seats like Kalamunda – held by Labor by a margin of 14.5 per cent – smack-bang in the centre of Bullwinkle, and Labor-held Bicton, on a 16.2 cent margin, in the middle of Tangney.

If there’s little or no swing towards the Liberals in seats like these, the party will be nervous about its federal prospects.

The Dutton factor

YouGov pollster Paul Smith puts it simply — these voters are crucial if Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is to become prime minister. 

“Dutton needs to win over working-class voters who are his route to power,” he said.

He doesn’t have much choice. The teals, in wealthier, inner-city seats, are like a bulwark against a Coalition-majority government.

Cost of living, housing and health have all been dominant campaign themes in WA, and the opposition has accused the Cook government of squandering the mining boom and leaving the rapidly growing state with the lowest housing affordability in the nation and a shortage of hospital beds.

In an op-ed, WA Liberal leader Libby Mettam pointed out that the former Barnett Liberal government, ousted in 2017, received $52.6 billion over two terms in combined GST and royalty revenue, compared with the $95.3 billion that’s gone into Labor coffers over the following two terms.

Mettam herself has had a rocky campaign. Labor’s attack ads paint her as a leader on her L-plates, fending off a wannabe Liberal leader in Basil Zempilas, the TV “Perthonality” turned Lord Mayor who’s running for the marginal seat of Churchlands (a seat Labor won by just 408 votes in 2021).

One Liberal told the ABC that voters are unhappy with Labor “but they’re not yet moving into our tent”. 

Voters appear to be turning to minor parties campaigning on their specific issues of concern (sheep, firearms and fishing among them).

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A similar dynamic was observed in last month’s Werribee by-election in Victoria – another outer suburban electorate. There was a 10 per cent swing against Labor but only about 3 per cent of that went the Liberals way on the primary vote.

Federally, the polls have consistently put the Coalition ahead of Labor, but pollsters describe the electorate as both volatile and “soft” – meaning a big chunk of voters are either undecided or no longer feel aligned to a party. 

“Dutton has not crystallised discontent over cost of living,” says YouGov’s Paul Smith, whose research has found voters tend to blame corporations like supermarkets, power companies and the banks for “ripping them off”.

Redbridge pollster and former Labor campaign strategist Kos Samaras puts the softness down to the fact that, for the first time, millennials and Gen Z voters will be the dominant force on the electoral roll and this cohort has the lowest “values connection” to the major parties.

Amid expectations the prime minister could call the election within days, Dutton enters the campaign with few policy offerings, giving voters little time to properly consider his plans to ease their cost-of-living pressures and improve living standards.

Across the country, MPs in marginal seats are growing restless.

‘2022 campaign was extremely difficult’

In Tasmania, where three seats are in play, Liberal backbencher Bridget Archer is keen to see a “suite of things” from the Coalition to make life easier for her constituents both in the short and long term. 

“People want to know what the plan is going forward; what the levers are that government can pull on,” she told the ABC, adding she was open to more immediate measures too including energy bill relief.

Archer holds the marginal seat of Bass, having defied a nationwide swing that swept the Coalition from power at the last election. 

This time around, she’s noticed a different mood and says there’s one big factor working in her party’s favour: Peter Dutton is not Scott Morrison.

“The 2022 campaign was extremely difficult for us. People would say ‘I think you’ve done a good job, but I don’t want another three years of Scott Morrison’. There was a very anti-Morrison sentiment, and it was very vocal and very angry at that point,” she said.

When asked what people think about Dutton, she said: “I wouldn’t use the word ambivalent, but I think voters are less concerned about ‘would I’d want to go and have a beer with that bloke?’ and [more concerned with] ‘do I want him to run the country?”.

While Albanese’s popularity has steadily declined since the election, polling consistently puts him ahead of Dutton on the question of preferred prime minister.

Saturday’s election in WA could prove an important indicator of that proposition.