The Australian High Court’s decision on WA’s electoral legislation, due to be handed down next February, will determine whether Labor or the Nationals and Liberals govern WA into the foreseeable future. Labor’s Attorney-General, Jim McGinty, has staked all on that decision. Joe Poprzeczny assesses the likely outcome of the next election if the High Court should reject Mr McGinty’s case.
SOME conservative MPs believe Attorney-General Jim McGinty will fail in his recent bid to convince the High Court that WA’s electoral laws should be changed to incorporate one-vote-one-value requirements.
When pressed on why they hold this optimistic view, two said that Mr McGinty had recently told a senior National MP he wasn’t confident about winning his High Court challenge.
If that’s so, and if Mr McGinty isn’t pulling that MP’s leg, the next election will be fought on the boundaries WA’s Electoral Commission gazetted on August 3.
I’ve now had the chance to see an electoral pendulum that shows swings needed for all seats to change hands and detailed assessments of how we can expect things to pan out next election.
This means that the boundaries of the newly gazetted seats have been superimposed upon the February 2001 election’s voting patterns, with notional margins calculated.
Because naming each seat makes tedious reading, it’s best to consider them in four risk bands or groups and highlight crucial seats, that is, those at greatest risk.
WA’s 57-member Legislative Assembly breaks down into two basic categories – Labor and conservative – with the former holding 33 seats and the latter 24, meaning Labor could lose up to four and retain government, while the conservatives must win five to gain power.
Labor’s need to lose no more than four, and the conservatives’ requirement of needing to win five, shows that the difference between government and opposition can be judged to be marginal in itself.
This, of course, oversimplifies matters somewhat, since linked to Labor is an Independent, Pilbara MLA Larry Graham, who, although holding solid Labor credentials, isn’t an official ALP man so cannot be counted to unconditionally back Labor.
If Labor won only 28 seats – one short of government – Mr Graham would hold the balance of power, so could bargain either for a ministerial post or the prestigious speakership.
What’s more, he’d get whichever he wanted, meaning Labor would swallow its pride since the alternative would be the opposition benches that they so dearly wish Liberal leader Colin Barnett to continue inhabiting.
The same applies to the conservatives with their three Independents – South Perth’s Phillip Pendal, Churchlands’ Dr Liz Constable and Alfred Cove’s Dr Janet Woollard.
If Mr Barnett finds himself with 26, 27 or 28 Coalition seats – so three, two or one short of being able to form a government – all or each of the three Independents could expect either a ministry or the speakership, depending on how negotiations went.
Now, the second simplifying categorisation is the notional margins by which Labor and the conservatives hold their 33 and 24 seats respectively.
This falls into four percentage risk bands or groups.
Labor has two seats – Girrawheen and Willagee – that require swings of 21 per cent or more to be lost.
The conservatives also hold two similar seats – Merredin and Roe – where swings of more than 21 per cent are required for them to change hands.
In these four cases, political miracles are needed for them to be lost by incumbents.
Something approaching miracles would also be required for the next, or second, band or group, those between 19.3 and 10.3 per cent, to change hands.
In this group Labor holds 13 seats and the conservatives seven. One can also safely predict there’ll be no changes here.
The same applies, though naturally without the same degree of certainty, in the third band or group of seats, which are held by between 9.7 to 4.0 per cent. Of these, Labor has eight and the conservatives 11.
Together these three safe seat groups account for 43 of the 57 seats – meaning three-quarters of incumbent MPs have secure jobs – leaving just 14 vulnerable.
With perhaps one exception in this third group – North West Coastal (5.3), which incorporates coastal or non-mining Pilbara and Carnarvon and environs – these 14 seats will decide whether Geoff Gallop or Colin Barnett is premier after either February 2005 or perhaps July 2004, when some predict the next election will be held.
Ten of these 14, which are held by between 3.7 and 0.2 per cent, are in Labor’s camp – Albany (3.7), Wanneroo (3.3), Joondalup (3.3), Riverton (3.0), Collie-Wellington (2.6), Geraldton (2.5), Mindarie (1.2), Murray (1.0), Swan Hills (0.5), and Bunbury (0.2).
These constitute Dr Gallop’s Achilles heel.
Mr Barnett is in the far more comfortable position of only having four such marginals – Hillarys (3.7), Kingsley (2.7), Kalgoorlie (0.9), and Darling Range (0.7).
Of these one can envisage Kalgoorlie going to Labor, although if having to put money on it – which is illegal – one would probably opt for sitting Liberal, Matt Birney, holding on, even if only by a thread.
Despite problems in Darling Range, where sitting Liberal John Day is threatened for pre-selection by local party activist Frank Lindsay, it’s unlikely to go to Labor.
And it’s difficult to see Kingsley and Hillarys toppling Labor’s way.
In the 2001 election the conservatives hit rock bottom in an electoral sense, which means they are unlikely to slump any further.
In other words, the pressure is now on Dr Gallop, and that means those 10 marginals and the unpredictable North West Coastal.
If Mr Barnett is to fulfil his long-time dream of becoming premier this time around he must take five of the 10, otherwise it’s another four years in the boondocks.
Which, then, are the easiest five?
According to the figures it’s Bunbury, Swan Hills, Murray, Mindarie and Geraldton.
And it would be surprising if all weren’t Liberal after next election. And Riverton, Joondalup, Wanneroo and Albany look shaky for Labor.
Moreover, three of Labor’s 10 marginals – Bunbury, Albany and Geraldton – are regional seats, which explains Mr Barnett’s new strategy of highlighting regional issues.
Clearly, if Mr McGinty’s hunch is correct, Dr Gallop needs to pull something dramatic out of the hat in the lead up to the election campaign.
But if the High Court decides in favour of Mr McGinty, he’d immediately order another redistribution.
And the electoral commissioners would this time apply the one-vote-one-value formula for which Labor has actively campaigned since the 1970s.
Labor could then look to retaining power probably until at least 2013, maybe longer.
It’s difficult to envisage it being dislodged in 2005, and the same applies to a 2009 election.
And the one-vote-one-value principle could even hold for a third election, so that of 2013, meaning Labor administrations until at least 2017.
Little wonder conservative MPs have their collective fingers tightly crossed.
And it’s little wonder that so many of them are prepared to believe any rumour they hear.