Friday, March 04, 2005
More WA election stuff
Following on from my WA election wrap-up, I thought I'd get Hootz (remember him?) to predict the likely make-up of the new upper house.It's been 6 days since the WA election and most of the counting has finished. Perfect timing to predict the results for the upper house before the WA Electoral Commission releases them.
The Legislative Council is made up of 34 seats divided between 6 regions. Two of these regions have 7 members and the other four have 5 members. Labor and the Greens managed to gain control after the 2001 election with a slight majority - although the slightness of this majority caused a few problems for the Labor Government with its attempts at reforming the electoral system.
Below is the make-up of the upper house immediately prior to the 2005 election:
Australian Labor Party - 13
Greens WA - 5
Liberal Party - 11
National Party - 1
New Country Party - 2 (formerly One Nation)
Independents - 2 (1 formerly One Nation, 1 formerly Liberal)
It would be fair to say that there were 18 members on the 'left' and therefore 16 on the 'right'.
The likely make-up of the new upper house is possibly a little more boring:
Australian Labor Party: 16
Greens WA: 2
Liberal Party: 15
National Party: 1
This means that once again there will be 18 members on the 'left' and 16 on the 'right' - unless, of course, Labor or the Greens manage to gain the 5th seat in the Agricultural Region instead of the Liberal Party. The race for the 5th spot is between the ALP, Liberal Party, Greens, National Party, Family First, New Country Party and the Christian Democratic Party (according to Poll Bludger). While the Liberals are the most likely to win it, the CDP (with 1.81%) might be able to pull off what Family First did at the Federal election.
Here are my predictions extrapolated for each region (net change in brackets):
Agricultural
Australian Labor Party: 1
Greens WA: 0 (-1)
Liberal Party: 3 (+2)
National Party: 1
New Country Party: 0 (-1)
East Metropolitan
Australian Labor Party: 3
Liberal Party: 2
Mining & Pastoral
Australian Labor Party: 3 (+1)
Greens WA: 0 (-1)
Liberal Party: 2 (+1)
New Country Party: 0 (-1)
North Metropolitan
Australian Labor Party: 3
Greens WA: 1
Liberal Party: 3 (+1)
Independent: 0 (-1)
South Metropolitan
Australian Labor Party: 3 (+1)
Greens WA: 0 (-1)
Liberal Party: 2
South West
Australian Labor Party: 3 (+1)
Greens WA: 1
Liberal Party: 3
Independent: 0 (-1)
--
The big losers at this election were certainly the minor parties and independents - particularly the Greens who are likely to lose 3 of their seats. At the previous election they had picked up 2 extra seats (Mining & Pastoral and Agricultural) pretty much by accident. The potential loss of South Metro, though (a seat they've held since 1993) would be a little more devastating.
Overall, however, there appears to be is very little change in the left-right balance of the upper house. Gallop will still need to rely on the Greens to get things through the upper house and electoral reform is still out of his reach.
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