2017 Western Australian state election

2017 Western Australian state election
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All 59 seats in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly
and all 36 members in the Western Australian Legislative Council
30 Assembly seats were needed for a majority
Opinion polls
  First party Second party Third party
 
Leader Mark McGowan Colin Barnett Brendon Grylls
Party Labor Liberal National
Leader since 23 January 2012 (2012-01-23) 6 August 2008 (2008-08-06) 9 August 2016 (2016-08-09)
Leader's seat Rockingham Cottesloe Pilbara
(lost seat)
Last election 21 seats 31 seats 7 seats
Seats won 41 13 5
Seat change Increase 20 Decrease 18 Decrease 2
First preference vote 557,794 412,710 71,313
Percentage 42.20% 31.23% 5.40%
Swing Increase 9.07 Decrease 15.88 Decrease 0.66
2PP 55.5% 44.5%
2PP swing Increase 12.80 Decrease 12.80
The map on the left shows the first party preference by electorate. The map on the right shows the final two-party preferred vote result by electorate.
Premier before election

Colin Barnett
Liberal

Elected Premier

Mark McGowan
Labor

The 2017 Western Australian state election was held on Saturday 11 March 2017 to elect members to the Parliament of Western Australia, including all 59 seats in the Legislative Assembly and all 36 seats in the Legislative Council. The eight-and-a-half-year two-term incumbent Liberal–WA National government, led by Premier Colin Barnett, was defeated in a landslide by the Labor opposition, led by Opposition Leader Mark McGowan.

Labor won 41 of the 59 seats in the Legislative Assembly—a 12-seat supermajority. This was WA Labor's strongest performance in a state election at the time, and formed the largest majority government and seat tally in Western Australian parliamentary history until that point. Additionally, Labor exceeded all published opinion polling, winning 55.5 percent of the two-party-preferred vote from a state record landslide 12.8-point two-party swing.[1][2][3] It was the worst defeat of a sitting government in Western Australia, as well as one of the worst defeats of a sitting state or territory government since Federation.

Labor also became the largest party in the Legislative Council with 14 of the 36 seats. The Labor government thus required at least five additional votes from non-government members to pass legislation.[3][4]

  1. ^ Labor 55.5% 2PP vote and +12.8-point 2PP swing sourced from Antony Green's temporary estimate within provided ABC link published 30 March 2017, which states "The two-party-preferred count is based on estimates for Baldivis, Moore and Roe. – Final 2017 WA Election Results plus a New Electoral Pendulum: Antony Green ABC 30 March 2017 Archived 21 May 2017 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ Antony Green (16 March 2017). "The Role of One-Vote One-Value Electoral Reforms in Labor's Record WA Victory". ABC News (Australia). Archived from the original on 16 March 2017. Retrieved 16 March 2017.
  3. ^ a b "WA Election 2017". ABC News. 11 March 2017. Archived from the original on 11 March 2017. Retrieved 12 March 2017.
  4. ^ "WA Labor misses out on upper house working majority by one seat". ABC News. 26 March 2017. Archived from the original on 27 March 2017.