The WA Liberals have been all but obliterated: “The current final outcome prediction is 52 Labor, three Liberals and four Nationals.” It’s a first for women: “WA’s Lower House will end up with more female MPs elected in 2021 than the total number of Liberal women, 25, to have ever [ever!] sat in the WA Parliament. There may also end up being more Lower House MPs named Lisa than Liberal party members.” And a first for the upper house: “At this stage, it looks like the extraordinary support for Labor will translate into an upper house majority for the first time for Labor. It is worth noting that Liberal-National governments in WA have regularly controlled both houses of parliament while in government.” The reason it has taken a record landslide for Labor to have the chance of narrowly winning the upper house is that WA’s electoral system is rigged with rural malapportionment: “the three-quarters of the WA population who live in the Perth area elect 18 MLCs, while the one quarter outside Perth elect the same number of MLCs. This malapportionment means that the Legislative Council is significantly biased towards the ‘right’ (Liberal Party, Nationals and small parties like Family First and the Shooters) and against the ‘left’ (Labor and the Greens).” Perhaps McGowan will take the opportunity to make WA a democratic state.
17 March 2021