WA2025 – Statistical Analysis of 2025 Western Australian election

For the past three decades I have been preparing electoral publications for the Western Australian Parliamentary Library, covering state election results and redistributions. The latest in the series covering the 2025 WA state election has recently been published.

The publication contains summary tables of the overall results including votes and swings for all lower house districts, various summary tables, as well as details of the Legislative Council election including a walk through of the Legislative Council’s distribution of preferences.

Inside this post I provide a new electoral pendulum and extract the publication’s overall summary.

You can find the publication at this link.

First, below is an electoral pendulum for the lower house results. Two-party preferred calculation methods for the seven districts that did not finish as two-party contests can be found in the publication. Seats that changed party at the election are underlined.

The main political story of the 2025 Legislative Assembly election was the substantial swing against Labor, though the swing was a correction to the 2021 landslide. Labor recorded 57.2% of the statewide two-party preferred vote, a swing against Labor of 12.5%. That still left Labor above the 55.5% two-party preferred vote it recorded in 2017.

Half of the seats defended by Labor in 2025 had margins above 25% and the largest swings against Labor occurred mostly in these seats. Of notional 54 seats before the election, Labor lost five to the Liberal Party and three to the Nationals. Labor retained 46 seats, five more than the party won with a lower vote on election to office in 2017. Labor’s first preference vote in 2025 was 41.4%, well down on 59.9% in 2021 and short of the 42.2% recorded in 2017.

Labor won 39 of the 44 seats in the Perth metropolitan area, down from 42 of 43 in 2021 but better than 34 of 43 in 2017. Labor won seven of the 15 non-metropolitan seats, little different to seven of 16 in 2017. Labor’s two-party preferred result in Perth was up 2.8% compared to 2017, but down 2.8% in the rest of the state.

Of the eight seats gained by the Liberal and National Parties in 2025, five were the recovery of seats lost in 2021 (Carine, Churchlands, Geraldton, Nedlands, Warren-Blackwood) the three had been Labor retains in 2021 (Albany, Kalamunda, Murray-Wellington). Compared to the 2017 election, Labor retained seven former Liberal and National seats that would normally sit on the non-Labor side of the state’s electoral ledger. (Bateman, Dawesville, Hillarys, Kalgoorlie, Riverton, Scarborough, South Perth).

To defeat Labor at the 2029 election, the Liberal and National Parties need to gain 17 seats, corresponding to a uniform swing against Labor of 9.5%.

A total of 12 parties contested the 2025 election, down from a record 19 parties in 2021. The decline in party numbers was a consequence of the government’s Legislative Council reform package. The changes tightened rules governing the registration of political parties, abolished group voting tickets, and introduced a form of optional preferential voting for the Council. The changes made it much harder for a party to win election on preferences from a very low primary vote. All 12 registered parties contested the Legislative Council election but only 11 nominated candidates for the Legislative Assembly.

A total of 544 candidates nominated for both houses, down from a record 788 in 2021. The 59 Legislative Assembly districts were contested by 398 candidates, down from a record 463 in 2021. The average candidates per district was down from 7.8 in 2021 to 6.7 in 2025. The number of Legislative Council nominations fell dramatically from 325 in 2021 to just 146 in 2025, down from 9.1 candidates per vacancy to 3.9.

The decline in Council candidates was due to the adoption of a state-wide electorate and the tougher rules for party registration. Where minor parties contesting each region in 2021 nominated 12 candidates, two per region, in 2025 they only needed five candidates for a column on the new state-wide ballot paper. The abolition of group voting tickets also ended any chance of a party repeating the feat of the Daylight Saving Party winning a seat from just 98 votes in 2021. Where there was an average of 23 ballot paper columns per region in 2021, there were only 14 columns on the 2025 state-wide ballot paper. The 2025 columns represented the 12 registered parties, one Independent group and an Ungrouped column

The number of enrolled electors increased to 1,868,946, a rise of 8.9% since 2021. Turnout was 85.66% in the Legislative Council, up 0.17 percentage points compared to 2021. Informal voting rose in both chambers, to 4.32% (+0.56) in the Assembly, and 2.93% (+0.98) in the Council.

The 2023 redistribution transferred a seat from regional Western Australia to Perth. The former National Party seats of Moore and North West Central were merged to create the new seat of MidWest. A new and notionally Labor held seat called Oakford was created in Perth’s south.

The Liberal first preference vote rose 6.7% to 28.9% but finished short of the party’s 31.2% share on the defeat of the Barnett government in 2017. There were huge swings in some of Labor’s safest seats, but the swings were generally smaller in seats targeted by the Liberal Party for recovery.

The Nationals lost a seat before the election with Moore and North West Central merged to create the new seat of Mid-West. Nationals’ Leader Shane Love won the seat against Nationals turned Liberal candidate Merome Beard. The Nationals recovered Warren-Blackwood and gained the regional seats of Albany and Geraldton with two of the larger swings at the election. The last time the Nationals (then the Country Party) had won Geraldton was in 1947, the last Albany victory in 1953. New Nationals MLA for Albany Scott Leary had been the Liberal candidate in 2021 and was defeated in a Liberal pre-selection ballot for 2025 by Tom Brough. Leary’s victory was assisted by some controversy over Brough’s political views.

Less than half of the 18.5% loss of primary vote support for Labor flowed to the Liberals and Nationals, the Liberal primary vote rising 6.7%, the Nationals 1.2%. Support for Independents and minor parties had declined to just 14.8% in 2021 but rebounded to 25.4% in 2025. The Greens polled 11.1% in the Assembly, up from 6.9% in 2021 and 8.9% in 2017. While not contesting all seats, One Nation support was 4.0% compared to 1.4% in 2021 but down on 4.9% in 2017. The Australian Christians had an improved showing with 3.2% and Legalise Cannabis 2.5%, 4.1% in the seats it contested.

The new state-wide Legislative Council election with its 2.63% quota for election led to an increase in the size of the crossbench. Labor elected 16 members, down six on 2021, party support slipping from an extra-ordinary 60.3% in 2021 to 40.9% in 2025. The Liberal Party gained three seats to 10, the Greens also gaining three seats to elect four MLCs. One Nation returned to the Council with two members. The Australian Christians and Animal Justice elected their first MLCs, while Legalise Cannabis slipped from two seats to one.

Without the rural weighting that applied under the old Legislative Council system, the Nationals return of seats was more reflective of its state vote. The party polled 5.4% in 2017 and elected five MLCs, but only two from the same state-wide vote in 2025. The Nationals had elected three members from 2.8% in 2021.

For the Legislative Council result, the abolition of group voting tickets and an end to regional vote weighting meant the number of members elected by party was strongly proportional to party vote share. Of the 37 members elected, 34 were determined by filled quotas on first preferences. The final three seats were determined on preferences. Independent (ex-Legalise Cannabis) candidate Sophia Moermond led on initial partial quotas but was passed by One Nation, Labor and Animal Justice in the race for the final three seats.

Of all formal ballot papers, 97.6% were counted using the group voting square option ‘above-the-line’. In total 2.4% of votes were counted as ‘below-the-line’ votes, with 1.4% for the lead candidate in each group and 1.0% as first preferences for other candidates. Group voting was lowest for Sustainable Australia (89.8%) and highest for the Liberal Party (98.85%) and Labor Party (98.88%).

On a slightly different basis, statistics provided by the WAEC are that of all Legislative Council votes including informal votes, 53.1% of ballot papers were single ‘1’ group votes and 41.5% were group votes with preferences

The final three Council vacancies were filled by candidates with less than a quota of votes
when all votes had been distributed. Ballot papers equivalent to 1.44 quotas had exhausted their preferences before the end of the count. After the election of 34 members, Sophia Moermond had held the highest partial quota. She was passed during the further distribution of preferences from excluded candidates by the final three members elected.

Between the point when only 12 candidates remained, and the point where only four candidates remained, 55.7% of preferences had exhausted or been lost by fraction. Overall, 18.9% of preferences flowed to One Nation, 10.0% to Labor, 9.8% to Animal Justice but only 5.6% to Moermond. It was these differential preferences that resulted in Moermond being passed by the other three candidates.

Between the point when only 12 candidates remained and when Moermond was excluded and the final three candidate were declared elected, 58.7% of preferences exhausted or had been lost by fraction. 19.2% of preferences flowed to One Nation, 11.9% to Labor and 10.3% to Animal Justice.