Western Australians went to the polls on Saturday to deliver exactly the same verdict on daylight saving as they had in 1975, 1984 and 1991. However, it was a very different story in the West’s other big electoral event of the weekend — the by-election for the state seat of Fremantle, vacated by Labor Left factional titan Jim McGinty.
The result was an historic win for the Greens, whose candidate Adele Carles finished the night with 54 per cent of the two-party vote. This was only the second time the Greens had won a state or federal lower house seat outside of Tasmania, with its Senate-style system of proportional representation.
The first such occasion was in 2002, when Michael Organ defeated Labor’s Sharon Bird in a by-election for the Wollongong-based federal seat of Cunningham. While Carles might not have been first off the block, in many ways her achievement was the more remarkable.
Michael Organ owed his win to internal Labor squabbles which saw the vote scatter among various union-backed independents, allowing him to win from a relatively modest primary vote of 23.0 per cent.Sharon Bird had no trouble recovering the seat for Labor on her second attempt at the 2004 election, when Organ finished third.
Carles by contrast won Fremantle with a handsome primary vote majority of 44.3 per cent to 38.6 per cent, which as Antony Green points out was the first time a Greens candidate had outpolled Labor at a federal, state or territory election.
It’s true that by-elections often produce aberrant results, particularly if as on this occasion one of the two major parties sits on the sidelines. However, Carles’s triumph follows her near-miss at the state election last September, when she fell 642 votes short of overtaking the Liberals and riding over Jim McGinty on their preferences.
Now bolstered by the advantages of incumbency, Carles stands an excellent chance of retaining the seat for the long term.
The result has myriad implications, locally and beyond.
It adds a new element of unpredictability to the already volatile situation in the Legislative Assembly, which now houses 27 Labor members, 24 Liberals, four from a highly assertive National Party, three independents of varying political backgrounds and now one Green.
Labor also faces a renewed round of soul-searching eight months after its ejection from office. Loud grumbling can be heard within party ranks over its recent habit of recruiting candidates from outside the Labor movement — in this case Fremantle mayor Peter Tagliaferri, who it was hoped would stave off defeat by winning over homeless Liberals.
With Labor’s primary vote remaining static, it’s clear that for every such voter gained another was lost due to Tagliaferri’s pro-business orientation as mayor.
There is also renewed scrutiny surrounding the leadership of Eric Ripper, who has generally been perceived as a short-term proposition in any case. His logical replacement would be popular Gallop-Carpenter government minister Alannah MacTiernan, recently said to be harbouring federal ambitions for the Liberal-held seat of Canning.
More broadly, Carles’s win underscores the point that the Greens’ encroachment into inner-city and bohemian enclaves is continuing to gather pace, posing a serious long-term threat to what had traditionally been Labor’s strongholds.
A number of seats in Sydney and Melbourne are likely to fall when the tide goes out on the ageing state Labor governments, which seems particularly imminent in the case of New South Wales.
Federally, Lindsay Tanner’s seat of Melbourne reached a watershed in 2007 when Greens candidate Adam Bandt overtook the Liberal and finished 4.7 per cent short after preferences.
Other senior Rudd government figures who can’t take anything for granted include Anthony Albanese in Grayndler and Tanya Plibersek in Sydney.
A question: When so-called daylight saving was introduced in other states, was there a referendum in each case?
And another: Given that the pro-daylight saving lobby has been given four referendums in WA, is there any hope that other states will get a referendum on whether they want to keep it?
Scott, DLS was introduced in Tasmania in 1967 to save power and water during a drought (all states previously had it during wartime on the say-so of the federal government), and was apparently popular enough that it was adopted permanently without anyone feeling the need for a referendum. This encouraged NSW, Victoria, Queensland and SA to trial it in 1971, and all but Queensland subsequently made it permanent, in each case without a referendum. However, a referendum was subsequently held in NSW in 1976, and the yes vote won. Since then there have been the 1975, 1984, 1991 and 2009 referendums in WA, preceded by one year trials in the first three cases and a three-year trial most recently. Queensland introduced it in 1989 and held a referendum in 1991, when it was voted down with a no vote of 54.5 per cent – very similar to the WA results. So Tasmania, Victoria and SA have never had a vote.
In answer to your second question, I would say the answer is no. WA keeps getting trials foisted upon it against the evident wishes of the majority because it is supported by powerful interests – who would prefer that it be imposed without a referendum, which governments feel unable to do for political reasons. There is no such powerful lobby calling for its abolition elsewhere. That said, I very much doubt that a referendum would fail outside of WA, Queensland and the Northern Territory.
The obvious next step is to give it a 100-year trial in WA, then have another referendum in 2109.
William,
Your analysis does not consider the ALP could get its act together. This is what they have done over the years and there is no doubt that once they focus themselves on winning then they will probably do it again.
Good candidates is always the sign post to a prosperaous political future. It’s hard to imagine Tagliaferri is the sort of candidate that would appeal to Labor supporters.
Also, the Libs will need to run a candidate in a full election just for the upper house considerations.
Greens could also cock up which is always a chance (Why should they be any different to any one else).
And from John Walsh over at LP:
[Sorry to get back to the Freo election (and away from teachers, artists etc) but I have been thinking about the last 3 fold flyer Zagami dropped in my area (East Fremantle), which is traditionally Liberal. Baisically the leaflets message placed more emphasis on “Don’t vote Labor” then “Vote Zagami”. I think that Zagami was more intent on making Fremantle a marginal seat then about getting votes for himself. I sopek to my neighbor who is also a Liberalvoter and he said that he was going to vote Green because he did not want to waist his vote on an independant who had no chance of winning. If this was what Zagami wanted to achieve it succeeded because the Greens piccked up about 2000 extra votes from a traditional Liberal area. Very clever campaigning.]