List of Western Australian Legislative Assembly elections

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Template:Short description Template:Use Australian English Template:Use dmy dates This article provides a summary of results for elections to the Western Australian Legislative Assembly, the lower house in Western Australia's bicameral state legislative body, the Parliament of Western Australia, which came into being in 1890 when Western Australia achieved responsible self-government. The number of seats has increased over time, from 30 at its first election, to the current total of 59 seats. Western Australian politics were initially non-partisan, with individual Members of Parliament choosing to align either with the Government or the Opposition. This began to change in the 1901 election with the election of six Labor members, and then with Labor attaining outright victory in the 1904 election. By 1911, a rival party to Labor had emerged in the centre-right Liberal Party of Western Australia, which many of the former independents had joined.[1] This entity evolved into the Nationalist Party and eventually into the Liberal Party in 1944.[2]

The chart below shows the information graphically, with the most recent results on the right. It shows the popularity in terms of seats won, of the Labor Party (red) and the Nationalist Party and its predecessors (mid-blue) in the first half of the 20th century, as well as the emergence of the Country Party (green) in 1914, with whom the Nationalists and later the Liberals formed a coalition in order to form government. Two distinct periods were characterised by one party or coalition's dominance—the Labor Party won six of the seven elections between 1924 and 1947, and the Liberal Party (dark blue) in coalition with the Country Party won seven of the eight elections between 1959 and 1983. Occasional internal splits within the Country Party, now known as the Nationals, are also shown on the chart in differing shades of green.

File:WA Elections.png  
Party colour key
width=5 Template:Australian party style|  Liberal width=5 Template:Australian party style|  Labor
Nationalist;
Liberal (1911–1917) 		National Labor
Ministerialist Template:Australian party style rowspan=2| National;
National Country;
Country[3]
Oppositionist
Independent Other[3]

Summary of results

The table below shows the total number of seats won by the major political parties at each election. The totals of the winning party or coalition are shown in bold, while other parties in government are shown in bold italic. Full details on any election are linked via the year of the election at the start of the row.

Election Date Total seats Labor Liberal <templatestyles src="Citation/styles.css"/>[A] Nationalist <templatestyles src="Citation/styles.css"/>[B] Country/ National <templatestyles src="Citation/styles.css"/>[C] Nat. Lab. <templatestyles src="Citation/styles.css"/>[D] Independent Other Parties
Template:Australian party style height=6 | Template:Australian party style | Template:Australian party style | Template:Australian party style | Template:Australian party style | Template:Australian party style | Template:Australian party style colspan=2 |
41st 13 March 2021 Template:Australian party style width=3 | 59 53 2 4
40th 11 March 2017 Template:Australian party style width=3 | 59 41 13 5
39th 9 March 2013 Template:Australian party style width=3 | 59 21 31 7
38th 6 September 2008 Template:Australian party style width=3 | 59 28 24 4 3
37th 26 February 2005 Template:Australian party style width=3 | 57 32 18 5 2
36th 10 February 2001 Template:Australian party style | 57 32 16 5 4
35th 14 December 1996 Template:Australian party style | 57 19 29 6 3
34th 6 February 1993 Template:Australian party style | 57 24 26 6 1
33rd 4 February 1989 Template:Australian party style | 57 31 20 6
32nd 8 February 1986 Template:Australian party style | 57 32 19 6
31st 19 February 1983 Template:Australian party style | 57 32 20 3 2 National <templatestyles src="Citation/styles.css"/>[C]
30th 23 February 1980 Template:Australian party style | 55 23 26 3 3 National <templatestyles src="Citation/styles.css"/>[C]
29th 19 February 1977 Template:Australian party style | 55 22 27 6
28th 30 March 1974 Template:Australian party style | 51 22 23 6
27th 20 February 1971 Template:Australian party style | 51 26 17 8
26th 23 March 1968 Template:Australian party style | 51 23 19 9
25th 20 February 1965 Template:Australian party style | 50 21 21 8
24th 31 March 1962 Template:Australian party style | 50 24 18 8
23rd 21 March 1959 Template:Australian party style | 50 23 17 8 2
22nd 7 April 1956 Template:Australian party style | 50 29 11 8 2
21st 14 February 1953 Template:Australian party style | 50 26 15 9
20th 25 March 1950 Template:Australian party style | 50 23 15 9 3
19th 15 March 1947 Template:Australian party style | 50 23 13 12 2
18th 20 November 1943 Template:Australian party style | 50 30 7 10 3
17th 18 March 1939 Template:Australian party style | 50 27 7 12 4
16th 15 February 1936 Template:Australian party style | 50 26 8 13 3
15th 8 April 1933 Template:Australian party style | 50 30 8 12
14th 26 March 1930 Template:Australian party style | 50 23 16 10 1
13th 26 March 1927 Template:Australian party style | 50 27 16 7
12th 22 March 1924 Template:Australian party style | 50 27 9 1 7
6 		MCP
ECP[3]
11th 12 March 1921 Template:Australian party style | 50 16 10 16 6 2
10th 29 September 1917 Template:Australian party style | 50 15 16 12 6 1
9th 21 October 1914 Template:Australian party style | 50 26 16 8
8th 3 October 1911 Template:Australian party style | 50 34 16
7th 11 September 1908 Template:Australian party style | 50 22 28
6th 27 October 1905 Template:Australian party style | 50 15 35
5th 28 June 1904 Template:Australian party style | 50 22 19 9

Elections prior to political parties

Until the 1904 election, most candidates did not belong to political parties. However, some candidates declared their support for the administration of the time, while others declared their opposition to it. Full details on any election are linked via the year of the election at the start of the row.

Election Date Seats Government Opposition Independent Labor
4th April 1901 50 19 20 5 6
3rd May 1897 44 29 8 7
2nd June 1894 33 19 13 1
1st December 1890 30 30

Notes

<templatestyles src="Citation/styles.css"/>A The Liberal Party was known as the Liberal and Country League from 1949 until 1968.
<templatestyles src="Citation/styles.css"/>B Includes results for the Western Australian Liberal Party from 1911 until 1917, and the Ministerial Party from 1904 until 1911.
<templatestyles src="Citation/styles.css"/>C The party was known as the Country Party (1914–1946; 1962–1973), Country and Democratic League (1946–1962), National Alliance (1974), National Country Party (1975–1984) and National Party (1984–present). A separate National Party existed from 1978–1984 and is shown under "Other Parties".
<templatestyles src="Citation/styles.css"/>D The National Labor Party were a split from the Labor Party which sat in coalition with the Nationalists between 1917 and 1924.

Interpretation issues

Two features of the Western Australian electoral system are worthy of note in interpreting election results. The first is that until the 1974 election, many seats in both houses were uncontested—usually more than one-quarter of all seats on offer.[4]Script error: No such module "Unsubst". Since 1974, only three seats have been uncontested—that being the seats of Collie and East Melville in the 1980 election, when the rival party's candidates missed the nomination deadline and hence could not stand, and the seat of Narrogin in the 1983 election.

The second feature is malapportionment, which until 2008 was a significant feature of the Western Australian political landscape. Seats in metropolitan and rural areas did not contain the same number of electors—as at 30 September 2007, a Member of the Legislative Assembly represented either 28,519 metropolitan voters within the Metropolitan Region Scheme area, or 14,551 country voters.[5] This was believed to disproportionately favour the Nationals in terms of parliamentary representation.[6] Reforms enacted in 2005 which took effect at the 2008 election produced an average district enrolment of 21,350, which applied to all but five of the 59 districts created in the 2007 redistribution. An allowance remained for particularly large districts—those of Script error: No such module "convert". or more, located in the north and east of the State—in the form of a Large District Allowance.[7]

See also

References

<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />

  1. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  2. ↑ Template:Cite Q
  3. ↑ a b c In 1923, the Country Party split into the Ministerial Country Party (MCP), with 15 members, and the Executive Country Party (ECP), with 3. At the 1924 election, the MCP won 7 seats and the ECP won 6—subsequently, the MCP merged with the Nationalists while the ECP reverted to the name Country Party. In 1978, a disagreement between those favouring coalition with the Liberals and those favouring independence resulted in the latter group splitting to form the National Party, while the original party remained as the National Country Party. In 1984, the two parties reunited, although the three NCP members ultimately joined the Liberal Party, with two of them losing to endorsed Nationals at the 1986 election. The Executive Country (1924) and National (1978–1984) parties are shaded light green in this list.
  4. ↑ Black, p. 110.
  5. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  6. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  7. ↑ Electoral Act 1907 (WA), s.16G (as added by No.1 of 2005, s.4.)

Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".

See also

Script error: No such module "Navbox".

Retrieved from "http://debianws.lexgopc.com/wiki143/index.php?title=List_of_Western_Australian_Legislative_Assembly_elections&oldid=5476356"