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Switzer Daily 9 April 2021 Now that every vote has been counted and every seat determined the time has come for me to give my thoughts on the results of the Western Australian general elections held on Saturday 13 March. The first point is to note the strength of the Labor vote which is without precedent. Labor scored 59.9 per cent of the first preference vote for the Legislative Assembly. The two other currently successful Labor premiers scored only 42.9 per cent in Victoria in November 2018 (Daniel Andrews) while Annastacia Palaszczuk could only get 39.6 per cent in Queensland in October 20...

Switzer Daily 12 March 2021 Early this week it was announced that former Deputy Prime Minister, John Anderson, would seek to make a comeback into federal politics by being a Nationals senator for New South Wales from 1 July 2022. What do I think of that? Frankly, it is not a good idea – for reasons I now explain. Who would Anderson succeed in the seat if he were to fill it? Answer: Fiona Nash (Nationals) who held the seat from 1 July 2005. She was elected to six-year terms in October 2004 and August 2010. Had there not been a double dissolution in 2016, she would undoubtedly have been elec...

Switzer Daily Previously on Switzer, I have written about how I think three Australian voting systems need fixing, the Senate and the upper houses in Victoria and Western Australia. With the WA elections due on Saturday week, I now go west for the sixth time since I started writing for Switzer Daily. The three glaring defects of the way in which the WA Legislative Council is elected relate to three words/sets of words. They are “malapportionment”, “district magnitude” and “ballot paper format”. The first word refers to having greatly different numbers of electors for each repres...

Switzer Daily 12 February 2021 On 13 March there will be general elections for the entire Parliament of Western Australia, with all 59 seats in the Legislative Assembly and all 36 in the Legislative Council contested. That another landslide win for Labor will occur is the general expectation, and I have no reason to predict otherwise. However, this election is of peculiar interest for me which is why I devoted two articles last year on WA politics for Switzer Daily. The articles were “Travelling West” posted on Friday 31 January and “How the West was Won” posted on Monday 6 April. Ma...

Switzer Daily 3 February 2021 The time has come for me to make my Australian political predictions for the next eighteen months, beginning with election dates. The first point to note is that the federal elections are, technically speaking, the fourth most proximate. The most proximate is the general election for all members of Western Australia’s Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council. The fixed date is 13 March 2021. The second most proximate is the general election for all members of South Australia’s House of Assembly and half its Legislative Council. Those elections will be hel...