Super Saturday by-elections fail to attract voters in Perth and Fremantle

Updated

Perth and Fremantle may be about to take out the dubious honour of recording the lowest voter turnout in an electorate since compulsory voting was introduced into Australia.

Labor held onto both seats in the by-election on Saturday, assisted significantly by the Liberal Party's decision not to field a candidate in the traditionally left-wing districts.

As of Sunday afternoon, Perth was recording voter turnout rates of 62 per cent, and 64 per cent in Fremantle.

A portion of postal votes have already been processed and are reflected in participation numbers, according to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC).

The lowest previously recorded turnout in a by-election since compulsory voting was introduced into Australia in 1924 was 69.5 per cent in the NSW seat of Wentworth, in 1981.

There has been speculation the Federal Liberal Party kept its powder dry in WA and focused its efforts instead on the eastern states where more marginal seat results are seen as portents for an upcoming federal election.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull steered clear of WA during the campaign, and the state saw nothing like the big ticket promises made in the east.

Analysts say this may have translated to voter apathy, compounded by low media coverage of what many saw as a foregone conclusion.

Political analyst Professor David Black said early results on turnout were "spectacularly low" but that was hardly surprising given the Liberal Party's decision not to field candidates.

"I think for a very significant part of the population the by-election almost didn't exist. One of the reasons for a low turnout was for simply people were totally unaware," Mr Black said.

But he said the Liberal Party had missed an opportunity to get positive feedback on planned changes which would see WA get a bigger piece of the GST pie.

"The opportunity for the Liberals to show by a strong performance in the by-elections that the Western Australian public were very pleased with this GST decision … was completely lost," Mr Black said.

Perth's Labor candidate Patrick Gorman said he was looking forward to results from a review into the AEC's communications strategy.

"I will be interested to see what that review shows up, but clearly the AEC has to think about their approach when it comes to by-elections differently," he said.

AEC WA state manager Fleur Hill said on Sunday while some postal votes were still due to be returned, it was unlikely the turnout results would change greatly.

"We are expecting turnout across both Perth and Fremantle to be much lower than in the other by-election sites," Ms Hill said.

She said the AEC conducted the same communication campaigns in all five electorates.

"We'll continue doing all those things we have been doing and we will look at improvements we can make, but it's a shared responsibility between us, political parties, the media and the public to get people's intentions into Parliament," Ms Hill said.

Australian Parliamentary Library researcher Stephen Barber notes in his report on Australian by-elections there has been a decline in voter turnout for since 2015, with average turnout sitting at 86.1 per cent since 1970.

Full elections see much higher turnout.

In the 2016 federal election, Perth saw an 88 per cent turnout and Fremantle 89 per cent.

People who fail to vote in a federal election face a fine of $20, which increases to $50 if they have committed the offence before, under the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1919.

Topics: elections, federal-elections, government-and-politics, perth-6000, fremantle-6160

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