The Coalition’s chances of winning a third term in WA will be boosted thanks to One Nation preferences, but only if the agreement holds at the ballot box

A resurgent One Nation is looking to the Western Australian state election, on 11 March, as its first opportunity to demonstrate its growing support since last July’s federal election. Recent polling suggests One Nation is on track to win numerous seats in Western Australia’s upper house, and could even break through in the lower house.

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One Nation’s prospects were given a further boost at the weekend when the Liberal party announced a preference swap with the minor party: Liberal preferences will favour One Nation in the upper house, while One Nation will give the Liberals a boost in lower house marginal seats.



The Liberal/National government in WA is facing an uphill battle to win a third term in office, and One Nation preferences will give them a boost. When One Nation first broke through in the late 1990s, they took a hefty chunk out of the Coalition vote, and that vote often did not return as preferences.



Recent polls have put One Nation on as high a vote as 13% in Western Australia. In contrast, the party polled just over 4% in the Western Australian Senate race in 2016. Last week on my blog I analysed where One Nation did best in that Senate election, and what the One Nation vote could look like if it jumped to 13%.



One Nation vote in WA, based on the 2016 federal senate vote, projected on to state seats

One Nation’s vote is strongly concentrated in regional areas, with a much lower vote in Perth. This reflects how One Nation performed in the 2001 Western Australian state election, where they won three upper house seats in regional areas.



Conveniently for One Nation, the Western Australian upper house is severely biased in favour of country voters. Approximately three-quarters of the state’s population lives in the Perth metropolitan area, but Perth voters only elect half of the state’s upper house. These regional voters overwhelmingly favour parties on the right, and this has helped give the current government a sizeable majority in the upper house.



If One Nation was to poll 13%, they would easily poll over a quota in the Agricultural, Mining and Pastoral, and South West regions, and could do reasonably well in the East Metropolitan region, giving them four seats in the upper house. This is made easier thanks to those Liberal preferences.



One Nation could well be a threat to Nationals seats in the lower house, too, but they won’t benefit from Liberal preferences in those races. Liberal preferences to One Nation in the lower house could have had a devastating effect on the Nationals, wiping out quite a few of their MPs and making it much harder for the Liberal party to form government. In the upper house, on the other hand, One Nation are likely to win multiple seats with or without Liberal assistance, and a re-elected Liberal government would have an interest in working with a One Nation bloc in the balance of power.



There is a four-way contest for conservative votes in regional Western Australia. The Liberals and Nationals will be competing against each other for seats in both houses, alongside One Nation and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party, who hold two seats in the upper house.



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Upper house preferences were formally lodged on Monday, and we saw some unusual decisions motivated by the Liberal-One Nation deal. The Nationals have decided to favour the Greens over their Liberal coalition partners, while the Shooters have gained preferences from many parties, including the Nationals.



The Liberal-National government’s chances of re-election will be boosted thanks to One Nation preferences, but only if the deal can hold. Upper house preferences in Western Australia are required to be lodged ahead of time, and they will flow regardless of whether a party can find the volunteers to distribute how-to-vote cards at polling place, thanks to the group voting ticket system (the same system which was used for the Senate prior to law changes in 2016).



In contrast, One Nation preferences in the lower house are only as good as the party’s capacity to hand out how-to-votes making the recommendation. One Nation voters have traditionally been happy to follow their party’s recommendations, but there are signs that some One Nation candidates are not willing to go along with their party’s deal. If candidates in key seats refuse to go along with the deal, the Liberal party could be left empty-handed, after giving away something quite valuable.

