This article provides a summary of results for elections to the

Western Australian Legislative Assembly The Western Australian Legislative Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of Western Australia, an Australian state. The Parliament sits in Parliament House in the Western Australian capital, Perth. The Legisla ...

, the

lower house A lower house is one of two Debate chamber, chambers of a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the upper house. Despite its official position "below" the upper house, in many legislatures worldwide, the lower house has co ...

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

bicameral Bicameralism is a type of legislature, one divided into two separate assemblies, chambers, or houses, known as a bicameral legislature. Bicameralism is distinguished from unicameralism, in which all members deliberate and vote as a single grou ...

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

legislative body, the

Parliament of Western Australia The Parliament of Western Australia is the bicameral legislature of the Australian state of Western Australia, forming the legislative branch of the Government of Western Australia. The parliament consists of a lower house, the Legislative Ass ...

, which came into being in 1890 when Western Australia achieved responsible

self-government __NOTOC__ Self-governance, self-government, or self-rule is the ability of a person or group to exercise all necessary functions of regulation without intervention from an external authority. It may refer to personal conduct or to any form of ...

. 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 Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

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 Centre-right politics lean to the Right-wing politics, right of the Left–right politics, political spectrum, but are closer to the Centrism, centre. From the 1780s to the 1880s, there was a shift in the Western world of social class structure a ...

Liberal Party of Western Australia, which many of the former independents had joined. This entity evolved into the Nationalist Party and eventually into the

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

in 1944. 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 Events January * January 12 – Gopinath Saha shoots Ernest Day, whom he has mistaken for Sir Charles Tegart, the police commissioner of Calcutta, and is arrested soon after. * January 20– 30 – Kuomintang in China hol ...

and

1947 It was the first year of the Cold War, which would last until 1991, ending with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Events January * January–February – Winter of 1946–47 in the United Kingdom: The worst snowfall in the country in ...

, and the

(dark blue) in coalition with the Country Party won seven of the eight elections between

1959 Events January * January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...

and

1983 The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to Internet protocol suite, TCP/IP is officially completed (this is consid ...

. Occasional internal splits within the Country Party, now known as the Nationals, are also shown on the chart in differing shades of green.

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.

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.

Notes

: The Liberal Party was known as the Liberal and Country League from 1949 until 1968. : Includes results for the

Western Australian Liberal Party The Western Australian Liberal Party, officially known as the Liberal Party of Australia (Western Australian Division), is the division of the Liberal Party of Australia in Western Australia. Founded in March 1949 as the Liberal and Country Le ...

from 1911 until 1917, and the Ministerial Party from 1904 until 1911. : 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". : 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

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—usually more than one-quarter of all seats on offer. Since 1974, only three seats have been uncontested—that being the seats of

Collie Collies form a distinctive type of herding dogs, including many related landraces and standardized breeds. The type originated in Scotland and Northern England. Collies are medium-sized, fairly lightly-built dogs, with pointed snouts. Many ...

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 Apportionment is the process by which seats in a legislative body are distributed among administrative divisions, such as states or parties, entitled to representation. This page presents the general principles and issues related to apportionmen ...

, 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 The Metropolitan Region Scheme (MRS) provides the legal basis for land use planning within the Perth metropolitan region. It classifies land into broad zones and reservations and is administered by the Western Australian Planning Commission. I ...

area, or 14,551 country voters. This was believed to disproportionately favour the Nationals in terms of parliamentary representation. 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 or more, located in the north and east of the State—in the form of a Large District Allowance.''Electoral Act 1907'' (WA),
16G
(as added by No.1 of 2005, s.4.)

Summary of results

Elections prior to political parties

Notes

Interpretation issues

References

See also