Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Saturday 13 March West Australians went to the polls. From Kununurra in the north to Albany in the south the people of my vast home state cast their votes in a democratic exercise that saw 50 per cent of voters go to the polls early. The result was tremendous for the West Australian Labor Party and the state government of Premier Mark McGowan. I congratulate the Premier on winning a second term in office. It is truly well deserved. The extent of WA Labor's victory was something nobody could have predicted. Labor will have 53 seats in the legislative assembly, while the Nationals have won four seats and the Liberals are reduced to simply two. Vote counting continues in the legislative council but it appears Labor will also have a majority of seats there.

The big lesson to be learned from this recent WA election result is that strong leadership counts. The McGowan government took decisive action during the pandemic to keep West Australians safe and this was widely recognised across the community. Mark McGowan stood up to Clive Palmer and the Morrison government, who joined forces in the High Court to stop the border controls designed to protect the health of all Western Australians. The High Court, of course, rebuffed Mr Palmer, the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General, ruling that the McGowan government's border restrictions were sensible and constitutional.

As a result of the decision to impose a hard border during the dark days of the COVID-19 pandemic the people of WA were kept safe and life remained relatively normal, as other parts of Australia and the world suffered tragic deaths and lengthy lock downs. Another result was that the Western Australian economy was able to open up faster than anywhere else in the world. Some of Labor's critics have suggested that this election win was a fait accompli because COVID-19 automatically favours incumbent governments. You only have to look at states like South Australia and Queensland to understand that the scale of WA Labor's win is not normal. Those states have had similar COVID success but they haven't seen anything like the wipe-out of the WA Liberals that occurred in Western Australia on 13 March. This stunning victory was built on four years of disciplined government that delivered on its promises, such as creating local jobs and producing a budget surplus.

I want to acknowledge that losing an election is difficult. It is a very hard time for incumbents who have served the community for many years. I would like to acknowledge the hard work and commitment of those who lost their seats recently in the WA election. I want to recognise the dedication of their staff and the many volunteers who have also served electorates across the state of Western Australia. Many people lost their jobs on 13 March as the government picked up many more seats than expected. That human cost of elections, where many jobs are lost, should not be forgotten by any of us.

Another important aspect of this election was the strong work done in choosing sensible candidates from the community. Now 50 per cent of the Labor caucus in WA are women and that is how parliament should be. I would like to congratulate all of the new Labor members, 13 women and six men, who will soon enter the legislative assembly: Caitlin Collins, Stuart Aubrey, Paul Lilburne, Lisa Munday, Lara Dalton, Ali Kent, Kim Giddens, Dr Jags Krishnan, Geoff Baker, Jane Kelsbie, Dr Katrina Stratton in Nedlands—can you believe Labor won Nedlands?—Christine Tonkin and Hugh Jones. New members took on seats for retiring members: Rebecca Stephens in Albany, David Scaife in Cockburn, Jodie Hanns in Collie-Preston, Divina D'Anna in Kimberley, Meredith Hammat in Mirrabooka and Hannah Beazley in Victoria Park. It is good to have a Beazley back in the WA state parliament. All of these people ran magnificent campaigns and all of you deserve to be there in the legislative assembly of WA.

I would like to thank the four state Labor MPs in my federal electorate of Brand: Mark McGowan in Rockingham, Roger Cook in Kwinana, Paul Papalia in Warnbro and Reece Whitby in Baldivis. I congratulate Reece on his elevation to the ministry in the WA state government. In Brand we are very well served in this community by these outstanding and very popular local members.

A big thanks and my gratitude to Labor's state secretary, Tim Picton, and deputy state secretary, Ellie Whitaker, and to everyone else in the party office who worked so hard over many months and contributed to such a successful campaign for WA Labor. And I want to thank all of Labor's amazing volunteers. We know we rely on and depend on our volunteers in elections. They turn out every single year. And it was a difficult poling day. With 50 per cent of the people having already voted, it was a little slower than usual, but I thank each and every one of our volunteers who turned out. I also thank all of the Western Australians who cast a vote for WA Labor.