List of Western Australian Legislative Assembly elections

This article provides a summary of results for elections to the Western Australian Legislative Assembly, the lower house in Western Australia's bicameral state legislative body, the Parliament of Western Australia, which came into being in 1890 when Western Australia achieved responsible self-government. 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 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 Liberal Party of Western Australia, which many of the former independents had joined.^[1] This entity evolved into the Nationalist Party and eventually into the Liberal Party in 1944.^[2]

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 and 1947, and the Liberal Party (dark blue) in coalition with the Country Party won seven of the eight elections between 1959 and 1983. Occasional internal splits within the Country Party, now known as the Nationals, are also shown on the chart in differing shades of green.

Party colour key
	Liberal		Labor
	Nationalist; Liberal (1911–1917)		National Labor
	Ministerialist		National; National Country; Country^[3]
	Oppositionist		National; National Country; Country^[3]
	Independent		Other^[3]

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.

Election	Date	Total seats	Labor	Liberal ^[A]	Nationalist ^[B]	Country/ National ^[C]	Nat. Lab. ^[D]	Independent	Other Parties
Election	Date	Total seats
41st	13 March 2021	59	53	2		4
40th	11 March 2017	59	41	13		5
39th	9 March 2013	59	21	31		7
38th	6 September 2008	59	28	24		4		3
37th	26 February 2005	57	32	18		5		2
36th	10 February 2001	57	32	16		5		4
35th	14 December 1996	57	19	29		6		3
34th	6 February 1993	57	24	26		6		1
33rd	4 February 1989	57	31	20		6
32nd	8 February 1986	57	32	19		6
31st	19 February 1983	57	32	20		3			2	National ^[C]
30th	23 February 1980	55	23	26		3			3	National ^[C]
29th	19 February 1977	55	22	27		6
28th	30 March 1974	51	22	23		6
27th	20 February 1971	51	26	17		8
26th	23 March 1968	51	23	19		9
25th	20 February 1965	50	21	21		8
24th	31 March 1962	50	24	18		8
23rd	21 March 1959	50	23	17		8		2
22nd	7 April 1956	50	29	11		8		2
21st	14 February 1953	50	26	15		9
20th	25 March 1950	50	23	15		9		3
19th	15 March 1947	50	23	13		12		2
18th	20 November 1943	50	30		7	10		3
17th	18 March 1939	50	27		7	12		4
16th	15 February 1936	50	26		8	13		3
15th	8 April 1933	50	30		8	12
14th	26 March 1930	50	23		16	10		1
13th	26 March 1927	50	27		16	7
12th	22 March 1924	50	27		9		1		7 6	MCP ECP^[3]
11th	12 March 1921	50	16		10	16	6	2
10th	29 September 1917	50	15		16	12	6	1
9th	21 October 1914	50	26		16	8
8th	3 October 1911	50	34		16
7th	11 September 1908	50	22		28
6th	27 October 1905	50	15		35
5th	28 June 1904	50	22		19			9

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.

Election	Date	Seats	Government	Opposition	Independent	Labor
4th	April 1901	50	19	20	5	6
3rd	May 1897	44	29	8	7
2nd	June 1894	33	19	13	1
1st	December 1890	30			30

Notes

^A The Liberal Party was known as the Liberal and Country League from 1949 until 1968.

^B Includes results for the Western Australian Liberal Party from 1911 until 1917, and the Ministerial Party from 1904 until 1911.

^C 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".

^D 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 uncontested—usually more than one-quarter of all seats on offer.^[4] Since 1974, only three seats have been uncontested—that being the seats of Collie 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, 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 area, or 14,551 country voters.^[5] This was believed to disproportionately favour the Nationals in terms of parliamentary representation.^[6] 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 100,000 square kilometres (39,000 sq mi) or more, located in the north and east of the State—in the form of a Large District Allowance.^[7]

References

^ de Garis, Brian (1991). "Self-Government and the Emergence of Political Parties 1890–1911". In Black, David (ed.). The House on the Hill: A history of the Parliament of Western Australia. Parliament of Western Australia. pp. 81–82. ISBN 0-7309-3983-9.
^ Black, David (1981). "The Era of Labor Ascendancy 1924–1947". In Stannage, Tom (ed.). A New History of Western Australia. University of Western Australia Press. p. 439. ISBN 0-85564-170-3.
^ ^a ^b ^c In 1923, the Country Party split into the Ministerial Country Party (MCP), with 15 members, and the Executive Country Party (ECP), with 3. At the 1924 election, the MCP won 7 seats and the ECP won 6—subsequently, the MCP merged with the Nationalists while the ECP reverted to the name Country Party. In 1978, a disagreement between those favouring coalition with the Liberals and those favouring independence resulted in the latter group splitting to form the National Party, while the original party remained as the National Country Party. In 1984, the two parties reunited, although the three NCP members ultimately joined the Liberal Party, with two of them losing to endorsed Nationals at the 1986 election. The Executive Country (1924) and National (1978–1984) parties are shaded light green in this list.
^ Black, p. 110.
^ Western Australian Electoral Commission (30 September 2007). "September enrolment statistics" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 July 2008. Retrieved 15 January 2008.
^ Green, Antony (17 November 2004). "WA: A Peculiar Electoral System". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 19 January 2008.
^ Electoral Act 1907 (WA), s.16G (as added by No.1 of 2005, s.4.)