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Labor will be “fighting very hard” to snag more seats in Western Australia at the federal election as incumbent Premier Roger Cook secured the party’s third successive victory.
The ABC has called 40 seats out of the 59 in the state’s lower house for Labor, with five for the Liberals and four for the Nationals, with 10 undecided.
While the 17 per cent swing away from Labor would usually be celebrated by a cock-a-hoop opposition, most of those votes went to independents and minor parties.
Labor’s margin at the 2021 election under former WA premier Mark McGowan was a record victory in Australia.
‘Extraordinary result’
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese congratulated the Labor premier on his “resounding victory”.
“This is an extraordinary result from someone who has transitioned to premier after Mark McGowan chose to step aside and has shown extraordinary leadership on behalf of West Australians,” he told reporters in Canberra on Sunday.
“The result was outstanding. There was always going to be a drop from the quite frankly stratospheric result of the 2021 election.”
WA Labor holding the state is a boost to the federal party after the Liberal National Party won Queensland in their state election last October.
The federal election will almost certainly be held in May, after the threat posed by .
Albanese had been expected to call the election for 12 April, which would have allowed Labor to avoid handing down a budget later this month that is expected to show a return to deficit.
‘Mood for some swing’
Cabinet Minister Murray Watt said WA Labor had shown it was a “formidable government and formidable campaign machine”.
“What we saw last night in WA is clear proof that Western Australians trust Labor when it comes to supporting them with their cost of living,” he told ABC’s Insiders.
“It’s obviously a very strong endorsement for Premier Cook and WA Labor, and we certainly take heart from that.”
But there were a couple of extra electorates, including Moore and Bullwinkel which Labor will be “chasing”, he said.
“We’ll be fighting very hard to maximise the number of seats we can achieve in WA, as we will across the country,” Watt said.
Nationals Leader David Littleproud said the WA premier had been able to distance himself from federal Labor on key issues including live sheep exports and on environmental protections.
“There are lessons for everybody, you can’t ignore that,” he told Nine’s Today.
“What that shows is that there was a mood for some swing in Western Australia.
