THE POLL BLUDGER
House of Representatives Election 2007

CANNING
Liberal 9.6%

Canning is located in Perth's south-eastern hinterland, taking in outer suburban Kelmscott and Armadale and extending south down the South Western Highway to Pinjarra and Waroona. There is also a shorter coastal area around Peel Inlet and the Harvey Estuary to the south of Mandurah. Created with the enlargement of parliament in 1949, the seat was held by the Country Party until 1974, barring one term after the 1961 election when it was won by the Liberals. The seat was lost to the Country Party for good at the 1974 election, which the state branch contested as the National Alliance following a short-lived merger with the Democratic Labor Party (the National/Country Party has not held a federal lower house seat in WA since). Labor won the seat for the first time in 1983 following two spectacular swings – 13.0 per cent in 1980, and 9.2 per cent in 1983. Wendy Fatin was the Labor member for one term, moving to newly created Brand when parliament was enlarged in 1984. George Gear then held Canning for Labor, going on to serve as Assistant Treasurer in the Keating government. Gear faced Liberal candidate Ricky Johnston at each of the five elections he contested, surviving by 244 votes in 1993 before Johnston finally prevailed by 968 votes in 1996. This was the first of three successive elections at which the seat changed hands – Johnston suffered her final defeat in 1998 when she lost the seat to Labor's Jane Gerick, who was in turn edged out in 2001 after an unfavourable redistribution and a slight Liberal swing.

The new Liberal member was Don Randall, who had raised many an eyebrow as the member for Swan between 1996 and 1998, to sneak back in 2001. The see-saw came to a decisive halt when Randall enjoyed the biggest swing in the country in 2004, picking up 10.9 per cent on the primary vote and 9.2 per cent on two-party preferred. This was assisted in no small part by Labor's misfortunes with its candidates. Gerick was initially given the nod to recover her old seat, but the leukaemia she was first diagnosed with a few months prior to her 2001 defeat claimed her life on Christmas Day, 2003. The party then endorsed Cimlie Bowden, previously best known for an unsuccessful bid to unseat Australian Nursing Federation state secretary Mark Olson in 2001. Reports of Labor concern about Bowden's behaviour began to circulate in the middle of 2004, including talk of a falling out with her former friend and campaign manager, Shelley Archer (an upper house MP whose connections with Brian Burke brought her national attention in early 2007). Bowden made an angrily worded announcement of her decision to withdraw shortly after Cowan MP Graham Edwards called for her to be replaced by his former state ministerial colleague Kay Hallahan, who was duly endorsed despite expressing reservations about returning to politics.