The Poll Bludger - Australian State and Federal Elections

BUNBURY Labor 0.9%*
Upper house region: South West Federal division: Forrest * Liberal seat made notionally Labor by redistribution
	JOHN CASTRILLI Liberal (top) PETER MacFARLANE Labor (bottom) MANDY ROBERTS Family First PETER ECKERSLEY Greens EDWARD DABROWSKI Christian Democratic Party

Located 175 kilometres south of Perth, Bunbury is Western Australia's biggest regional city and has formed the basis of a state electorate ever since self-government began in 1890. The inaugural member was local titan Sir John Forrest, the colony's first Premier and a founding father of federation. Bunbury was in conservative hands for most of its early history, outside of the 24-year reign of Frederick Withers from 1924 to 1947 (Withers' son Reg would become a noteworthy figure on the other side of politics as Senate opposition leader during the 1975 crisis, and later as Perth lord mayor). Phil Smith won the seat for Labor when the Burke government came to power in 1983, and it again swung with the pendulum when Ian Osborne won for the Liberals in 1993 and when Tony Dean won for Labor in 2001. The trend was bucked in 2005 when the Italian-born mayor of Bunbury, John Castrilli, won the seat from Labor in a result that was long predicted but ultimately realised by a margin of only 103 votes. The abolition of rural vote weighting necessitated the electorate's expansion into outer suburbs that were formerly covered by abolished Capel and Leschenault, nudging the electorate into the notional Labor column by virtue of the party's relative strength in Withers and Usher.

Castrilli was fast-tracked into the position of Shadow Local Government Minister immediately upon his entry into parliament, but was demoted a year later along with fellow south-west MP Barry House. This was said to have contributed to Matt Birney's demise as leader six weeks later due to the upset caused to opponents of the Noel Crichton-Browne faction, which Birney was felt to have unduly favoured. Castrilli supported Paul Omodei in the ensuing leadership vote, but was not rewarded with a return to the front-bench. The passage in May 2005 of one-vote one-value legislation placed a further cloud over his career prospects, making inevitable the abolition of a conservative seat in the south-west. Robert Taylor of The West Australian wrote that some believed Castrilli's demotion portended an arrangement in which Bunbury would go to Leschenault MP Dan Sullivan, an ally of Birney and Crichton-Browne, with Castrilli possibly to be accommodated in Barry House's upper house seat. The situation was resolved by Sullivan's estrangement from Troy Buswell, leading to his resignation from the party in February. However, Robert Taylor speculated that Sullivan could seek revenge on his party by standing against Castrilli as a candidate of his newly formed WAFamilyFirst.com, more likely as a spoiler than as a serious contender in his own right.

Castrilli reportedly backed the unsuccessful spill motion against Buswell at the height of the chair-sniffing controversy in May, but nonetheless returned to the front-bench as Shadow Employment Protection Minister following the messy departure of Hillarys MP Rob Johnson and Roe MP Graham Jacobs (now contesting Eyre). He received unwelcome publicity in late June when The West Australian reported he had given assistance during his time as mayor to a local company established by a detective and two associates (one of whom was behind a highly publicised extortion attempt against art critic Robert Hughes) who had stolen $300,000 in drug money a year earlier.

Labor has nominated Peter MacFarlane, director of the Margaret River Regional Wine Centre and candidate for Forrest at last year's federal election.

It was widely anticipated before Troy Buswell's departure that Alan Carpenter was not planning on calling the election until after the regional sitting of parliament in Bunbury was due on September 9. Reporting from Joe Spagnolo of the Sunday Times and Robert Taylor of The West Australian indicates that the internal polling which persuaded Buswell to go had the Liberals leading in Bunbury even with him as leader, with the margin to blow out to 60-40 if he quit. Talk continued to emerge during the campaign from both party camps that the Liberals were in front. The Liberals have targeted the seat with a promise to spend $225 million building a natural gas pipeline linking Bunbury and the similarly marginal Albany.

ASSESSMENT: LIBERAL NOTIONAL GAIN