The Poll Bludger - Australian State and Federal Elections

PILBARA Labor 11.0%
Previously named Central Kimberley-Pilbara Upper house region: Mining and Pastoral Federal division: Kalgoorlie
	JOAN FOLEY Family First KELLY HOWLETT Greens ROSIE VRANCIC Liberal ALAN COCHRANE Nationals TOM STEPHENS Labor (top)

The five electorates in the vast Mining and Pastoral upper house region have emerged relatively unscathed from the one-vote one-value redistribution due to the “large district allowance”, which provides for a number of “ghost” voters proportional to surface area for electorates of more than 100,000 square kilometres. This measure observes the spirit, if not quite the letter, of Labor's election promise that its one-vote one-value regime would quarantine Mining and Pastoral, which now covers 2,280,730 square kilometres (86 per cent of the state). Its effect in the seat which had been known in the previous term only as Central Kimberley-Pilbara has actually been to reduce the number of voters to 11,290 from 13,380 at the 2005 election, against an average of 21,350. This has occurred through the transfer of 3180 voters at Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing to Kimberley, with a countervailing transfer of 2251 voters at Newman from abolished Murchison-Eyre. The amendments have cut the Labor margin from 13.6 per cent to 11.0 per cent.

Central Kimberley-Pilbara was won for Labor in 2005 by Tom Stephens upon the retirement of Larry Graham, who held the seat for Labor from 1989 and retained it as an independent in 2001 after controversially losing preselection to AMWU-backed Jackie Ormsby. Graham's retirement presented an opportunity for Local Government Minister Tom Stephens, who had represented the region in the upper house since 1982 and looked set to be cut due to the party's affirmative action rules. After the death of Labor's 2004 federal candidate for Kalgoorlie, Kevin Richards, a deal was brokered in which Stephens vacated his upper house seat to replace Richards, with the promise of the Central Kimberley-Pilbara nomination as a fall-back option if he did not win. Stephens indeed followed failure at the federal election with an easy win at the state election, but he has not recovered his position on the front-bench.

The Nationals have nominated Alan Cochrane, former shire president of East Pilbara.

ASSESSMENT: Labor retain