Federal election 2025: Wave of red washes over WA as Labor flattens the once influential Liberal power base

A wave of red has washed over WA, with Labor flattening the once influential Liberal power base.

Labor’s win in the northern Perth seat of Moore and a potential victory in the new seat of Bullwinkel could be a knockout blow for the Liberals in the Perth metropolitan area.

It’s a mighty fall from just 12 years ago, when the all-conquering Liberals held nearly every seat in the State.

At the 2013 Federal election prominent Liberals in WA included Julie Bishop, who had a healthy margin in Curtin and was deputy leader of the Liberal Party, Christian Porter and Mathias Cormann.

Fast forward to 2025 and the Liberals now have just four seats, with Bullwinkel still to be decided.

It’s part of a shift towards Labor at all levels, with Roger Cook’s Government earning a momentous victory at the State election in March.

WA was historically a Coalition stronghold at the Federal level before the 2020s, especially during the John Howard years, with Labor’s presence primarily confined to inner-metropolitan areas like Fremantle and Perth.

While Labor made some gains in the 2000s during the Rudd-Gillard era, the State’s sharp shift began in 2022, when the Liberals lost five seats — four to Labor and one to independent Kate Chaney in the once-safe Liberal seat of Curtin.

Perth MP Patrick Gorman attributed the transformation to the party listening to WA’s needs and doing “practical things that help Western Australians”, such as support for energy bills, free TAFE, and tax cuts.

“We’ve definitely seen a shift. We’ve seen really strong support for Labor under Anthony Albanese at the last two elections,” Mr Gorman said.

“We’ve shown respect to the people of Western Australia. We’ve also put forward really excellent candidates.”

The Prime Minister has also been on a charm offensive in the west, visiting 10 times in a year, bringing Cabinet here, making Brand MP Madeleine King Resources Minister, and launching his 2022 and 2025 election campaigns in Perth.

An insider said Labor’s rise was due to a blend of State popularity, Federal strategy and Coalition decline.

They said the Party had managed to find a sweet spot for broad-based appeal by “winning from the centre”. As a centre-left party, the insider believed focusing on social policies like health care and education while also embracing economically responsibility was reaching more voters in the centre.

Wildly popular former WA premier Mark McGowan’s more centrist approach proved popular from 2017 onwards, but the insider said the Federal Labor Party only began to embrace this after Bill Shorten’s 2019 election loss.

However, the Liberals grew more conservative under Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton after the more moderate Malcolm Turnbull was turfed out in 2018.

The party has increasingly seemed out of touch with some voters, in particular young voters, have been fractured by internal dysfunction, and deserted by women and moderates.

“We’ve also seen the Liberal Party really lose touch with Western Australians,” Mr Gorman said.

“One of their senators, Linda Reynolds, said yesterday that they had lost touch with mainstream Australian values. I think that analysis tells you a lot.”

Mr Gorman said he looked forward to welcoming Labor’s new Moore MP Tom French to Canberra on Friday.

He remained tight-lipped on whether WA could hope to secure a second Cabinet position after the State’s increased representation.

A Labor insider, however, said it was unlikely the State would get another spot in Cabinet, with Queensland, Tasmania and South Australia also delivering more seats.

Ms King is the only WA-based minister in Federal Cabinet, overseeing critical portfolios tied to WA’s mining and regional development sectors.

Burt MP Matt Keogh and Cowan MP Anne Aly are in the outer ministry, and Mr Gorman is an assistant minister to the PM.

“I probably wish that the majority of the Cabinet were West Australians,” Mr Gorman laughed, when asked about its make-up and whether it would be back in WA.

“The Prime Minister decides where Cabinet meets. I’ll just note that the Prime Minister has on a number of occasions chosen to hold cabinet in Perth and hold it in Port Hedland. And twice now he’s chosen to launch the Federal campaign here in WA. And I think we saw the benefits of that in the results we saw on Saturday night.”

Asked if he had Cabinet ambitions, Mr Gorman said he had “ambitions for the country”.