WA Labor cruises to victory in state election, despite loss of seats

ABC NEWS (Australia)

WA Labor has won a third term in government under premier Roger Cook, with the party gaining a comfortable victory. The Liberals were able to claw back some seats, but not enough to overcome Labor’s incumbency.

Transcript

00:00Well, it's been an astronomical election night with twists and turns. Labor has gained its

00:08third term in government and performed a lot better than it initially thought. It wasn't

00:13as hopeful that it would gain back its kind of 2021 landslide victory and be able to replicate

00:18that. But we have seen tonight a much stronger swing to Labor than we initially thought.

00:24And it's looking likely that the parliament will return more to a 2017 kind of style Labor

00:30parliament, which was still a landslide victory at the time. Now, interestingly, tonight,

00:35both leaders went to speak at the same time. Liberal leader Libby Metham got up to give

00:40her concession speech and was halfway through that when the ABC actually had to cut into

00:45Roger Cook giving his victory speech. So we went straight to that. And Roger Cook spoke

00:50of how he had a call from Libby Metham earlier in the night and she congratulated him. He

00:57was really excited walking into the room. There was a swarm of cameras and he seemed

01:02really pleased and confident to be up on stage. Of course, he thanked his family and friends,

01:08his staffers and all the volunteers and supporters in the room. He said he's really grateful for the

01:14support that he's had over the past few weeks. It's been a really long campaign season. Roger

01:19Cook said today that it's been 70 days in a row of consecutive press conferences. And there's a lot

01:25of this big team behind that. So it has been a really huge effort. And he spoke about that.

01:30He said he's not going to take this for granted being elected and Labor getting up for a third

01:35time. And that he also said the work begins tomorrow. As I mentioned earlier, this was a

01:40better result for Labor. And we will be able to see some of those margins on those seats as they

01:45do flip. But it is looking likely to be quite a 2017 style parliament. And while we celebrate

01:52tonight, we are humble. We do not take that trust for granted. We will work to repay this trust

02:00every single day. The cost of living challenges created by global inflationary pressures are not

02:07of our government's making. But we will continue to provide cost of living relief where we can.

02:14Things like our household battery rebate, expanding free kindy and free TAFE,

02:20delivering another round of the students assistance payments

02:24and cheaper fares for public transport in Perth and in our regions.

02:32Now we did see results from some of those key Labor seats that they were looking to hold on to.

02:37And it's looking likely that they will in terms of Scarborough, Bateman,

02:40Dawesville. Those are some of the key seats. They weren't really sure of how they were going to get

02:45back, given they were blue ribbon seats they gained for kind of the first time last state

02:50election. Of course, Liberal leader Lippy Metham gained her seat of Vass. So she at the moment is

02:56going to still be the Liberal leader until she says otherwise. And we have just heard that Basil

03:01Zemplis has been successful as the Liberal candidate for Churchlands. That seat was really

03:07closely watched tonight. There was a lot of interest in that seat. And that was gone back

03:12to the Liberals after Labor won it last election. But we will have more results as they come in.

03:17But it was an astronomical night of twists and turns. There's many people just packing up here

03:22tonight. But many of the supporters are really pleased with the results here at Labor HQ.

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