Reflections on two elections
A note from our WA state president, Lisa Griffiths
I don’t know about you, but I did not see that one coming! As we recover from back-to-back state and federal elections here in WA, I really thought I would be speculating on how a suitably humbled state Labor Government would interact with a new minority federal Labor Government. It’s ok, I won’t give up my day job!
WA state election: March 2025
I did try to give up my day job however, by running in the state election in my local seat of Bibra Lake as an independent. For those who are not aware, we were unable to run as Australian Democrats because we were ‘beaten’ by the new WA electoral act amendments around state registration, and were unable to meet the registration requirements in time to contest the election; one of the requirements was that we needed to register as a party a full 12 months before the election was held.
I got a magical ballot draw (1st spot) and I returned the highest percentage of the vote by a Democrat in WA in 29 years at 5.1%, and therefore qualified for electoral reimbursement. This meant that the generous member donation that I was using to fund my campaign was given straight back to the federal WA Senate campaign.
Federal election: May 2025
The people’s watchdog had a slow start on election day…
But he got there in the end!
Overwhelmingly the feedback we’ve received at festivals and fair days, door knocking, and on pre-poll and polling day booths, is that the Democrats are important to people. We hold a special place in Australian political history and discourse, and people are not only glad to see us, they think it’s important that we’re here to represent the interests and needs of the country as a whole. Our increased vote in the two states historically considered most conservative, WA and Qld, reflects this.