Issues align on rocky road to Bullwinkel federal election race

Western Australia’s sixteenth, and newest, federal electorate has become one of the hardest to call.

Extending east from the metropolitan suburb of High Wycombe to Perth’s outer eastern suburbs and the Avon Valley, the seat of Bullwinkel has a notional Labor margin of 3 per cent due to the historically strong 2022 election result.

In every other election since 2007, however, it would have been a Liberal win.

The 2025 poll will pit three recognisable names against each other: former leader of the Nationals WA Mia Davies; former TV Journalist, Afghanistan veteran and Liberal candidate Matt Moran; and Shire of Mundaring deputy president Trish Cook, who’s running for Labor.

Mr Moran’s pitch to electors relies heavily on his local vision and aptitude for defence in a world increasingly fraught with conflict.

“I’m born and bred Bullwinkel; born in Kalamunda,” Mr Moran told Business News.

“I’ve been in the local community, speaking to the voters and hearing their concerns.

“I think the message is clear that Labor and Anthony Albanese are on the nose, and the number one issue is cost of living. I want to bring fresh ideas, a fresh perspective and life experience in many different roles – in the media, in business, in the military – to help people.”

Beyond his stated passion for Bullwinkel and a sense of duty to serve them, Mr Moran also has designs on a role in Australia’s defence leadership.

“I have a unique perspective on defence. I’ve served in uniform overseas; I’ve worked as a senior adviser to a defence minister; I’ve worked for a prime minister; I led Defence West; and I’ve been head of strategy for a defence company in Henderson,” he said.

“Defence industry has been let down by Labor. The truth is, they said we are in the worst strategic situation since the Second World War, and yet they have not delivered substantial change required to increase defence spending.”

Matt Moran says Labor and Anthony Albanese are on the nose. Photo: Michael O’Brien

Asked if he’d like a tilt at the portfolio, Mr Moran said he’d leave it to whoever the leader was at the time to decide.

“Andrew Hastie and I served in Afghanistan together, and we had a recent event where some of this was discussed,” he said.

“My focus is just winning the seat; whatever happens in the future, I’ll leave that to the leader.”

Running against Mr Moran, Ms Davies will seek to become WA’s first Nationals member in the federal parliament since Tony Crook held O’Connor from 2010 to 2013.

A familiar name in WA politics, Ms Davies served in state parliament since 2008, leading the Nationals from 2017 to 2023.

In January 2023, she announced she was stepping down as Nationals WA party leader and would resign as MLA for the Central Wheatbelt at the 2025 state election.

At the time, she said she had no fuel left in the tank.

However, after a persuasion campaign from federal Nationals leader David Littleproud that allegedly lasted months, Ms Davies confirmed she would run federally in Bullwinkel.

In making that decision last July, she said the Labor government’s decision to ban live sheep exports had been the tipping point. 

Sheep ban

The Bill to halt live sheep exports by May 2028 became law in June of last year; it was a hot-button issue across the state, but in Bullwinkel it hit particularly hard. 

Pro-ban animal welfare group The Australian Alliance for Animals said the election was shaping up as a referendum on the decision. 

To that effect, farmers and the Nationals have been campaigning against the ban across the semi-rural seat.

Ms Davies said locals felt blindsided by the approach.

“While there have been challenges, it is an industry that has undertaken significant reforms that have seen best-practice animal welfare outcomes achieved on an international scale,” she said.

“The trade employs about 3,500 people across the supply chain; eighty per cent of those based here in WA.

“Labor’s decision is devastating, driven by the desire to appease animal activists and capture inner-city votes.”

Despite the chorus of voices sounding off about the ban – either for or against – Labor candidate Ms Cook said the issue was not front-of-mind for most Bullwinkel electors.

“I strongly support Labor’s position on the ban,” she said.

“I think there is strong support for the ban [in Bullwinkel]. I think people are over seeing live sheep exported.

“People want to see farmers supported through the transition, and I do too, but overwhelmingly it’s the cost of living that is the issue people are raising with me.”

Ms Cook may have a point.

Most of the land area of Bullwinkel comprises rural holdings east of the Darling Range. However, just 13.6 per cent of voters live in those rural areas, with 80 per cent of enrolment coming from metropolitan suburbs redistributed from Hasluck, Swan, Canning and Burt.

Perhaps, then, the overwhelming majority of Bullwinkel voters aren’t overly concerned about shuttering the trade.

The 2,000 attendees of the only WA hearing into the ban – held at the Muresk Institute in the Bullwinkel electorate town of Northam in June of last year – would argue otherwise.

Nationals R4R

In late February, the Nationals’ federal candidate for Bullwinkel, Ms Davies, announced changes to the state party’s proposal to alter the distribution of Royalties for Regions funds if results went their way on March 8.

Fronting a press conference to make the announcement, Ms Davies said she was deputising for the party’s state leader, Shane Love, who was in Carnarvon.

The commitment was swiftly called out as pork barrelling by WA Labor as a desperate bid to send Ms Davies to Canberra.

“Go and talk to the people who live in the communities I’ve represented for the past sixteen years, who had no access to affordable housing,” Ms Davies retorted.

“There’s a whole raft of community services that have been delivered [through R4R].

“If that’s pork barrelling, then I’m okay with it.”

Mia Davies says the live sheep industry is hitting best-practice animal welfare outcomes on an international scale. Photo: Michael O'Brien

Despite the state result not going the Nationals’ way, thus rendering their R4R plan moot, Ms Davies previously flagged she would take the concept of the R4R program to her federal counterparts, reigniting a core tenet of the last WA National in Canberra, Tony Crook.

Stoneville saga

Perhaps one of the longest-running issues for many voters in Bullwinkel – particularly those around Mundaring – has been Satterley Property Group’s proposed North Stoneville development.

The project is 30 years in the making, with the property developer proposing a new townsite featuring a 1,000-lot housing estate and three schools on a 535-hectare site owned by the Anglican Church diocese.

It’s drawn opposition from many in the area and, despite Mr Satterley’s claims it was just another case of WA’s NIMBYism, the opponents are backed by the WA Planning Commission and politicians from across the divide.

The project was handed a major win in September, when Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek approved an offset plan under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Act, which would allow the plan to go ahead if Satterley Group planted trees elsewhere.

A rally against the development on February 23 gave Bullwinkel candidates a chance to plead their case, albeit only for two minutes.

Despite the time constraints, it quickly turned into a mudslinging match.

Mr Moran blamed Labor, saying the current government had gone against community wishes and fire danger warnings to approve the project.

And Labor’s Member for Hasluck, Tania Lawrence, blamed Howard-era policy for making it “not possible to block or veto it”.

Interestingly, Ms Lawrence spoke at the rally while Bullwinkel candidate Ms Cook took a back seat.

Community anger was further evidenced by the reactions from former Department of Fire and Emergency Services commissioner Wayne Gregson, who spoke at the event.

Ms Davies and Mr Moran also spoke at the event and said, if elected, they would fight to block the development.

Healthcare

As you’d expect from a nurse who has worked in some of the most remote and disadvantaged parts of the state, Ms Cook said her primary focus would be improving access to healthcare.

Her promise coincides with Labor’s plan to open six urgent-care clinics in WA, including one in Bullwinkel, in Mundaring.

Urgent-care clinics provide bulk-billed care for urgent but non-life-threatening conditions with no appointment needed.

The WA clinics come as part of a $644 million election pledge by Labor to open 50 clinics across the nation, which it claimed would ensure 80 per cent of Australians lives within a 20-minute drive of an UCC.

The 2025 commitment follows its 2022 pledge to build 50 UCCs nationwide; a promise the government has more than delivered on, with 87 clinics having been opened.

Ms Cook hopes the Mundaring clinic will ease pressure on St John of God Midland, where ramping peaked at 916.3 hours in March 2022 just before that year’s federal election.

Hospitals aim to receive all patients within 30 minutes of arrival at the emergency department; if it takes longer than 30 minutes, this is referred to as ramping.

Trish Cook says there is strong support for the live sheep ban in Bullwinkel.

Although ambulance ramping is largely a state responsibility, it is a feature of the federal campaign due to questions around the effectiveness of UCCs and what the rollout hopes to achieve.

In October, shortly after the renewed UCC commitment was announced, a council of seven peak bodies for doctors – including the Royal College of General Practitioners – released a joint statement against more UCCs being opened.

Royal College of General Practitioners president Michael Wright said the UCC model had not been properly evaluated to assess whether it provided value for money.

“Spending millions setting up new clinics is not value for taxpayers’ money. There are reports that each visit to an urgent care clinic cost approximately $200 per head,” he said.

“This is cheaper than a visit to a hospital emergency department, but it’s far more expensive than if the patient is treated by a GP, which for a standard consult costs a little over forty-two dollars.

“We do not support ongoing investment without the evidence that it works.”

“Minister Plibersek has sent us a very clear message with her actions, and I for one will be sending a very clear message at the next federal election,” Mr Gregson said.

There are also concerns the push for more clinics could place further pressure on an already stretched healthcare workforce.

Seventy-nine per cent of respondents to a poll by newsGP (the college’s news website), replied in the affirmative when asked whether the commitment for 50 UCCs would place strain or negatively impact the already limited GP workforce.

“We know that some urgent-care clinics are closing due to an inability to find staff. So, given the workforce pressures that already exist, I struggle to see how more urgent care clinics across every state and territory are going to find available and willing staff,” Dr Wright said.

State lessons

Despite another overwhelming victory for Labor at this month’s state election, there’s sure to be consternation in Labor ranks as to what swings against the Cook government could mean for the federal seat of Bullwinkel.

First-preference voting on March 8 returned a double-digit swing against Labor in the Central Wheatbelt seat (Ms Davies’ former post) with One Nation securing the bulk with a 9.4 per cent swing, followed by the Liberals (+4.8 per cent) and Nationals (+1 per cent).

In the two-party-preferred vote, Nationals’ Lachlan Hunter retained the seat with 73.7 per cent of the vote: a 14.4 per cent swing his way.

In Kalamunda – perhaps the most telling seats for Bullwinkel hopefuls – a 21 per cent swing against Labor in first-preference voting will compound Ms Cook’s concerns.

At the time Business News went to press, the seat was yet to be called, but Liberal Adam Hort was ahead with a 50.5 of the TPP vote.

UPDATE: Adam Hort has won the state seat of Kalamunda by 82 votes, after a recount on Monday night.

Tony Buti will retain Armadale for Labor but saw a 20.4 per cent swing against him in first-preference votes (16.8 per cent in TPP).

And Labor will retain Darling Range with a margin of around 5.2 per cent (at time of print), but again, there was a 15.1 per cent swing against the government in first-preference votes and 8.8 per cent in TPP.

Even in the more metropolitan state seats contained within Bullwinkel, there were large swings against Labor in the TPP count at time of print: Thornlie down 10.3 per cent, Forrestfield down 17.6 per cent and Southern River down 9.5 per cent. 

Despite the swings, Labor retained Southern River, Thornlie, Armadale and Forrestfield.