Climate 200-backed Independent Kate Hulett has failed to win the seat of Fremantle, with Labor’s Josh Wilson returning for a fourth term.
Climate 200-backed Independent Kate Hulett has failed to win the seat of Fremantle, with Labor’s Josh Wilson returning for a fourth term.
The seat had previously been held by Mr Wilson with a margin of 16.9 per cent, reduced at time of publishing to just 1.1 per cent.
On Monday afternoon Ms Hulett was ahead by 541 votes, or 1.84 per cent of the vote, and looked the likely winner with 71.9 per cent of preference throws going her way – from both the Liberal Party and The Greens.
That was despite Mr Wilson attracting some 40 per cent first preference votes versus Ms Hulett’s 23 per cent.
Yesterday, however, Mr Wilson made a late resurgence to lead the race, with the count today confirming Mr Wilson would return to the seat.
The race mirrored Ms Hulett’s race for the seat of Fremantle at the March election, in which she lost to Simone McGurk by around 500 votes.
It took more than six days for the seat to be decided in the state election, with a 26.4 swing against Labor falling just shy of unseating Ms McGurk.
In the only other WA electorate yet to be called, Bullwinkel, Labor’s Trish Cook has taken a 95-vote lead over Liberal candidate Matt Moran.
The pair have been trading pole position every 12 hours since the election, with a result not expected for several days.
In other federal election news across the country, Greens leader Adam Bandt has lost his seat of Melbourne to Sarah Witty, becoming the second party leader to lose their seat this election, after Peter Dutton.
That’s despite Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi saying the party don’t accept Mr Bandt has lost his seat yet.
“In Melbourne, the situation is this – 15,000 votes still have not been counted, these were people who were either working or not in the electorate that day, and those votes often have a very positive outcome for the Greens,” she said.
“I have everything crossed and hope that Adam gets across the line.”
The seat has been called for Ms Witty by ABC election specialist Anthony Green.
Zoe Daniel yesterday became the first incumbent teal to lose, with the Liberal Party’s Tim Wilson reclaiming Goldstein - the seat Ms Daniel took from him three years ago.
Goldstein is the only seat the Liberal Party has managed to bring back to its party fold.
As things stand, the ALP has won 89 seats, the Coalition 40, the Greens zero, and 10 seats have gone to independents and minor parties.
Eleven seats remain in doubt.
