Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Western Australia
to Aboriginal people on fully equal terms was not achieved until 1962. Initially,
enrolment and voting were optional for Aboriginal electors, even though voting
was compulsory for non-Indigenous electors from 1936.
Fixed-term elections
Prior to the 2000s, the government had the power to call an election at any time of
their choosing, provided they did not exceed the maximum length of the term of
parliament. However, by 2011 a cross-party consensus that this privilege afforded
the government an unfair electoral advantage had emerged, leading to calls to
introduce fixed-term elections. 46 Since this time, general elections have been held
everyfouryearsonthesecondSaturdayinMarch.
Electoral boundaries and ‘one vote, one value’
Prior to 1947, decisions regarding the state’s electoral boundaries were subject
to ratification by parliament. However, the Electoral Distribution Act 1947 (WA)
changed this and formalised the criteria to be considered when determining
boundaries. This Act remained in force until the ‘one vote, one value’ reforms
were introduced in 2005, removing vote weighting in the Assembly by no longer
specifying the number of metropolitan and country districts.
The challenge of balancing geography and demography when drawing electoral
boundaries has been particularly contentious in WA, so much so that it was the
last state to remove the zonal system, whereby country electorates averaged half
the number of voters in metropolitan electorates. While this system was designed
to compensate remote and regional areas for the challenges afforded by distance,
it meant that country electorates could have 3–4 times fewer electors than
metropolitan counterparts.
The principle of ‘one vote, one value’ was eventually secured by the Gallop
Labor government with the passage of the Constitution and Electoral Amendment
Bill 2005 (WA). Prior to this time, Labor’s efforts to introduce ‘one vote, one value’
legislation had been unsuccessful because the conservative parties, the beneficiaries
of the zonal system, had enjoyed uninterrupted control of the Council and were
able to block such reforms.
In spite of this, WA electoral law continues to make allowances for larger
electorates in recognition of the challenges of representing such a broad area. A
large district allowance provides for districts larger than 100,000 square kilometres
to have a nominal increase in elector numbers based on 1.5 per cent of the area
46 Constitutionally, however, such a change to the law required absolute majorities of both houses
and a referendum. To get around these provisions, legislation was introduced that provided that,
for conjoint elections, there were set dates when the writs were to be issued. This achieved the
desired outcome without extinguishing the governor’s entitlement to prorogue or dissolve
parliament (Congdon 2013).
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