Elections in WA

Written by: Allan M. on 1 April 2025

(Above: CFMEU members in WA  - Paid Up And Proud!)

2025 is a year of elections in WA, with Western Australians being asked to head to the polls to decide their State and Federal representatives. The State election here has just occurred, and WA Labor has had a decisive victory for a third term. Opposed by a Liberal/National Coalition (whose shambolic campaign, candidates, and policies are not worth further thought) the WA Labor Party entered their election campaign promising ‘a steady hand’ for WA. When looking back at their previous terms, we can see that this steady hand was used to quietly rob Western Australians of their future while enriching mining magnates and their political cronies.

The WA Labor Party experienced a record win in 2021, securing a 4-year term with no effective opposition in either house of Parliament. With this significant majority, WA Labor has had the opportunity the address major issues in our State. But in 2025, we face a huge housing crisis, with more and more families having to choose between rent payments and food, continued attacks on our natural environment, and attacks on worker power. 

With a record majority in Parliament, WA Labor promised to address the State’s seriously outdated rental laws. Soon after making this promise to the people of WA, the Labor government was falling over themselves to placate the landlords and property developer lobby, giving assurance after assurance that their proposed new law would not impact their ability to gouge tenants. What WA renters got from this law was a requirement that landlords are limited to a once-yearly rent increase, compared to the previous twice-yearly limit. What a comfort! To the landlord class, WA Labor delivered a massive green-light to continue their daylight robbery. With the retention of no-grounds evictions and the ability to increase rent to whatever they like on a yearly basis, landlords are still able to scare renters into shutting up and paying up for the privilege of living in low-quality housing. 

Now WA, like the rest of Australia, is in the midst of a massive housing crisis. In late 2024, Perth became the least affordable capital city to rent in, while 0% vacancy rates in many of our regional centres have led to rapidly increasing homelessness. Working families are in precarious conditions, having to find ways to keep up with extortionate rent increases or risk eviction. Many have been unable to keep up, shown by the growing number of families living out of cars. 

This is what the Labor party achieves when it faces no opposition.

With a record majority in Parliament, WA Labor promised to protect the State’s natural environment and heritage, while promoting sustainable economic growth. In the wake of the tragic destruction of Juukan Gorge in 2020, that vast majority of Western Australians were eager to see the arrogance of mining companies reined in. After introducing a new law to modernise the protection of Aboriginal heritage in WA, the WA government came under increasing pressure from pastoralists and smaller mining companies to water it down. Scared of a fight with industry, the WA Labor government revoked the law overnight and reverted our Aboriginal heritage protections to rely on a law from 1972. 

This disgraceful weakness of our ‘elected representatives’ and their deference to big industry continued throughout their term. Under pressure from mining and property developer lobbyists, the WA government introduced changes to our environmental protection laws with zero mandate or public consultation. These changes limited rights of appeal for the community, and changed the composition of the Environmental Protection Authority to enable greater representation of industry interests. The egregious lack of transparency in this process caused uproar for many Western Australians, but the WA Labor government was able to use their Parliamentary majority to push through the changes unopposed in late 2024. Shortly after, it was revealed that the WA Labor government also gave special privileges to Alcoa, allowing the mining giant to continue expanding its bauxite mine outside of Perth while an environmental assessment on that expansion was ongoing. It was further revealed that public servants advising the government told them that this could poison a significant portion of Perth’s water supply. Despite this, the WA Labor government allowed Alcoa to continue mining effectively without any constraints. 

This is how the Labor party uses it’s Parliamentary majority, not for the benefit of the workers, but to bow down to business interests.

With a record majority in Parliament, WA workers might have thought that the Labor government would enact policies from their allegedly ‘pro-worker’ platform. Instead, the WA Labor government used their majority to continue an attack on workers across the state. In 2022, WA nurses went on strike as part of their campaign for a pay-rise after years of being over-worked, understaffed, and protecting our community from Covid-19. Instead of supporting the workers, the WA Labor government attacked them through the Industrial Relations Commission. After continued pressure from the government, the nurses union were forced to call off their campaign and pay a $350,000 fine. 

In the Pilbara, where most of the State’s mining occurs, unions are looking to build up their membership and support mine workers who are experiencing worsening pay and conditions. Instead of supporting the unions, WA Labor has sided with their friends in the Chamber of Minerals and Energy, with the Deputy Premier stating that workers in WA ‘thrive without unions’. It should also come as no surprise that as the union presence in the Pilbara is growing, the WA Labor government joined in the attack on the CFMEU and introduced an arbitrary ‘fit and proper person’ test for any union representative seeking to enter a worksite. 

This is how the Labor party treats the workers when they fight for fair conditions.

The WA government has had a once-in-a-century opportunity to improve the lives of the WA community. With no effective opposition in Parliament and large public support, the government could have embarked on a series of reforms to ensure we have good housing, strong protections for our heritage sites and our natural environment, and good conditions for our workers. Western Australians can now see how the WA Labor government used their majority to cosy up to big business, for individuals to secure Board positions at Rio Tinto, BHP, or  FMG, and to attack the working class. The best thing to come out of this term of government has been that WA Labor has exposed to all Western Australians just how hostile they are to the working class. This is driving us to continue building the worker solidarity, to reject the bourgeois Parliamentary system, and to fight for a system that represents the working class and our interests.

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