#WA Election

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Review VII (WA 2025): Stop Pedophiles! Protect kiddies!

Prior reviews (as the Democratic Labour Party, although whether this is them is debated—see below for why): federal 2013, VIC 2014 (1 and 2), federal 2016, VIC 2018, federal 2019, VIC 2022

What I said before: n/a, see below

What I think this year: Settle in, folks. Get some snacks, crack open a beer, and make yourself comfortable. Here is the most batshit review of this WA state election cycle.

On 13 February 2024, a group acting under the name of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) applied for registration at state level in WA. This took forever, and it was not until 16 September 2024 that the party was registered—with other parties achieving registration much more quickly in the interim (even One Nation, who are famously dysfunctional!). Not long afterwards, the Australian Labor Party introduced legislation to the state parliament to prohibit parties from registering with names similar to that of existing parties, akin to legislation that exists at federal level. This passed into law on 15 November 2024, with one clause specifying that if two parties currently on the register shared the same word in their official name, the party that had used the word for longest could claim it. The legislation was drafted intelligently enough to account for variant spellings, and the Democratic Labour Party had to change its name because its registration was much newer than the Australian Labor Party, who had the superior claim to "labo(u)r".

The DLP WA submitted a new name on 6 December 2024, and within the following quotation marks I am reproducing it exactly as formatted: “Stop Pedophiles! Protect kiddies!” Yes, American spelling of "paedophiles"; no, no capital K. This name was approved on 14 January 2025 and I will refer to them as SPPK from here on. Before the name change, the party had been courting Wilson Tucker—yes, the bloke elected in 2021 for the Daylight Saving Party off just 98 first preferences under the thankfully now-abolished system of Group Ticket Voting—but this new name was so bad that he pulled the pin and is not contesting the election at all.

It seems the name change got sufficient attention outside WA that the DLP (who for now are only registered in Victoria and the ACT) felt compelled to respond. And hoo boy, what a response! The DLP is adamant that they have “never been registered in Western Australia” and that SPPK “has absolutely no association with us and does not share our values, policies or democratic processes”. They instead urge their supporters in WA to vote for the Australian Christians, which to me is fascinating as the DLP is a historically Catholic party and the Australian Christians are historically Protestant.

But it gets thornier. There is no website for a party called “Stop Pedophiles! Protect kiddies!”, nor for a WA branch of the DLP, and I cannot find any social media accounts either (let me know if you can!). Their lead candidate for the Legislative Council—and 11 of 17 overall—is identified only by a first initial and their last name. Every other candidate for the Legislative Council (and I mean every single one for all other parties) is on the ballot under their full first name, not only their initial. This is plain weird.

The lead candidate for SPPK in the Legislative Council is one “H. Dolan”. The WA Electoral Commission’s register of political parties lists the SPPK party secretary as Hugh Dolan, who is presumably the same person. Back in 2022, a Hugh Dolan stood as the lead candidate for the DLP in North Eastern Metropolitan at the Victorian state election. Hugh’s son Thomas Dolan ran for Labour DLP as a candidate in the Bayswater (Victoria) electorate at the same election and came a very distant sixth, then he founded the short-lived Gen Z Party (never registered) and got dismantled in an interview with fellow gen-Z interviewer Leo Puglisi. In that interview, Thomas described his father as “this crazy old man” and referred to “all this party infighting” within the DLP. Thomas diverged with his father on a range of policies and left the party.

Has Hugh moved to Perth, registered the DLP at state level, and then been disowned by the rest of the party? Is this the latest chapter of the infighting that Thomas described? I genuinely cannot be sure because of the paucity of information from the party has left me with no way to confirm whether Hugh Dolan of West Perth is the same bloke who stood for the DLP in Victoria in 2022. It seems likely! But unconfirmed. Trying to track down this party online was frankly more tedious than trying to track down most random independents, and that’s quite something given how badly some of these people campaign. It mystifies me how Hugh Dolan found so many friends prepared to put their name on the ballot for the WA Legislative Council: there are 17 candidates for SPPK, with only the Liberals and Labor standing more on their slates. Dolan also somehow rustled up three SPPK candidates to contest Armadale, Joondalup, and Mandurah in the lower house! Wherever this party is organising and campaigning, it is not online where an ordinary voter can get the slightest idea of who they are or what their policies might be.

What I expected to write for this review was something to the effect that “it’s incredibly funny that a party aligned with Catholicism is running on an anti-paedophile platform given how many paedophiles the Roman Catholic Church has protected and how often it has sought to deny justice to victims of paedophilia”. What I got was something even more absurd.

I have never, and I mean never, in my 12 years of doing these reviews and 20 years of voting across Australia and NZ, found it impossible to get even a skerrick of information about the policy platform of an actual registered party. Well, here we are!

Recommendation: Give Stop Pedophiles! Protect kiddies! a weak or no preference in the Legislative Council. If you are in the Legislative Assembly seats of Armadale, Joondalup, or Mandurah, where you must preference all candidates, you need to make a judgement call on whether SPPK should go dead last as a totally unknown quantity, or whether to put them above known terrible quantities like One Nation. I personally would go dead last, as the DLP connection does not imply much positive.

Website: I haven’t found one!

Edit, 7 March: see my first update and second update (including website!)

[stewarthogan]

WA Election Results: A Common Man’s Perspective

By Stewart Hogan

Well, here we are again, another election in the books, and what a ride it’s been. As a regular guy who just wants to see things get better, I followed this WA election like a hawk, hoping for some real change. Now that the results are in, I’ve got thoughts, plenty of them.

The People Have Spoken… Or Have They?

One thing that always gets me is how these elections play out. You hear all these promises, tax relief, better infrastructure, safer streets and yet, somehow, we end up in the same cycles over and over again. I don’t mean to sound cynical, but can we just admit that politicians have a habit of saying what we want to hear and then doing whatever fits their agenda once they’re in office?

Take this year’s big winners. Their campaign was built on change and accountability, but we’ve heard that before. Will they actually follow through, or is this just another round of political musical chairs? As Stewart Hogan, an everyday voter, I sure hope it’s the former.

What About the Real Issues?

Here’s where I get a little fired up. The election coverage focused so much on the drama, who said what, who fumbled in a debate, who had the best campaign ads. But what about the real stuff? The cost of living is still out of control, housing is becoming a luxury, and let’s not even get started on healthcare.

I don’t care which party you support, if the people in power aren’t tackling these problems head-on, then what’s the point? I, Stewart Hogan, work hard, pay my taxes, and just want a government that works for us, not just for big corporations and special interest groups.

The Voter Turnout Problem

I’ve had conversations with friends who skipped voting because they felt uninspired by the candidates. I get it. But if we keep letting the same types of politicians take the wheel, we can’t be shocked when the road leads us nowhere. If anything, this election should be a wake-up call to get more involved, not less.

So, What Happens Now?

Now that the dust is settling, we’ve got to hold these elected officials accountable. I don’t just mean complaining on social media, I mean paying attention. Showing up at town halls, writing to representatives, and calling them out when they fall short. They work for us, not the other way around.

If this election has taught me anything, it is that change takes time to manifest. But perhaps, just possibly, we will begin to see the improvement we have been promised for so long if we continue to vote, to push, and to demand better.

So here’s to hoping that the next time I write about an election, I won’t have to say, “Same old story.” Because honestly, we deserve better.

For More Details: https://stewarthogan.blogspot.com/2025/03/cyclone-alfred-common-mans-take-on.html

Tags: Stewart Hogan, Australia, wa election results, wa state election results, wa election results 2025, wa election, wa election 2025, basil zempilas, election wa 2025, election results, western australian election results, wa state election, wa state election 2025, roger cook, abc wa election, western australia state election results, wa election 2025 results, western australia election, wa elections, election results wa, state election wa, voting wa, state election wa 2025, libby mettam, who won the wa election, voting, election, wa voting, wa election 2025 polls, wa votes 2025, how to vote wa election, wa electoral commission, state election, abc election results, west australian election, election wa 2025 results, who won wa election, liberal party wa, labour party wa, 2025 wa election, wa election count, abc wa election coverage, western australian state election, wa premier, abc election, 7 news

[sam-keeper]

Hey if you're in Seattle you still have time to vote for affordable housing!

if you weren't aware, there's a vote on tuesday about funding the social housing initiative that passed last year. that initiative created an authority in the city that can just buy property and build housing that the city owns, a portion of which will be permanently affordable (unlike a lot of "nonprofit" housing in the city, which they can put back on the market and jack up the rents after a few decades). you should have gotten a ballot in the mail if you're registered to vote (if you didn't or if you're not you can go to votewa.org to get that fixed).

the ballot has two parts: a y/n vote on whether to fund the initiative (so, yes on that) and then a 1a and a 1b option. we're pushing for 1a, which would create a new tax on business who have someone on their payroll earning more than $1,000,000. if someone's earning a million dollars a year, their employer has to start paying 5% into the housing fund. the other option would raid existing city housing funds to pay for this permanently affordable housing.

you can see an example of how to fill out the ballot on https://www.letsbuildsocialhousing.org/ and read more about the initiative (which, again, we OVERWHELMINGLY already voted in favor of a year ago! people want social housing, but the goofy way ballot initiatives work in Washington gave big business and their city council stooges a chance to try and scuttle the project)

and check your mail for your ballot! there's tons of locations in the city where you can just drop your ballot off, no lines, no fuss.

[itscuntingseason]

does this count as hironaru crumbs

[senzasord]

I know the election has already been called, but gotta get my fill of Antony Green for the last time :,)

[fredmouseoz]

It is merely 2 hours since polls closed, and Antony Green has called the Legislative Assembly for ALP.

Yay, I guess.

[waveridden]

i've long held a fascination with blaseball gamma 1 (the test circuit that was revealed on the website after it had finished running) because there's a whole lot about it that doesn't add up. if you compare the rosters in the last available gamelogs for teams to the rosters on the websites they don't match up - and i don't just mean "oh the static charges" i mean there are new players and reverbs that have happened that aren't recorded. it is a weird, messy circuit that we didn't get to see, and i care for it quite dearly.

(personally i've long held the theory that there was a third season of this circuit that we didn't get to see that led to additional weather and another round of charges. this is beside the point but i think if they ever do another IAB y'all should help me flood the question box asking about this. i want to know.)

one thing you Can see when looking at gamma 1 teams is that several of them have four pitchers. this is, obviously, not how blaseball works; teams should have five pitchers. some of them were charged, and we know some of these from feed messages. some of them are just missing.

i found some of them tonight.

i've been working on recreating the election results from gamma 1, season 1, and through that i've found three pitchers that i'm not sure people know about. i don't have their stats info, i don't have their performance records. but i found three players who were missing. those players are:

pedro greatlakes, miami dale

jamaal hardison, baltimore crabs

manuela byron, new york millennials

there are, per my best count, three teams with pitchers that are still missing from the record (firefighters, sunbeams, lift) and because of the quality of pitcher feed events i'm not sure they'll ever be found. and maybe this is actually old news and i'm out of touch. and maybe (definitely) i'm a bit of a sap. but i wanted to publish those names. because blaseball is over and gone, and this was a dead circuit in a dead world in a dead game. but there are still new things to find.

[dilong-paradoxus]

Washingtonians! It's not too late! You can still register in-person to vote up to and including on election day! Look up your elections office here: https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/voters/voter-registration/county-elections-offices

If you've already voted make sure to check your status here in case there's an issue: https://voter.votewa.gov/portal2023/login.aspx

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Reviews: 2025 Western Australian State Election

A new state election, a new edition of this blog’s reviews! Hello everyone, it’s time to discover what weird micro-parties are cluttering the ballots in Australia’s western third. Let’s have some fun.

It’s my first state election since moving to WA, and I have come here at the right time: Labor won such a massive landslide in 2021 that it could take control of the Legislative Council (the upper house of parliament) and they introduced a much more democratic method of election. This year is the first election under the new system, where the state at large will elect the upper house, replacing a gerrymander that favoured WA’s most lightly populated regions. I’ll say more about this below.

Election day is Saturday, 8 March 2025. Early voting commences today, Monday 24 February. As usual I will not review the Liberals, the ALP, or the Greens, because I assume that if you are reading this blog you probably already have some idea about where those parties stand and how you feel about them. I will review every other party contesting the election, plus all the independents contesting the Legislative Council. For the first time ever, I will review the Nationals because of the distinctive nature of WA state politics (I normally do not review any members of the federal Coalition), and although I had previously sworn off reviewing One Nation after getting bored of writing the same thing about a party everybody knows just as well as they know the majors, this time I have something to say about them.

You will receive two ballots at the polling place. The smaller one is for your local seat in the Legislative Assembly, the lower house of parliament, where government is formed. The Legislative Assembly has 59 seats that each elect an individual member via full preferential instant runoff voting. This means that on the ballot for your local seat, you must number 1 for your first preference, and then number all the remaining squares in the order of your preference.

No matter what happens, your vote will shape the two-candidate-preferred outcome: it will either sit with the elected candidate, or with the last remaining unsuccessful candidate. This means you should think carefully about the order of all candidates: the final contest for the seat might come down to your two least favourite candidates, so who do you hate less? For instance, you might have a raging disdain for the Liberal Party—but there’s a good chance you despise far-right racist or religious fundamentalist parties even more.

As for the Legislative Council (the upper house, a house of review), it used to have 36 members: six elected from six regions. These were designed to favour rural WA so strongly that in 2021, 25% of the state elected half the members. In the three regions covering metropolitan Perth, a candidate needed about 52,000 votes to win a seat; by comparison, in the most sparsely populated region, Mining and Pastoral, a candidate needed just 7,010! Most Australasian parliaments have in the past had a “country quota” to give regional areas more seats than they are entitled on a population basis. WA clung to such a system for the longest. It effectively meant Labor could never win a majority in the upper house—until McGowan’s landslide in 2021. Labor was therefore able to enact democratic reforms that embody the principle of “one person, one vote, one value”.

So, at this election, WA will elect 37 members to the Legislative Council on a statewide basis. Your vote is worth just as much as any other voter anywhere in the state, and the only people mad about this are furious idiots in towns nobody else wants to live in who think they deserve more of a say than anybody else. Here’s a tip for regional areas upset about not getting enough representation in Perth: be somewhere that more people want to live! But apparently “attract more residents by having more of the things people like and less of the things they don’t” is too much to ask for these entitled whingers.

Anyway, to win a seat on the Legislative Council, a candidate will need 2.63% of the vote. It’s going to be fascinating to see who gets in, as this is the lowest quota anywhere in Australasia. Labor and Liberal should each win somewhere between 10–15 seats, the Greens can hope for 3–4, the Nationals 1–2, and then we will see which of the minors get in. Preferences won’t play a tremendously large role but they will matter. Most seats will be won on a quota, but the last few will come down to preferences—either for a minor party seeking their one and only seat (say from a primary vote of 2.1%) or for the last candidate of a bigger party (e.g. Greens primary vote might be good for 3.7 quotas and they get the remainder of the fourth quota via preferences).

There are two ways to vote for the Legislative Council:

Above the line: you vote for a party or group of independents and accept their candidates in the order they are listed below the line. You must number 1 for your first preference, and then distribute as many preferences as you want. To get a square above the line, a party or group of independents must nominate at least 5 candidates. All parties/groups this election nominated at least 5 people; the one group of independents (column M) does not have their box labelled—only registered parties get that.

Pros: it’s much quicker; it is sufficient for the average voter to express their view

Cons: you cannot reorder candidates within a group; you cannot give preferences to ungrouped independents (there are five people standing solo, listed in the rightmost column)

Below the line: you vote for individual candidates in any order of your choosing. You must give a minimum of 20 preferences, and then you can keep preferencing as far as you want.

Pros: you can change the order of a group’s candidates; you can mix preferences between individuals from multiple parties; you can vote for ungrouped independents

Cons: it is way more time consuming; none of the ungrouped independents have a chance of victory and nor do down-ballot candidates for many groups (below about 3rd for most), so is it worth your time?

Whichever way you vote, I recommend distributing as many preferences as you feel you can—it makes your vote more powerful.

Every review will end with my recommendation of how favourably to preference a party. This is the recommendation system I will be using:

Good preference: a party with a positive overall platform that has few or no significant flaws for the left-wing voter.

Decent preference: a party with a generally positive overall platform but some reservations; or, a single-issue party with a good objective but by definition too limited in their scope to encompass the fullness of parliamentary business.

Middling preference: a party with a balance of positive and negative qualities, or a party with a decent platform undermined by a notably terrible policy or characteristic.

Weak or no preference: a party with more negatives than positives. Either give this party a poor preference or (in the upper house only) you might prefer to let your vote exhaust before reaching it.

This schema is flexible; I may, for instance, suggest a “middling to decent preference”. Every election, I link to my reviews of each party from previous elections, and this will be no exception. I have not reviewed a WA state election before, but my good friend b_auspol reviewed 2021 and I will link to her reviews; our politics are pretty similar, and I cannot think of any time we’ve had a notable divergence of opinion about a micro-party or obscure independent. I’m happy to endorse her takes.

[npi]

How the Yes on Proposition 1A campaign won a massive victory to fund social housing in Seattle with progressive revenue

Last week, voters in Washington State’s largest city voted by an overwhelming margin to embrace a proposal to fund Seattle’s new Social Housing Developer with an excess compensation tax, leaving many in Seattle City Hall and in C-suites around the region astonished. As of King County Elections’ fourth tabulation on Friday, Proposition 1A (House Our Neighbors’ plan to levy new progressive revenue…

[senzasord]

I hope the Greens end up with some better numbers once we get down to preferences, but am happy that Labor got back in.

I've also realised that the last time I watched Roger Cook in a press conference, it was during the pandemic, and it's really weird to hear him in premier mode rather than health minister - he's got so much more volume. He did just win an election though, so that's fair.

[kirstythejetblackgoldfish]

[amazingmagda]

I live Europe but reblogging for my fellow Americans!

ARE YOU REGISTERD TO VOTE?

Double check your registration here, and if you realize you are not registered, register to vote here. Each state has different deadlines for when you need to be registered by, so don't hesitate!

[soremachi-love]

Hotori sweep is real, I'm afraid

[dilong-paradoxus]

Washington State folks: remember to vote no on all of the voter initiatives, they're all trash!

They'll cut billions from a strained education system, kill programs like free youth transit passes, and dismantle the state long term health care system.

Just vote NO

[reedenthusiest]

i dont really like both of the candidates for my district house election but the republican is incredibly stupid (why are you worried about the southern border in washington state)