Electoral district of Kalgoorlie

This article is about the Western Australian state electorate. For the Australian federal electorate, see Division of Kalgoorlie.

Kalgoorlie is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of Western Australia.

Kalgoorlie Western Australia—Legislative Assembly
Location of Kalgoorlie (dark green) in Western Australia
State	Western Australia
Dates current	1901–present
MP	Ali Kent
Party	Labor
Namesake	Kalgoorlie
Electors	19,651 (2021)
Area	555,549 km2 (214,498.7 sq mi)
Demographic	Rural
Electorates around Kalgoorlie: North West Central North West Central South Australia Central Wheatbelt Roe Kalgoorlie South Australia Great Australian Bight Great Australian Bight Great Australian Bight

The district includes not only the town of Kalgoorlie, but significant parts of the outback in central and eastern Western Australia.

Long a Labor stronghold, the district was lost to the Liberal Party at the 2001 state election. The new Liberal member, Matt Birney, was re-elected at the 2005 state election but the district has changed hands at every election since then.

History

The district of Kalgoorlie was first created for the 1901 state election and has continued to exist as an electorate ever since. Over its first 100 years it was always represented by the Labor Party with the exception of two interruptions between 1905 and 1911 and 1921 and 1923. For most of the time after 1923, it was a reasonably safe Labor seat.

However, it became far less safe for Labor during the 1990s amid demographic changes in the city of Kalgoorlie. Labor lost the seat in 2001 when Liberal candidate Matt Birney defeated incumbent MP Megan Anwyl at the 2001 state election. Oddly, this was also an election that brought Labor into government. Indeed, Anwyl was the only Labor MP to lose her seat at that election. However, as a measure of how the ground had shifted from under Labor, Anwyl only led Birney by eight votes on the first count, and lost when One Nation preferences flowed overwhelmingly to Birney.

Birney was re-elected at the 2005 state election with a large swing even as the Labor government was convincingly reelected. He retired at the 2008 state election. Upon Birney's retirement, the seat was won by independent candidate and former Labor MLA John Bowler, the former member for Murchison-Eyre. Bowler held the seat for one term before retiring at the 2013 state election when the seat was won by Nationals MLC Wendy Duncan.

Duncan also only held the seat for only one term before retiring ahead of the 2017 state election which allowed Kyran O'Donnell to gain the seat for the Liberal Party. This marked the second time, after the 2001 state election, that the Liberal Party won the seat at an election as it lost government. O'Donnell held the seat for only one term before being swept out by Labor's Ali Kent in 2021 amid the massive Labor wave that swept through Western Australia.

Geography

For most of its history, the seat was a relatively compact seat based on its namesake, the town of Kalgoorlie. A redistribution ahead of the 2008 state election saw a significant expansion of the seat to include remote areas to the north and north-east of the town. This was made necessary by one vote, one value electoral reform which meant that, where previously all non-metropolitan districts could have significantly lower enrolment than their metropolitan (i.e. Perth) counterparts, now the only districts permitted to contain low enrolment are those that cover vast geographical areas. So whilst most of its population is based in the town of Kalgoorlie, the district also includes remote communities such as Eucla, Laverton, Leinster, Leonora and Menzies.

Members for Kalgoorlie

Member		Party	Term
	William Johnson	Labour	1901–1905
	Norbert Keenan	Ministerial	1905–1911
	Albert Green	Labour	1911–1913
	George McLeod	Labor	1914
	Albert Green	Labor	1914–1921
	John Boyland	Ind. Nationalist	1921–1922
	James Cunningham	Labor	1923–1936
	Herbert Styants	Labor	1936–1956
	Tom Evans	Labor	1956–1980
	Ted Evans	Labor	1980–1981
	Ian Taylor	Labor	1981–1996
	Megan Anwyl	Labor	1996–2001
	Matt Birney	Liberal	2001–2008
	John Bowler	Independent	2008–2013
	Wendy Duncan	National	2013–2017
	Kyran O'Donnell	Liberal	2017–2021
	Ali Kent	Labor	2021–present

Election results

Main article: Electoral results for the district of Kalgoorlie

This section is an excerpt from Results of the 2021 Western Australian state election (Legislative Assembly) § Kalgoorlie.[edit]

2021 Western Australian state election: Kalgoorlie

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labor	Ali Kent	7,782	52.7	+26.6
	Liberal	Kyran O'Donnell	3,695	25.0	−3.0
	National	Rowena Olsen	1,608	10.9	−13.5
	One Nation	Patrick Redreau	494	3.3	−8.8
	Shooters, Fishers, Farmers	Jack Carmody	465	3.2	−0.9
	Greens	Alex Wallace	328	2.2	−2.0
	Liberal Democrats	Sam Rennie	217	1.5	+1.5
	No Mandatory Vaccination	Enrico Piazza	140	0.9	+0.9
	WAxit	Rustu Buyukcakar	31	0.2	+0.2
Total formal votes			14,760	96.2	+0.2
Informal votes			591	3.8	−0.2
Turnout			15,351	78.1	−2.6
Two-party-preferred result
	Labor	Ali Kent	9,152	62.0	+18.2
	Liberal	Kyran O'Donnell	5,601	38.0	−18.2
	Labor gain from Liberal		Swing	+18.2

External links

• ABC election profiles: 2005 2008
• WAEC district maps: current boundaries, previous distributions