WA: election analysis

The Age has analysed Australian Electoral Commission figures recording booth-by-booth results in north-western Australia, which show that even highly paid miners on AWAs swung strongly against the government in Saturday's election.

And in most mining towns, a majority voted for Labor in two-party preferred terms.

The figures show the 796 voters in mining town Newman swung almost 9% towards Labor, Port Hedland's 986 voters swung 10%, Dampier's 667 swung 4% and Karratha's 1358 swung more than 5% against the Liberal candidate, Barry Haase.

These iron ore mining towns are big beneficiaries of the minerals boom, and by far the majority of workers are employed on salaries of $100,000-plus under Australian Workplace Agreements.

Yet all these towns voted Labor, with an average two-party preferred vote of about 54%, higher than the national average.

In working class South Hedland's two polling places, the swing was much bigger, and 64% of the 1525 voters at the South Hedland Baler booth voted Labor.

Kalgoorlie also swung towards Labor, but the gold mining town overall remains a powerful Liberal stronghold, with up to 62% favouring the Liberals in one booth.

The figures show Mr Haase lost in the iron ore mining towns in the north of the state, but he survived a seat-wide swing of 4.72% towards Labor, with strong support from the rural south of his electorate.

The Howard government had argued that the 90,000 voters on AWAs in marginal seats would be a problem for Labor because they loved their individual employment agreements.

But West Australian ALP state secretary Bill Johnson said this was a myth.

Internal Labor research had shown households with one or more people employed on AWAs were more likely to vote Labor, he said.

"Miners are clearly happy to get a very high income … but it doesn't mean they have been won over by the psychology of the 19th-century master and servant relationship".

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