UPDATES: Voters are heading to the polls in the crucial Secret Harbour by-election, with all eyes on whether Labor can hold the seat amid a fierce challenge from One Nation.
Follow our live coverage for all the latest from the polling booths.
Key Events
The boss and wannabe MP
The West’s State political reporter Jessica Page has been out and about since polling opened.
She managed to get a quick video as Premier Roger Cook and Labor candidate Georgia Tree hit the polling booths in Secret Harbour to deliver a last-ditch pitch to voters.
Where to vote
Liberal candidate reveals one regret from campaign trail
Liberal candidate Ryan Robertson has revealed the one regret he has from the by-election campaign, wishing he’d spent more time with his wife.
While he felt good with the effort he’d put in, Mr Robertson did pause to thank his wife for taking care of their family.
“I feel really, really content that we have given it our all, probably the only thing I would say on reflection, would be that I probably should have spent more time with my wife,” he said.
“She’s done the hardest job out of all of this, and that’s been at home looking after our three daughters.”
Cook accuses Zempilas of throwing Hastie ‘under the bus’
Roger Cook has accused Opposition Leader Basil Zempilas of throwing Andrew Hastie “under the bus”, claiming the WA Liberal leader is getting in sweet with One Nation to save his own political hide.
In what has already been a bitter Secret Harbour by-election campaign, with party leaders exchanging barbs in the high-stakes contest, Mr Cook used the final day of campaigning to take aim at the man who wants to replace him as WA Premier.
“Basil Zempilas knows that currently the only way he can be in government is as a minor party coalition partner to One Nation,” Mr Cook told The West Australian on Saturday.
“And that’s the reason he has thrown Andrew Hastie under the bus — to save his own political skin.
“The concept of Basil Zempilas literally cheering on a One Nation candidate who wants to be an elected member of Parliament — undermining his own local member down here in the seat of Canning — is absolutely stunning.”
Roger and Basil meet on the job
Some footage shot by our reporter Oliver Lane this morning.
It catches Premier Roger Cook and Opposition Leader Basil Zempilas exchanging pleasantries.
Cook and Zempilas reduced to bit players in Secret Harbour
The big secret in Secret Harbour — the one some people apparently don’t want to know — is that today’s by-election for a seat in the WA Parliament isn’t really about State issues at all.
By-elections have a habit of acting like a political pressure valve and voters don’t care too much whose head gets kicked as long as they get an opportunity to express their discontent.
So what started off as a squabble about an unbuilt railway station has evolved into something more like a referendum on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and a litmus test for One Nation’s potential governing prospects.
That’s created a phantom contest between Albanese and Pauline Hanson, neither of whom is on the ballot paper. Roger Cook and Basil Zempilas have been reduced to bit players in the stoush.
Robertson refuses to concede as Liberals chase upset
Liberal candidate Ryan Robertson has flagged his run in the Secret Harbour by-election is unlikely to be his last in State politics if he loses, while remaining defiant his party can cause an upset.
As polling day began, One Nation and Labor were widely regarded as the two front-runners, with the Liberals running a distant third.
But Mr Robertson was refusing to concede defeat.
“For sure we can win, mate. I think it’s anyone’s game, absolutely,” he said.
“I don’t say that arrogantly, I say that, of course, with humility, but if anyone is going to lead West Australians with honesty and integrity, it’s the WA Liberal Party in my view.”
Mr Robertson, a Navy veteran and Rockingham councillor, joined the Liberal Party just 10 months ago.
‘Lots of onions’: Cook reveals his sausage sizzle secret
Premier Roger Cook and Labor candidate Georgia Tree took a brief break from the high-stakes Secret Harbour by-election campaign to tackle a polling-day essential — a sausage sizzle at Lakelands.
The Premier revealed his winning formula was simple: plenty of onions, with Cook declaring you can’t go wrong when there’s a generous helping piled on top.
Winton admits Secret Harbour race is on a knife-edge
Labor minister Sabine Winton has conceded the Secret Harbour by-election is too close to call as voters head to the polls.
Ms Winton said the result remained uncertain, with One Nation mounting a serious challenge to Labor’s long-held seat.
A One Nation victory would be a historic result, delivering the party its first Lower House seat in WA.
‘The whole shebang’: Tree’s democracy sausage
Labor candidate Georgia Tree revealed she likes her democracy sausage with sause, mustard and onions.
“The whole shebang,” she said, outside Secret Harbour Primary School.
And she won’t be repeating Bill Shorten’s mistake after the former Labor leader famously chomped into a hot dog from the side.
“I eat it the right way first and foremost,” Ms Tree laughed.
Voting got underway at nine polling places across Secret Harbour at 8am this morning.
If it appeared quieter than usual on election day, though, you’re right.
More than 18,000 people, or about 50 per cent of Secret Harbour’s registered voters, have already cast their ballots at early voting or via postal votes.
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