Final make-up of WA Legislative Council revealed, with One Nation securing two seats

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The WA Electoral Commission has finalised the results of the state's new-look upper house after delays in the vote counting process. A bigger crossbench has been elected than the previous term, including a surprise additional One Nation seat.

Transcript

00:00Breathing a sigh of relief. The results finally in for WA's new Legislative Council.

00:07For the whole of state electorate for the Legislative Council, declare the following 37 candidates to be duly elected.

00:15Labor's picked up 16 Legislative Council seats down from its previous 22.

00:20The Liberal Party now holds 10 seats.

00:23The Greens confirmed their expected four seats, the Nationals have two seats

00:27and Legalised Cannabis, Australian Christians and the Animal Justice Party all picked up one.

00:33One Nation picked up two seats, one more than expected.

00:36I'm very pleased that the Labor Party will have 16 Legislative Councilors,

00:40so I'm pleased that Clacey Hurst is our 16th.

00:42I think she was anxious over the past few days and she'll be delighted today.

00:45Really great result. I think this is going to be a very different 42nd Parliament.

00:50One in which Labor's got a really clear choice now in the Upper House around negotiating with the Greens.

00:56The Commission initially said the results would be known around the first week of April,

01:01then last Friday before stating the complex count was still continuing, today defending its process.

01:08We never expected to calculate the result prior to the second week of April.

01:13I view it as time taken to ensure that we are proud of our efforts in manually counting and reconciling 1.6 million ballot papers.

01:23The WA election is currently under an independent review after reports of ballot paper shortages,

01:29long voter lines and delays in the vote counting process.

01:32Members of WA's new Legislative Council will be sworn in inside this chamber on May 22,

01:40commencing the next four-year fixed term, this time with 37 members elected.

01:46Recent electoral reforms changed the number of members from 36 elected from six multi-member regions

01:53to 37 members elected from the whole of the state under a system of optional preferential voting.

01:59Opponents fearing this would reduce regional representation.

02:03We know that this is a complete nonsense and it's fundamentally changed the structure of the Legislative Council

02:10and it's stripped away from regional WA 18 dedicated voices.

02:16A result after weeks of waiting.

02:18A result after weeks of waiting.

02:19A result after weeks of waiting.

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