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| Adam Carr's Election Archive
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Australian federal election, 2025
Division of Pearce, Western Australia
Named for: Rt Hon Sir George Pearce (1870-1952), Senator 1901-38 (longest-serving Senator)
North and east of Perth: Butler, Merriwa, Mindarie, Wanneroo, Yanchep
Enrolment at 2019 election: 119,588
Enrolment at 2022 election: 115,212 (-03.6%)
1999 republic referendum: No 62.8
2018 same-sex marriage survey: Yes 63.9
2023 Voice referendum: No 68.7
2007 Liberal majority over Labor: 9.1%
2010 Liberal majority over Labor: 8.9%
2013 Liberal majority over Labor: 8.1%
2016 Liberal majority over Labor: 3.6%
2019 Liberal majority over Labor: 7.5%
2022 Labor majority over Liberal: 9.0%
2025 notional Labor majority over Liberal: 8.4%
Status: Fairly safe Labor
Labor two-party vote 1990-2022
2022 results
Statistics and history
Announced candidates:
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Jan Norberger
Liberal Party |
Tracey Roberts
Australian Labor Party |
Division of Pearce
Pearce was created in 1990, in the outer eastern and northern suburbs of Perth, one of the fastest-growing areas in
Australia. The 2004 redistribution extended it into rural areas south-east of Perth, but the bulk of its votes have always been
cast in the Perth suburbs. It is a classic mortgage belt seat, with the second-highest proportion of dwellings being purchased
of any seat, and a high level of families with dependent children. It also has the high level of people born in the UK
typical of Perth seats.
Pearce was won in 1990 by
Fred Chaney, a senior Liberal who had been a Senator since 1974. He quit
in frustration at the state of the Liberal Party in 1993, and was succeeded by
Judi Moylan, who was a minister in the first Howard Government.
After she was dropped from the ministry in 1998 she became a backbench dissident, particularly on immigration issues,
until her retirement in 2013.
Christian Porter, who won Pearce in 2013, was a lawyer, state prosecutor
and law lecturer before he entered politics. He was a WA state MP from 2008 to 2013 and was Attorney-General and then Treasurer in the state government. Once in Canberra he was rapidly promoted and became Attorney-General in December 2017.
In January 2021, Porter was accused of having raped a 16-year-old girl in 1988, when he was 17. He denied the claim and sued
media organisations which made the allegation public. In September he resigned from the ministry and in December announced that he would
not recontest his seat.
The 2021 redistribution removed all of the eastern suburban and rural areas of the seat, leaving only the outer northern
suburbs, centered on Butler and Merriwa, and added suburban territory around Lansdale and Wanneroo transferred from
Cowan.
This cut the Liberal majority to 5.2%, making the seat marginal, and it was no surprise that Labor easily won it in 2022.
Tracey Roberts, Labor MP for Pearce since 2022, migrated to
Australia from the UK as did many of the area's voters. She was elected to Wanneroo Council in 2003 and was the Mayor of Wanneroo from 2015.
She now has a comfortable majority, but the large swings to Labor in WA in 2022 were largely due to state issues, particularly arising from the COVID pandemic. This means that the Labor majority in Pearce is considerably over-stated. The Liberal candidate in 2025 will be Jan Norberger,
a businessman, RAAF veteran and MLA for Joondalup 2013-17.
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