McGurk Survives!

Not many saw this coming.

They knew Kate Hulett, the Community Independent, Voices4Freo, Teal-type candidate was going to shake things up a bit running against the 12 year, incumbent Fremantle Labor MLA and Cabinet Minister Simone McGurk, but they always thought the Kate For Fremantle campaign would run out of steam a fair way from home and Simone would come home with a wet sail – excusing all the mixed metaphors.

But Kate Hulett kept on coming. And coming. And coming. And in the end there was not a lot between the jousting candidates, less than 500 votes as of Friday evening. The 27.3% margin that Simone held at the start of the count had all but disappeared.

In the result, Simone McGurk survived the mammoth swing of 26.2% against her. She held a lead of 491 on Friday night when the ABC’s Antony Green declared Simone McGurk re-elected. It seems a fair call.

Simone McGurk during the campaign for Fremantle. Credit Mark Naglazas

One imagines each of Simone and Kate will soon enough be immersing themselves in ice baths on doctor’s orders before taking a Bex and having a good lie down after such an epic political contest.

For many Freo people though, this has been a contest for the ages. High drama. Great theatre. What they were hoping for. Freo in full flight. As Bolshie as it gets.

The monumental voting slips stuff up by the WA Electoral Commission last Saturday that saw many voters being forced to travel out of the Freo electorate to cast Absentee votes, just added to the drama.

But the result in Freo is now all but confirmed – Simone McGurk is back as Freo’s Labor MLA for another 4 years and has survived the biggest challenge of her political life.

The win will justifiably make her a hero among her new Parliamentary Labor colleagues. The iron woman. Made of steel. Tough. Resistant to Tealmania.

Her old friend, the Premier, will, one expects, offer Ms McGurk the Ministry of her choice. But will she want it?

Simone McGurk will no doubt reflect deeply on just why so many voters turned their backs on her and Labor in Freo in this election.

An early take is that the actions of the Albanese Government in Canberra in adopting AUKUS and then more recently rejecting Nature Positive Laws at the behest of the State Cook Government, helped to create a seriously Labor-negative sentiment in Freo.

But it is also undeniable that the voters have been less than happy for some time because of their perception, rightly or wrongly, that Freo’s local member wasn’t the uncompromising advocate for Fremantle in the halls of power that they’d like their member to be.

It is just possible, one supposes, that Simone McGurk will spurn a Cabinet appointment and devote her remaining Parliamentary life to being a Champion for Fremantle. It would be an interesting move if she chose to make it.

We extend our congratulations to Simone McGurk on surviving, and wish her well for the next 4 years. Plainly, she and Labor have work to do.

We also thank Kate Hulett for breathing life into Fremantle’s body politic. What a feat!

* By Michael Barker, Editor, Fremantle Shipping News

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