by Will Koulouris
SYDNEY, March 13 (Xinhua) -- The Australian state of Western Australia elected a new government on Saturday, with the outgoing Liberal government suffering a huge swing against them from both the major and minor parties.
With 67.3 percent of the vote counted on Monday, the incoming Labor Government, led by Mark McGowan, currently has a 9.7-percent swing in their favor, with the total swing against the outgoing Colin Barnett government being 15.7 percent.
Many factors have been suggested as to why the election went the way that it did, with many reporting the preference deal between the Liberal Party and Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party, a widely protectionist group, that was agreed upon in the lead-up to the election as being one of the primary reasons behind the result.
When the partnership was announced, One Nation had been polling to receive over 13 percent of the vote; but during the lead-up to the election controversies plagued the minor far-right party, with candidates choosing to leave the organisation, and an admission from Barnett himself that the electorate was "spooked" about his party's partnership with the protectionist party.
But although the One Nation Party only managed to pull in a paltry 4.7 percent of the vote, they did bring in 8.1 percent of the vote in the seats they contested, which indicates that both sides of the ad-hoc partnership were at fault for their poor showing at the polls.
There big winners of the result were the mining companies, and those opposed to the sell-off of Western Power, a state-owned energy supplier that the incoming government has vowed to keep in public hands.
Brendon Grylls, the leader of the National Party in Western Australia who shared power with the Liberal Party, had advocated imposition of a 5-dollar (3.77-U.S. dollar) per metric tonne tax on iron ore, but is now in danger of losing his seat in government entirely.
Chief executive of the Chamber of Minerals and Energy Reg Howard Smith told The Australian that they lobbied very hard against the tax, but they did not want to end Grylls' career.
"It was to kill the tax, and I think we've done that," Smith said.
"Even if he (Grylls) gets back, I think the message has been delivered to him loud and clear."
The incoming leader McGowan told local media on Sunday that any further tax imposed on the mining industry would be a "mistake" that would lead to an exodus of capital out of Western Australia.
"You can't rip up contracts with major international investors in the state and think that everything is going to be OK, it won't," McGowan said.
"The people of the Pilbara, who largely depend on the mining industry, understand that the Nationals' policy is disastrous for the Pilbara and the state."
The proposed 51-percent sell-off of Western Power is now also off the cards for the Australian state, with the incoming Labor leadership running on a campaign that they would block any proposed sell off of the state-owned energy service.
The 11-billion-dollar sale was floated by the former government as a means of balancing the books in the state, which would have seen over 8 billion dollars in debt written off, along with a further 3-billion-dollar cash injection for other infrastructure projects.
Without the power sell-off, the state of Western Australia is projected to be in debt by 41.1 billion dollars by the year 2020. Enditem
