Upper House MP James Purcell has “no chance” of success if he pursues a Lower House seat at this year’s state election, political expert Nick Economou says.
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Dr Economou, a Monash University politics lecturer, said Mr Purcell had been very lucky to win an Upper House seat at the 2014 election and would need to be even luckier to claim a Lower House seat as an independent.
Mr Purcell gained less than two per cent of the primary vote at the previous state election and built up preferences over a fortnight of counting to snare his seat for the independent Vote 1 Local Jobs party.
He said would not make a decision about whether he would stand in either the lower or upper house until a few months out from the November 24 election.
Dr Economou said Mr Purcell was best known in the south-west and was likely to target one of the regional Lower House seats of South West Coast or Polwarth if he proceeded with the idea.
However both were safe Liberal seats and Mr Purcell would need to get more than 35 per cent of the primary vote to have a chance of winning, he said.
Dr Economou said Mr Purcell might be hoping Labor would direct its preferences to him but Labor could be unwilling to do so because independents traditionally took primary votes away from Labor.
Mr Purcell has voted with the Labor government on several issues, trading his crucial vote to gain government funding for the south-west on other issues.
Dr Economou said Mr Purcell’s best chance of getting re-elected was to stand again in the Upper House.
Upper House MPs needed to only get 16.6 per cent of the vote or a surplus of preferences to get elected, he said.
If Mr Purcell was re-elected, he had a good chance of again being a power broker, Dr Economou said.
“He (Mr Purcell) would hold more power staying where he is,” Dr Economou said.
He said Mr Purcell should “build on his laurels” and try to improve his primary vote as well as put together preference deals with other candidates.
Candidates with a good share of the primary vote had less chance of falling out when preferences were distributed, Dr Economou said.
The upper house was designed for cross-bench MPs to have power and influence, he said.
“It’s hard for major parties to have a clear majority in the upper house,” Dr Economou said.
Labor candidate for South West Coast Kylie Gaston said she would welcome any decision by Mr Purcell to contest the seat.
“The more voices advocating for our region, the richer the debate,” Ms Gaston said.
The Member for South West Coast Roma Britnell has said that if she faced new candidates at the poll, “good on them”.
