The division of Canning is one to watch on election night, with a margin of just 1.4 per cent, it is the second tightest Federal seat in Western Australia and currently held by Shadow defence minister Andrew Hastie.
Located in the southern metropolitan area of Western Australia. The electorate is more than 3600 square kms and encompasses southern coastal regions, including Mandurah and parts of Rockingham – areas more than 70km from Perth city.
The Liberal Party have held this seat since 2001, but their margin was reduced in 2024’s electoral redistribution that saw suburbs, such as Roleystone and Preston Beach, removed and the addition of Golden Bay and Secret Harbour.
More than 159,000 residents call the electorate home in an area where cost-of-living pressures, crime, and healthcare are all key considerations.
Who are the candidates running for the seat of Canning and what are their policies?
Liberal Party: Andrew Hastie
The Liberal candidate in Canning is the Shadow Minister of Defence Andrew Hastie, who has held the seat since the 2015 by-election.
Born in New South Wales, Hastie moved to WA in 2010 to undertake Special Air Service (SAS) training. Prior to his election, he was a serving SAS Captain who had been on overseas deployments in Afghanistan and the Middle East. During his Parliamentary term, Hastie has acted as the Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.
In his current campaign, Hastie pledged to assist first home buyers and fund infrastructure for new houses. He has also said he intends to work with the Liberal government to rein in “wasteful spending” that “fuels inflation”. He aims to halve the national petrol tax.
Within the region, Hastie has committed $2.4m to upgrading the Mundijong netball courts, $138,000 to upgrade Serpentine Golf Club, and pledged to upgrade the Lakelands and Karnup train stations. He has also promised to invest in two new CCTV trailers within the City of Rockingham.
Canning voters may have observed Hastie’s campaign trail was noticeably less visible than in previous elections, which some have attributed to reactions of resurfaced 2018 comments regarding his view on women in the ADF, however Hastie has denied the claims.
“Since January, I’ve been to 24 seats across the country. I’ve done defence forums in a number of seats, in fact, in every state and territory less Tasmania… I’m working hard. I’m in a 1.2 per cent seat. I’ve got an important portfolio,” he told ABC National Radio.
In the last federal election, Hastie received 43.8 per cent of votes in Canning, winning the seat over Labor by a margin of 3.6 per cent.
While Hastie faces a slimmer margin this election than he did in 2022, some experts claim Canning is likely to see a Liberal victory.
Labor Party: Jarrad Goold
The Labor candidate in Canning is Jarrad Goold, a state prosecutor for more than a decade prior to his candidacy.
Jarrad Goold lives in Mandurah, where he was born and raised in Mandurah, with his wife and children.
Goold’s campaign promises include $700 power bill credits for households, reducing the HECs debt by 20 per cent, tax cuts for workers, and cheaper medicine and childcare.
The Labor government is already undergoing a $152m redevelopment of the region’s Peel Health Campus and a $68m duplication of the Mandurah estuary bridge, which Goold has said is just the beginning of Labor’s plans for Canning, promising $4.5m in additional local infrastructure upgrades for Mandurah if elected.
With the redistributions seeing suburbs who elected Labor in 2022 now fall under the seat of Canning and the state election last month seeing the region vote overwhelmingly Labor, Goold has a chance to win Labor the seat for the first time since 2001, analysts say.
The Greens: Jordan Cahill
The Greens candidate for Canning is Jordan Cahill, a lawyer who relocated to the Canning district from regional WA.
Cahill has advocated for the investment of $195b into Medicare to make dental services free for Australians, as well as the opening of 96 free health clinics across the state with dentists on-site. Her policies also call for more protection for renters such as freezes on rent increases and establishing a National Renters Protection Authority to uphold renter rights.
One Nation: Fernando Bove
Representing One Nation on the ballot is Fernando Bove, a former secondary school teacher of 20 years.
Bove has run for the Canning seat before, in 2016 under the Democratic Labor Party, but was unsuccessful.
While he has had a limited public presence during his campaign, it is likely he has backed his party One Nation’s election proposals such as adding free speech to the Constitution and cracking down on Medicare fraud.
Legalise Cannabis Party: Paul Gullan
Paul Gullan is a father-of-three Mandurah local.
His campaign has a focus on law reform, specifically the decriminalization of cannabis and other entheogens (spiritually-used psychedelics such as magic mushrooms and ayahuasca).
Gullan’s campaign also promises that redirected government funds once used on drug criminalisation and prosecutions will be used for education and rehabilitation efforts. He has also advocated for medicinal cannabis reforms within Parliament to bring WA in line with other states.
Candidate Paul Gullan represented the Legalise Cannabis Party in the Canning region, however he was disendorsed earlier this week due to the discovery of ‘pro-Holocaust’ Facebook posts.
“Following recent comments and posts brought to our attention, the Legalise Cannabis Party has made the decision to disendorse Paul Gullan. Upon review, we found that some of the content Mr Gullan has shared online does not align with [our] principles,” the party stated to the West Australian.
Gullan has denied the claims on his social media, calling the accusation and disendorsement “an affront to my existence as a professional and politician” and has said he is “prepared to sue for slander”.
Despite the disendorsement, Gullan is still listed as the party’s candidate on ballots with pre-voting already underway. Both Hastie and Goold have since updated their How To Vote cards to move Gullan down their recommended preferences.
The Citizen’s Party: John Raymond Carey
John Raymond Carey is the Canning candidate for the Citizen’s Party.
Carey has professional experience in a range of industries such as mining and construction, and currently works as an escort pilot for oversize loads.
He has stated his desire for Australia to commit to an independent foreign policy and seek out more positive relationships with growing nations such as China, South Africa, and Brazil.
“China is our biggest trading partner and right now our US allies are pushing us into confrontation that could lead to war.”
“I believe that the US will force [Australia] to sacrifice ourselves for their agenda – and the major parties are falling in line. I am dead against such moves,” Carey states in his campaign mission.
He also promises a commitment to projects like Project Iron Boomerang, which is a transcontinental rail corridor and steel manufacturing complex that aims to produce $18 billion in steel a year.
The ‘war on cash’ and withdrawal of face-to-face services are also priorities Carey says he aims to address if elected.
