WA election: Labor headed for victory as Liberal knives out over One Nation deal – The Australian Financial Review

Poll position: Labor leader Mark McGowan was in line for a resounding win early on.

Labor is headed to victory in Western Australia and is on track to endpremier Colin Barnett's eight and half year term aftera controversial preference deal with Pauline Hanson's One Nation appears unlikely to salvage a third term for the Liberals.

As counting continues in WA, polling conducted by Channel 9 on Saturday predicted a 12 percentage point swing to Labor, which would deliver it more than the 10 additional seats it needs to claim victory.

The Galaxy exit poll put Labor ahead on a 54.5 per cent to 45.5 per cent two-party preferred basis.

The exit poll put Labor's primary vote at 41 per cent and the Liberal primary vote at 33 per cent. One Nation came in at just 6 per cent.

Retiring Liberal MP, Kim Hames, a former deputy leader, said the exit poll showed "pretty scary numbers".

He hit out at the Liberals preference deal with One Nation, saying he felt the reaction from Liberal voters who were upset and decided not to vote for the party.

The Liberals agreed to preferenceOne Nation ahead of its alliance partner, the WA Nationals, in the upper house in exchange for One Nation to preference the Liberals before Labor in the lower house.

Dr Hames said the preference dealwas "not a good move".

"I think that is a big lesson for everybody," Mr Hames said on Channel 9.

It comes after two opinion polls published on Saturday put Labor ahead 54 per cent to 46 per cent on a two party preferred basis. If uniform, it would deliver Labor 14 seats, more than the 10 it needs to seal victory.

Polls close at 6pm WST/ 9pm AEST.

Labor leader Mark McGowan, 49, is the state's longest serving opposition leader to contest the premiership in 40 years and has promised to slash the public service, including culling top earning bureaucrats by 20 per cent.

He has also promised to set up a commission of inquiry into the Barnett government's spending, tear up contracts for the Perth Freight Link and attempt to redirect $1.2 billion in Federal funding for the project to his public transport initiative Metronet.

Mr Barnett, the state's second longest serving Liberal premier, will be credited for one of the biggest transformations of Perth and regional towns in the state's history.

He entered his campaign for a third term fighting a strong mood for change with the economy spluttering amid a post-mining boom slump.

WA has the highest unemployment rate in the country and jobs and job security was a key issue for voters, particularly in outer metropolitan suburbs.

The election has Federal ramifications, with prime minister Malcolm Turnbull trailing 45-55 in the national polls and NSW and Tasmania likely to be left as the only remaining states the Liberals govern.

The WA election was closely watched as a possible test case for the conservative politics and how to manage the rise of populist protectionist political movements occurring around the globe.

It also represented the first test of the strength of a resurgent Pauline Hanson's One Nation party and is the first election in Australia since Donald Trump was elected US president in November.

But One Nation were struck with controversy first a backlash from its supporters and some candidates over its preference swap arrangement with the Liberals and then a horror final week campaigning in WA.

Senator Hanson was dogged by her apparent support for parents to refuse to vaccinate their children, upset Queensland supporters over comments she would increase WA's GST income at the expense of her home state, was threatened with legal action by former staff while searing frustration over the party's preference deal with the Liberal hit a crescendo on Friday when its most high profile recruit, Margaret Dodd, quit.

Ms Dodd accused Senator Hanson of running a dictatorship and not caring about the people of WA but only here "personal power".

A Newspoll published on Saturday in The Australian showed the party's support had sunk from 13 per cent to 8 per cent in the space of six weeks.

The blame game for the Liberals loss begun even before polls opened on Saturday with senior Liberal figures upset about how Mr Barnett tackled the One Nation preference deal (while he said he supported it, it made him feel "uncomfortable").

There is the obvious ruing over whether a change of leadership should have happened. Mr Barnett was mired in leadership speculation for most of last year and by September defeated a tilt for his leadership by former transport minister Dean Nalder.

Others are upset the Liberals did not take the sale of the state's electricity distribution network Western Power to the 2013 election, when the party thumped Labor that struggled in the face of former prime minister Julia Gillard's carbon tax and mining tax.

While Federal politics hurt Labor in 2013, it was the reverse in 2017.

Mr Turnbull's first visit to WA in six months, and his first during the election campaign, was a disaster as he made a blunder over WA's GST take.

To rub salt in to the Liberal wounds, social media was abuzz on Saturday with photos of Mr Turnbull enjoying pints of beer at a pub in Sydney's Woolloomooloo with journalist from the satirical Betoota Advocate while opposition leader Bill Shorten joined Mr McGowan on the hustings, tucking in to a "democracy sausage" (in the correct fashion).

The Liberals also came under fire on Saturday for sending text messages to voters, reminiscent of Labor's 'Mediscare' texts during the Federal election.

Some voters received a text messages from a sender called 'LaborRisk' that read: "

"FACT: Household bills will go up under a Labor government. Mark McGowan is not worth the risk."

Mr Barnett has said he would retire to the backbench if the Liberals lost. However, he is strongly tipped to resign altogether. Mr Barnett had planned to resign from politics in 2008 before the party plucked him for the leadership to replace Troy Buswell. He went on to beat the Labor government destroyed by its links to former premier Brian Burke.

Mr McGowan, 49, has positioned himself as afresh, youthful alternativeto Mr Barnett.

The Labor leader, a former navy lawyer, lives in the working-class suburb of Rockingham about an hour south of Perth with his wife Sarah and their three school-age children.

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WA election: Labor headed for victory as Liberal knives out over One Nation deal - The Australian Financial Review