Western Australian state election, 1980

← 1977

23 February 1980 (1980-02-23)

1983 →

All 55 seats in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly
and 16 (of the 32) seats to the Western Australian Legislative Council
28 Assembly seats were needed for a majority

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	Charles Court	Ron Davies	Hendy Cowan
Party	Liberal/NCP coalition	Labor	Nationals WA
Leader since	5 June 1972	21 February 1978	1979
Leader's seat	Nedlands	Victoria Park	Merredin
Last election	30 seats	22 seats	3 seats
Seats won	29 seats	23 seats	3 seats
Seat change	1	1	0
Percentage	48.05%	45.95%	2.96%
Swing	3.71	1.73	0.09

Premier before election

Charles Court
Liberal/NCP coalition

Elected Premier

Charles Court
Liberal/NCP coalition

Elections were held in the state of Western Australia on 23 February 1980 to elect all 55 members to the Legislative Assembly and 16 members to the 32-seat Legislative Council. The Liberal-National Country coalition government, led by Premier Sir Charles Court, won a third term in office against the Labor Party, led by Opposition Leader Ron Davies.

The election produced very little in terms of the balance of the parties in Parliament—Labor won Kimberley from the Liberals in the Assembly, and a North Province seat in the Council, but lost two Council seats to the Liberals—one each in North Metropolitan and South-East Metropolitan. However, Labor received a substantial swing overall, increasing majorities in seats it already held, and reducing Liberal majorities in western suburban seats and pushing the key seats of Bunbury and Pilbara into marginal status. Despite a vigorous campaign against each other, the National Country and National parties, which had split in August 1978, failed to gain any seats off each other, each retaining three seats in the Assembly, and the former retaining one in the Council.

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