Wilson Tucker | |
---|---|
Member of the Western Australian Legislative Council for Mining and Pastoral | |
Assumed office 22 May 2021 | |
Preceded by | Jacqui Boydell |
Personal details | |
Born | Wilson Robert Tucker 29 September 1984 Geraldton,Western Australia,Australia [1] |
Political party | Independent (since 2023) [lower-alpha 1] |
Other political affiliations | Daylight Saving (since 2016) [lower-alpha 1] |
Relations | Brett Tucker (brother) [3] |
Alma mater | Edith Cowan University (BCompSc) |
Profession | Software engineer |
Wilson Robert Tucker (born 29 September 1984) [4] is an Australian politician serving in the Western Australian Legislative Council for the Mining and Pastoral region. He was elected at the 2021 Western Australian state election for the Daylight Saving Party,with 98 primary votes,or 0.18% of the vote –believed to be the lowest primary vote for any politician elected to a parliament in Australia. [5]
Tucker lived in the state's South West region for most of his early life and graduated from St Joseph's High School. [3] He worked as an electrician for two years before studying a Bachelor of Computer Science at Edith Cowan University in Perth. He moved to Seattle in 2018 to continue his career. [6]
He co-founded the Daylight Saving Party with his twin brother Brett Tucker in 2016, [3] and was an unsuccessful candidate for the South Metropolitan region in the 2017 state election,winning 0.79% of the vote.
His 2021 victory has been characterised as "one of the most unlikely victories in Australian political history",especially given the Mining and Pastoral region had one of the highest rates of opposition to daylight saving in previous state referendums on the issue. [1]
Tucker's 0.18% of the primary vote fell far short of the quota requirement;he reached the required quota of 6,603 with preferences from other microparties organised by Glenn Druery. [7] Liberals for Climate,Sustainable Australia,Western Australia Party,Great Australian Party,Health Australia Party,Liberal Democrats and some independents preferenced the Daylight Saving Party second on their group voting tickets. [8] His election,along with those of Sophia Moermond and Brian Walker –two Legalise Cannabis WA candidates in the electoral region of South West and East Metropolitan who respectively achieved 2.21% and 2.63% of the primary vote –attracted criticism of the group ticket voting system. [9] [10] [11] ABC election analyst Antony Green tweeted "Elected as a Daylight Saving Party MLC from Mining and Pastoral Region,despite polling only 98 votes,and he doesn't actually currently live in the state. You couldn't get a better case of what's wrong with group voting tickets." [11] Tucker argued that his election was won in a system that "was nothing new" and had been used by the incumbent Labor government to their own advantage. [1] He later promised he would vote against daylight saving if he found it was inconsistent with the beliefs of his electorate. [12]
Tucker's election raised further controversy when it was revealed he had been working as a software engineering manager in Seattle,Washington,United States for several years at the time of his election. The only requirements to be elected in the Western Australian Legislative Council are that the candidate is at least 18,an Australian citizen,not subject to legal incapacity,an elector entitled to vote in a district and has lived in Western Australia for at least 1 year. [11] Tucker said he would return to Western Australia to claim the seat. [13] [14]
Tucker is a member of the Standing Committee on Public Administration. [4]
Premier Mark McGowan used the election of Tucker as justification for changes to the election system for the Western Australia Legislative Council in 2021. The changes to the system to be implemented by the McGowan government include removing group ticket voting and removing regions from the Legislative Council,with each elector in Western Australia voting for the 37 members of that house. [15]
By August 2022,Tucker had drafted a private member's bill to introduce daylight saving in Western Australia. He wanted to have parliament directly introduce daylight saving rather than hold a referendum on the issue. Four previous referendums have been held in Western Australia,all rejecting the introduction of daylight saving. [16] Premier McGowan said his government would "respect" the result of the four previous referendums. With the government having a majority in both houses of parliament,it is unlikely the bill will be passed. [17] [18]
Wilson's Daylight Saving Party did not apply for continuing registration and was deregistered by the Western Australian Electoral Commission in February 2023. [19] Wilson continued his term as an independent. [2]
The Western Australian Legislative Council is the upper house of the Parliament of Western Australia, a state of Australia. It is regarded as a house of review for legislation passed by the Legislative Assembly, the lower house. The two Houses of Parliament sit in Parliament House in the state capital, Perth.
A group voting ticket (GVT) is a shortcut for voters in a preferential voting system, where a voter can indicate support for a list of candidates instead of marking preferences for individual candidates. For multi-member electoral divisions with single transferable voting, a group or party registers a GVT before an election with the electoral commission. When a voter selects a group or party above the line on a ballot paper, their vote is distributed according to the registered GVT for that group.
Mark McGowan is an Australian former politician and naval officer who served as the 30th premier of Western Australia from 2017 until his retirement in 2023. He was the leader of the Western Australian branch of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 2012 to 2023 and a member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for the district of Rockingham from 1996 to 2023.
John Robert Quigley is an Australian barrister, solicitor and politician in Western Australia. A member of the ALP, he has served as a member of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly from the 2001 election until the present, initially as the Member for Innaloo (2001–2005) until that seat's abolition in an electoral redistribution, then as the Member for Mindarie (2005-2013) until that seat's abolition in an electoral redistribution and is currently the Member for Butler. As of March 2022, he is the state's Attorney-General and Minister for Electoral Affairs in the second McGowan ministry after holding the position of Attorney General and Minister for Commerce in the McGowan Ministry.
John Biase D'Orazio was an Australian politician who served as the member for Ballajura in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly from 10 February 2001 to 6 September 2008. He was a minister in the governments of Geoff Gallop and Alan Carpenter, and a member of the Australian Labor Party until 29 August 2006, when he resigned following several controversies. Born to Italian immigrants, D'Orazio grew up on a market garden in the Perth suburb of Bayswater. He studied pharmacy at the Western Australian Institute of Technology, later opening his own pharmacy business. In 1981, he was elected to the Bayswater council, and in 1984, he became the mayor of Bayswater, in which position he served until 2001.
The 2009 Fremantle state by-election was held in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly district of Fremantle on 16 May 2009. It was triggered by the resignation of sitting member Jim McGinty.
The 2013 Western Australian state election was held on Saturday 9 March 2013 to elect 59 members to the Legislative Assembly and 36 members to the Legislative Council.
Mia Jane Davies is an Australian politician who was the Leader of the Opposition and leader of the National Party in Western Australia from March 2021 to January 2023. She has been a member of the state Legislative Assembly since 2013, having previously served in the Legislative Council from 2009 to 2013. Davies was elected deputy leader of the Nationals in November 2013, and replaced Brendon Grylls as leader in March 2017 following his defeat at the 2017 state election. As a result of the Liberal Party's electoral wipeout at the 2021 state election, she became leader of the opposition after Premier Mark McGowan gave her party the official opposition party funding, the first member of her party to hold the role since Arthur Watts in 1947. She resigned as leader of the opposition and leader of her party in January 2023, and said she would not recontest her seat at the 2025 election.
The 2009 Western Australian daylight saving referendum was held on 16 May 2009 in the Australian state of Western Australia to decide if daylight saving time should be adopted. It was the fourth such proposal which had been put to Western Australian voters and followed a three-year trial period. The referendum resulted in the proposal being rejected, with 54.56% voting against the proposal.
The 2013 Australian federal election to elect the members of the 44th Parliament of Australia took place on 7 September 2013. The centre-right Liberal/National Coalition opposition led by Opposition leader Tony Abbott of the Liberal Party of Australia and Coalition partner the National Party of Australia, led by Warren Truss, defeated the incumbent centre-left Labor Party government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in a landslide. It was also the third time in history that a party won 90 or more seats at an Australian election. Labor had been in government for six years since being elected in the 2007 election. This election marked the end of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Labor government and the start of the 9 year long Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Liberal-National Coalition government. Abbott was sworn in by the Governor-General, Quentin Bryce, as Australia's new Prime Minister on 18 September 2013, along with the Abbott Ministry. The 44th Parliament of Australia opened on 12 November 2013, with the members of the House of Representatives and territory senators sworn in. The state senators were sworn in by the next Governor-General Peter Cosgrove on 7 July 2014, with their six-year terms commencing on 1 July.
Each state and territory of Australia determines whether or not to use daylight saving time (DST). However, during World War I and World War II all states and territories had daylight saving by federal law, under the defence power in section 51 of the constitution. In 1968, Tasmania was the first state since the war to adopt daylight saving. In 1971, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, and the Australian Capital Territory also adopted daylight saving, while Western Australia and the Northern Territory did not. Queensland abandoned daylight saving in 1972. Queensland and Western Australia have observed daylight saving over the past 40 years from time to time on a trial basis.
Parts of Australia, New Zealand and Fiji are areas of Oceania that currently observe daylight saving time (DST).
The 2017 Western Australian state election was held on Saturday 11 March 2017 to elect members to the Parliament of Western Australia, including all 59 seats in the Legislative Assembly and all 36 seats in the Legislative Council. The eight-and-a-half-year two-term incumbent Liberal–WA National government, led by Premier Colin Barnett, was defeated in a landslide by the Labor opposition, led by Opposition Leader Mark McGowan.
Western Australia politics takes place in context of a constitutional monarchy with a bicameral parliamentary system, and like other Australian states, Western Australia is part of the federation known as the Commonwealth of Australia.
The Daylight Saving Party is an Australian political party in Western Australia. It was founded in September 2016 by brothers Brett and Wilson Tucker. It was registered as a political party on 29 November 2016. The party was deregistered in February 2023, but remains active.
Reece Raymond Whitby is an Australian politician. He has been a Labor member of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly since the 2017 state election, representing Baldivis. Shortly after the 2017 election, Whitby was appointed by Premier of Western Australia Mark McGowan as Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer and Minister for Energy and Finance, and as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Environment and Disability Services. Whitby was re-elected to the seat of Baldivis in the 2021 state election, and he was appointed to the Second McGowan Ministry, becoming the Minister of Emergency Services; Racing and Gaming, Small Business and Volunteering.
The 2021 Western Australian state election was held on Saturday, March 13, to elect members to the Parliament of Western Australia, where all 59 seats in the Legislative Assembly and all 36 seats in the Legislative Council were up for election.
Jodie Louise Hanns is an Australian politician. She has been a Labor member of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly since the 2021 state election, representing Collie-Preston.
Hugh Trevor Jones is an Australian politician and former Lieutenant Commander at the Royal Australian Navy. He was elected as the Member of Parliament for the electorate of Darling Range in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly for the Australian Labor Party at the 2021 state election.
The 2025 Western Australian state election is scheduled to be held on 8 March 2025 to elect members to the Parliament of Western Australia, where all 59 seats in the Legislative Assembly and all 37 seats in the Legislative Council will be up for election.