WA election 2025: Labor’s Simone McGurk set to fall to Independent Kate Hulett in Fremantle seat

Independent contender Kate Hulett could emerge a giant-killer as she looks to win the seat of Fremantle off cabinet minister Simone McGurk.

The incumbent Labor candidate was falling behind independent contender Ms Hulett as of 9.30pm on Saturday evening.

Ms Hulett had 32.4 per cent of the primary vote, ahead of Ms McGurk on 30.8 per cent with about a third of the vote counted. The Greens were in third place with 17.3 per cent.

Ms Hulett said she had offered the community a viable option who wasn’t driven by party politics.

“Win or lose, it’s felt like an enormous win because look at all these people here watching an election,” she told The Sunday Times from a packed room at the P&O Hotel in the heart of Fremantle.

The small business owner campaigned strongly on environmental issues including banning fracking in the Kimberley and ending gas exports, along with housing.

“We are being offered mediocrity as a country and Fremantle and we can hope for more,” she said.

“I think people are sick of party politics. They want somebody to represent only them. The person who screams the most for Fremantle and demands the most will get the most.”

Ms McGurk told a vibrant function at the Bicton Palmyra RSL last night she had “pulled out the too close to call speech” from her pre-prepared remarks.

“Fremantle is, is a special place. You know people, they’re anti-establishment. They’ve done it before. They’ve said that they wanted to have, you know, an independent or Greens represent them. Let’s see what happens. It is going to be too close to call,” she said.

“I am completely satisfied that we have done everything that we could as a political party did. I know that that Fremantle people are informed, they sometimes just want to kick against the mainstream. So maybe that’s what’s happened here. I know in my heart that we’ve given it at all.”

The Fremantle seat was in Labor’s hands continuously from 1924 until it was lost to the Greens at a 2009 by-election. Labor regained the seat in 2013.

Ms McGurk first won the seat in 2013 and retained it in 2021 with 57 per cent of first preference votes, ahead of the Greens.

As the early results came in showing a swing towards Ms Hulett, Deputy Premier Rita Saffioti said the Greens had effectively run dead in this election and had swung their support behind the independent.

Recently in Fremantle, Ms McGurk said the Albanese Government’s backflip on nature positive laws and a grassroots campaign to ban fracking in the Kimberley had rallied support against her.

Ms Hulett declared her support for the illegal protest activity, as she pocketed an extra $30,000 from Climate 200.

She insisted there were no strings attached to the group’s donations valued at $50,000.

Ms Hulett denied being a “Disrupt Burrup Hub” candidate but has been photographed wearing a “Disrupt Burrup Hub” shirt and pledged support to their campaign against Woodside’s proposal to extend the life of their Pilbara gas plant until 2070.

Ms Hulett dubbed Fremantle a “battleground” after the competitive campaigns came to a close on Saturday at 6pm.

“People in Fremantle feel like after eight years of WA Labor they have almost nothing to show for it. For all the billions in budget surplus, we have crumbling infrastructure, empty buildings, people sleeping on the streets, and hospitals that don’t work.”

“This has been an exhilarating and ground-breaking campaign that has shown people what is possible,” she said.

Alongside Ms McGurk at the event was Lisa O’Malley, the Labor candidate for Bicton, who was running a tight race with Liberal challenger Chris Dowson.

Ms O’Malley was ahead 63.7-36.3 per cent just before 9.30pm with a 2.4 per cent swing towards Liberals.