Western Australian Legislative Council

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.

Until 2021, for the election of members of the Legislative Council, the state was divided into six electoral regions by community of interest – three metropolitan and three rural – each electing six members to the Legislative Council using single transferable voting (STV). Each Council region overlapped with a varying number of Assembly seats and contained a variable number of voters, with the rural regions each containing significantly fewer voters than the metropolitan regions. The Legislative Council had traditionally been controlled by a coalition of the Liberal and National parties.

At the 2021 election, Labor won majority control of the chamber, the first time any party gained the majority in the upper house since 1983. Subsequently, legislation was passed later that year to abolish the six regions and increase the size of the council to 37 seats, all elected at-large and continuing to use STV to elect the members. The use of a state-wide district, as is also used in New South Wales and South Australia, lowers the threshold for entry to the chamber (the quota) to below 3% of the state-wide vote (as determined by first preferences alone or a combination of first preference votes and votes transferred in accordance to lower preferences), thus ensuring minor parties and independents receive their due share of seats. The changes took effect in the 2025 election.

The 2025 Legislative Council election has set two records - the largest number of members elected in a single contest in Australian history, and the smallest quota used in such an election. It is also one of the largest contests held anywhere using STV.

Since the 2013 state election, both houses of Parliament have had fixed four-year terms, with elections being held every four years on the second Saturday in March.