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Seat still in balance

David Gear, Wanneroo TimesWanneroo Times

The 2011 redistribution in which Banksia Grove was transferred to the seat of Butler in the north and Darch and Madeley to Girrawheen in the south, slightly increased the margin of incumbent Paul Miles to a notional 1 per cent.

A reliable bellwether seat, Wanneroo has been won by the party that formed government in the past five elections.

Brett Treby, who has been a Wanneroo councillor since 1999, including a stint as deputy mayor, is contesting the seat for Labor in Saturday’s election.

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Mr Miles, who also served on Wanneroo Council, said he was ‘optimistic’ he would retain the seat.

‘I think I will get over the line, but you can never take it for granted,’ he said.

Mr Treby said the campaign was a ‘referendum on the industrialisation of Wanneroo’.

‘Twelve square kilometres of land in south Pinjar and Jandabup have been identified as potential industrial sites in the 2008 Industrial Land Strategy,’ he said.

‘This is above the Gnangara Mound from where Perth gets 50 per cent of its drinking water.

‘The impacts of this have the potential to be far reaching.’

Mr Miles said the Industrial Land Strategy had been started by the previous Labor state government.

‘It has only been identified as a potential site, they are reading more into documents than is actually there,’ he said. ‘Part of the site is on priority one groundwater and you cannot build on that, no government can, end of story.’