WA electoral commissioner Dennis O’Reilly has spoken with media today, confirming more than 550 people have already come through the doors at early polling centres for the Secret Harbour byelection in the first few hours of voting.

That’s on top of the 3500 postal votes also already lodged. There are around 36,000 voters in the electorate.

The official polling date is August 29, with just under half of people expected to lodge their vote before the day.

And despite there being a record 16 candidates in this election, O’Reilly says he expects a result on election night.

“I expect we’ll have indicative results on the night of the count,” he said.

WA Liberal leader Basil Zempilas has declared Labor has the most to lose in the Secret Harbour byelection, and that he would consider it a victory for anyone to snatch the seat from them, including One Nation.

“Any non-Labor return would be a victory for all of those who are frustrated by 10 years of this Labor government. Frustrated by being taken for granted, frustrated by a Labor Prime Minister whose lied to the public of Western Australia. And frustrated by a Labor Premier and Prime Minister who don’t seem to have our GST deal sorted, they’ve had plenty of time to sort it,” he said.

“It’s not three days since the Prime Minister and the Premier had a phone conversation where apparently the Prime Minister said that Western Australia will get its fair share [of the GST]. Roger Cook, that’s not enough, we need a better guarantee. We need to hear from the Prime Minister that WA’s GST deal won’t change.”

Zempilas acknowledged the Liberal candidate for the seat, Ryan Robertson, was not considered the main challenger for the byelection, with One Nation’s Luke Herdegen looming as the main contender.

Secret Harbour byelection One Nation candidate Luke Herdegen is in the area this morning as pre-polling opens ahead of the August 29 vote.

He says he believes his party can win the seat, saying he doesn’t think Labor can hold its 11 per cent swing.

“The vibe on the ground for us has been really positive,” he said.

“People are tired of being taken for granted, that they don’t get the infrastructure and the money spend down here, and they’ve had enough.”

Sticking with Premier Roger Cook’s press conference this morning, and he has reiterated that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has assured him WA’s GST share arrangements will remain the same.

The comments follow the release of the Productivity Commission’s interim report on Friday, which found the current system, in place since 2018, “reduces equity” in the GST distribution and overwhelmingly benefited WA over other states.

Cook labelled the report as “appalling” and said it didn’t consider the contribution WA made to the federal bottom line.

“I’ve been delighted that the Prime Minister has endorsed our views with regards to West Australia’s share of the GST,” he said.

Premier Roger Cook says the WA Liberals and One Nation want to form a toxic coalition, with the Secret Harbour byelection the first seat in their sights.

He made the comments this morning alongside Labor’s candidate, Georgia Tree, as pre-polling opened for the byelection, which has 16 candidates.

Asked about whether Labor was running a negative campaign against the Liberals and One Nation, Cook said the party stood by its messaging.

“We stand by what we say, we stand by the messages that we deliver, which is putting the record out there, the record of One Nation and the record of which Basil Zempilas has now endorsed by going to a preference deal with One Nation ... we are telling the truth,” he said.

“We know through Pauline Hanson’s actions, we know through Basil Zempilas’ actions, and we know that through the preference deal that they’ve done together to form a toxic coalition - that is the only way Basil Zempilas can get anywhere near the government seats - that is what they’re agenda is.”

Cook said Labor was a safe pair of hands for the seat of Secret Harbour.

“We know that we’re in the fight of our lives in Secret Harbour, byelections are very, very difficult things for governments to win, but we know in Georgia Tree we have someone who will stand up for her community,” he said.

The mother of a four-year-old girl killed in a car crash in June has now been charged over the incident.

Layna Leavy was killed when the Holden Astra her mother was driving collided with a Mustang Coupe at the intersection of Boardman Road and Garden Street in Canning Vale on June 3 at around 3.15pm.

The Southern River mother, 33, and her son, 8, were also injured in the crash.

The mother has since been charged with no authority to drive, careless driving causing death, careless driving causing grievous bodily harm or bodily harm, and failing to ensure a passenger, aged 4 to 7 years, was restrained in an approved child restraint or booster seat.

An elderly woman is recovering after a sickening sex attack inside her Claremont home over the weekend.

The 70-year-old was attacked by a man who followed her into her home on Saturday around 1.30pm, as she returned from a grocery shopping outing.

WA Police say the man, 35, grabbed her by the arms, pushed her to the floor, and covered her mouth before sexually assaulting her.

The accused had been released from Hakea Prison just days earlier and was staying at a neighbouring unit. The housemate from that unit heard the victim’s screams and rushed to get the man off her.

He was charged with aggravated sexual penetration without consent, aggravated burglary, and impeding another person’s breath and denied bail in court yesterday.

Here’s what’s making headlines across the country and around the world today:

• After a difficult couple of months for Anthony Albanese and Pauline Hanson, the pair remain Australians’ first and second choice, respectively, as preferred prime minister. And the person paying the price is Angus Taylor.

• Optometrists are reporting a significant rise in dry eye disease, particularly among younger patients, due to extended screen use. The condition can impact vision and lead to permanent damage.
• Sam Pang has won the Gold Logie for the most popular person on Australian television. And in a showstopping surprise that capped an uncommonly entertaining ceremony, he was presented with the award by a tattered and torn Sharon Strzelecki – Magda Szubanski in her first public appearance since her prolonged cancer battle – dressed in Australia Zoo fatigues and looking for all the world like she’d just emerged from a tussle with a crocodile.

It was a glorious weekend in Perth that definitely felt more like Spring. This week will start with showers from a cold front. Another front moving through on Wednesday but it won’t bring as much rain.

Good morning and welcome to our live news blog for this Monday, the 17th of August.

Making headlines today, Perth is in the midst of a baby drought. The city’s fertility rate, which measures expected births per woman, has fallen by 19 per cent in the past decade to an historic low of 1.44.

That’s way below the benchmark “replacement” level of 2.1, which is needed for the population to be replenished from one generation to the next without migration.

Meanwhile, the price growth of properties in multiple suburbs surrounding some of Perth’s most in demand schools has far exceeded the average growth across the city over the past 30 years, a new report has revealed.

But not all suburbs near those schools saw a significant spike, proving that while what parents’ perceive to be a good school does concentrate demand, other factors are also in play according to the buyers’ agency that compiled the findings.