Cottesloe was created at the 1948 redistribution, at which three new metropolitan electorates were created to replace former northern and agricultural seats in Parliament. Its first member was elected at the
1950 election, and it has always been held by the
Liberal Party and its predecessors. For much of that time, it was a comfortably safe Liberal seat. Indeed, the Liberals have won an outright majority on the first count all but once in its existence. The Liberal hold on the seat has only been remotely threatened twice, in 1980 and 1983. While the margin dropped to marginal in those elections, the Liberals still won enough primary votes to retain the seat outright. It has only had five members, all of whom have been promoted to Cabinet or the
opposition front bench. The first, Sir
Ross Hutchinson, served as a senior minister in the
Brand government and was
Speaker in the first term of the
Charles Court government. He was succeeded in 1977 by
Bill Hassell, who served as
Opposition Leader against
Premier Brian Burke in 1984–1986. Hassell retired in 1990, and was succeeded by economist
Colin Barnett at
a by-election. Barnett served as Minister for Energy and, after 1995,
Education during the
Richard Court government in 1993–2001, and Opposition Leader in 2001–2005. Barnett, seen as a moderate within Liberal ranks, resigned the leadership after the
2005 election. He had originally planned to retire at the 2008 election, but after the troubled seven-month leadership of
Troy Buswell and generally poor opinion polls, Barnett was persuaded to reconsider (the nominated candidate for Cottesloe, Deidre Willmott, stood aside), and regained the leadership on 6 August 2008 on a unanimous party vote, one day before the
2008 election was called. At this election, Barnett became Premier of a minority Liberal-
National government. Barnett led the Liberals to a decisive victory in
2013, but was heavily defeated in 2017 and returned to the backbench. As a measure of how safe this seat has been for the Liberals, Barnett suffered a swing of 7.8 percent but still retained it with a comfortable margin of 63.3 percent, making Cottesloe the Liberals' safest metropolitan seat and the second-safest statewide. He resigned later in 2018, and businessman
David Honey easily retained the seat for the Liberals with a healthy swing in his favour. At the next
state election in 2021, Honey lost 10 percent of his primary vote, but retained the seat on 57 percent of the two-party vote, dropping Cottesloe to fairly safe for the first time since 1983. Cottesloe became one of only two remaining Liberal-held seats, and the only Liberal held seat in Perth. Honey became the leader of what remained of the Liberal Party. Honey therefore became the third member for Cottlesloe and in a row to serve as leader of the state Liberal Party. Honey lost
preselection in February 2024 to
Sandra Brewer, who retained Cottesloe for the Liberals in the
2025 state election. Brewer was immediately promoted to the opposition front bench as shadow Treasurer. ==Geography==