Tomorrow is technically election day in Western Australia, but few expect it
will amount to anything more than a confirmation of the already established fact of Labor’s victory.
With perhaps half the votes having already been cast, expectations of a
landslide have been established not only by opinion polls — the latest of
which shows promising young Liberal leader Zak Kirkup headed for a double-digit drubbing in his own seat — but also by a Liberal campaign that has devolved into an extended concession of defeat.
Facing a first-term government that has suffered only minor scandals and
presided over a (slowly) improving economic and budgetary situation, the
Liberals would have faced a daunting challenge under the best of
circumstances.
But it was COVID-19 that whipped up the perfect storm that threatens to all
but obliterate the parliamentary party when the votes are counted tomorrow night.
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The pandemic has clearly been a boon to incumbents across Australia and New Zealand, but nowhere more so than in WA, which has experienced only five days of lockdown and one solitary community case of the virus since the first wave passed in April last year.
The advantage to Labor was turbo-charged by the Liberals’ courageous
decision last May to put daylight between their own response and the
tough-but-popular course pursued by Mark McGowan’s government, with then-Liberal leader Liza Harvey accusing the government of lacking a “valid reason” for keeping the state’s borders closed. When the Victorian outbreak escalated out of control a month later, the public was almost unanimous in concluding otherwise.
Nor did it end there, for the federal government effectively tarred the
Liberal Party with the brush of Clive Palmer’s explosively unpopular High
Court challenge against the border closures, which Scott Morrison judged
“highly likely” to succeed — wrongly, as it turned out.
The Liberals’ strategy to limit the damage began in November when Harvey was eased out in favour of first-term MP Zak Kirkup, who at 33 became the state party’s youngest ever leader. It continued with Kirkup’s admission a fortnight ago that the Liberals were in no position to win, setting the scene for a late-campaign pitch built around two slogans: “vote Liberal locally” and “don’t give Labor too much power”.
The first of these has been driven home in the thoroughfares of every
Liberal-held seat with signs promising either to preserve local bushland or
bulldoze it for the sake of a new road project, with the assurance that
voters run no risk of ousting a popular government by prioritising
second-order concerns.
The second places the spotlight on the Legislative Council, which maintained a right-of-centre majority after the 2017 election despite Labor’s sweeping victory.
This conservative bias reflects the upper house’s status as Australia’s last
remaining relic of rural malapportionment, embodying the principle that
parliamentarians represent land rather than people — in this case by
granting equal numbers to the metropolitan area and the rest of the state,
despite the former accounting for three-quarters of the population.
Liberal rhetoric to the contrary, this arrangement would make it exceedingly difficult for Labor to gain control even on their most optimistic scenarios.
However, it could deliver the balance of power to the Greens, presenting
Labor with an opportunity to reform the chamber that it is unlikely to let
slip, despite McGowan’s efforts to mollify country voters by saying such a
move was “not on our agenda”.
Talk of an over-mighty Labor government running amok also plays on
suggestions the Liberals could emerge with as few as four of the 59 seats in
the lower house, encouraged by last fortnight’s Newspoll result, which had the Labor primary vote on a gobsmacking 59%.
Such a result would raise the possibility of the Liberals losing official
opposition status to the Nationals, who currently hold five mostly safe
seats. However, the view on both sides of the fence is that the Liberals’ plea for mercy has at least been effective enough to spare them that humiliation, if little else.
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In the past the W.A. voters have had s strong tendency to vote LNP. Regardless of any proven or reported unsuitability, morally or otherwise of their candidates.
I’ll be surprised if this story turns out to be anything more than a beat up.
Except for the last state election, the recent history supports your contention. But McGowan has not only his conspicuous success tackling covid: protecting both the health of residents and the economy with remarkably little disruption to everyday life compared to anywhere else. Voters have good reason to be grateful. He has also otherwise governed like a Liberal, except mostly without all the far-right crazy stuff and rampant sleaze and corruption so fashionable in current Liberal parties, state or federal. He’s made his party quite acceptable to all but the most tribal and rusted-on Liberal supporters, hence his ratings in the polls.
On top of that, the state Liberal Party is, if anything, in a bigger mess than the article suggests, and has been for a long time. Kirkup has done a brilliant job raising his profile very quickly, as he had to in the little time available to him before this election, but running on energy and housing policies he apparently stole from the Greens is – what’s the word I’m looking for? – ah yes, brave. He will gain new voters, he will lose others, how it balances out is anybody’s guess, but he has definitely made some big enemies among other Liberals.
After the weekend we will see how that translates into actual votes.
Govern like a Liberal !…Could be a successful slogan there somewhere, for an aspiring Labor Party ?..:-)
The posters & fliers using that are already being designed though probably not being printed by Alpine Printing.
No sense of humors’ perhaps ? lol….About the only realpolitik substantial organized labor in Australia,apart from a professional guild or two, or a police force ,is the *middle class* proletariat rentiers’ organizing their future dividends property port folio investments..
I hope you’re right.
My biggest worry is the WA media, a Lab Govt could never get an even break from them when I lived there.
The pile on to Alanh McT was endless, but for that seat sniffing boozy waste of space Buswell got little but praise and a “one of the boys” chuckle from the media.
That’s true. Every possible allowance was made for Buswell. It was astounding how hard and long he had to work at destroying his own career. McTiernan was attacked for two reasons – being a woman politician was bad enough, but her demonstrable competence and ability to get things done threatened to wreck all the work done over years to portray Labor as a blundering menace to society.
Things have changed. There is nowhere to hide with covid – McGowan has got everything right and the ‘pass the parcel’ crowd in the liberals have been left looking like clowns. They will be wiped out and they will deserve it.
WA voters tend to vote for the Liberals in Federal elections but in state elections Labor and Libs have had about equal amounts of time in government. Voters here seem to be able to tell the difference. As for the article being a beat-up, William Bowe, alias the respected Poll Bludger, isn’t into beat-ups. My guess is that the Liberals will probably lose about five of their present 13 seats to Labor which in the new Parliament could see about eight Libs and four or five Nats, not in coalition because the WA Nats only do alliances, not coalitions, in a House of 59 seats.
Oppositions don’t win elections.Governments lose them and since the Liberals were belted in the last election West Australians would be hard pressed to find any reason to vote for charge despite the pandemic.
The nation’s fearless leader has made certain he has no skin in this particular game by treating the WA border as radioactive.
Says it all really: both about Morrison’s and the libs’ chances.
What a brave decision to allow a single thread of comments on something so irrelevant.
Not a WA resident then? Hardly irrelevant to its residents many of whom are confident WA will become the land of Cockaigne if only the result comes out right.
STRS lets look at Libs in all the States and Territories ( whoops only 3) South Aussie.a ICAC investigation is in progress there over 1 Lib, N.S.W, well I.C.A.C in N.S.W is a non elected representative in there Parliament as there is so much corruption I.C.A.C has it’s hands full.
Only State that is without it’ s hands dirty thus far is Tasmania, but give it time.
Libs are just born to be corrupt and shady, it is in there genetic makeup
Yes, if only the article had something to do with Australia.
Congrats Rais!
You’ve won the Stirring Spoon of the month award.
But it was good for a snicker.
Agni, after your unfriendly comments to me over the Hardaker article, and what you say here, I take it your intention is to annoy people. The other day I started to think your intention was to cause offense
It’s called litotes and I was referring to a single article, in yet another edition otherwise chokka with la démence du jour – semaine/mois?,- with comments switched off which has now become the norm.
Self obsession is not healthy – it’s not always about you.
You might want to look up the aberrance known as the Pathetic Fallacy.
I think quite obviously this comment is meant to be personal and hostile. Here, pathetic fallacy is given two meanings, yes?
No.A single, clinical meaning.
Read my penultimate paragraph again and try to understand it this time.
Agni, your deeply patronising attitude says it all.
I only replied to your comment about this article to warn other people of your intention. The message being, ‘Don’t engage.’
The fact that I wanted to say something personal about what I thought of Hardaker’s ‘journalism’, and of Crikey’s standards on the issue (and the follow-up headlines) – presuming that honesty would be respected – and that was taken by you to imply malignant things about me for your own amusement(?), is just another nail in the coffin of my Crikey subscription
I am disappointed with the WA Liberal Party along with the WA business Community.
For the last four years the Liberal party they have done very little for Western Australia except collect their pay checks.
They have not recruited, made policy, and ensured on going funding.
My local Liberal, hasn’t even put up a sign from what I can see in my electorate.
To me This just reinforces elections are not about good governance, at is all about power and favours. So we have a presidential style election, with no tangible policies from Liberal. and lots of sweets from Labor.
What a way to run state politics.
Congratulation to Mark McGowan on running a tight campaign.