Western Australia’s tourism slogan was once The Wildflower State. Then it became The State of Excitement – to the amusement of Victorians. Now WA is the One Party State. After Saturday’s election there is a government in the West without an opposition.
Amid the cheers of the victorious and the recriminations of the defeated, only two statements can be made with certainty in the immediate aftermath of WA Labor’s triumphant Saturday 13 March landslide. West Australian voters liked the State Government’s approach to Covid-19 and the Liberal Party in Perth has taken such a tumble that the shock waves are felt in Canberra.
The (now former) Opposition Leader Zak Kirkup’s appeal to voters to support a viable Parliament was too subtle and he lost his seat along with all but two or possibly three Liberal members. Labor held an astonishing 41 Legislative Assembly seats after the 2017 landslide and now holds a mind-boggling 52 out of the Assembly’s total of 59. Opposition leadership passes to Mia Davies of the Nationals who hails from the tiny wheatbelt town of Yorkrakine. She was a young Minister for Water in the Barnett Government.
The big question for democracy in the West is will other institutions fill the vacuum left by the absence of a parliamentary opposition? Will the West Australian Newspaper and other media step up their political coverage and their scrutiny of a dominant government? Will the courts, the Chambers of Commerce, the Universities and other groups take a more critical view? Vacuums are there to be filled so I think we will see more criticism of the Government from outside of party politics.
Already Liberal critics are pointing the finger at Kirkup’s green energy policy, his concession of defeat, the influence of power brokers on pre-selections, the Clive Palmer story and so on. They are missing the point. The die was cast. We saw a truly out-of-this-world performance by the Labor Government. How on earth could any political party in such a democracy as Australia in the 21st century in a fair and square election pull off such a total victory?
Here’s how. The West Australian Government has a strong military backbone. Premier McGowan came West as a Royal Australian Navy lawyer stationed at HMAS Stirling on Garden Island, facing the calm waters of Cockburn Sound in the Rockingham electorate which he now represents. Housing Minister Peter Tinley was a senior officer in the SAS Regiment who went to America in 2002 to plan Australia’s part in the Iraq invasion. Tourism Minister Paul Paplia was a Navy clearance diver with 26 years’ experience in the military.
Peter Tinley gave us a fascinating lecture at the Port Hedland Chamber of Commerce before his entry to Parliament. The sign above his desk in the command post tent in the Iraqi desert read: “The main thing is to make the main thing the main thing.” Tinley would listen to the bellyaches of troops for a few minutes, then point to the sign. There was a job to be done.
I am a member of the ALP in WA and this is how I read the action of the past year that led to Saturday’s total victory. When the Covid enemy appeared on the radar, the Government seized the moment. With their military background the brains trust decided on a policy knowing that it did not matter whether the policy was correct. That could be argued by historians. What did matter was to pursue the policy with firm, consistent leadership – not to waver and not to doubt. Premier McGowan stood like a light house on a rocky cliff sending out reliable signals to mariners.
There will be many theories about the way blue-ribbon Liberal seats fell to the ALP. Here is my view. I thought the Liberals were appealing to young voters with Kirkup’s leadership and environmentally friendly policies but it was the loss of older voters that cost the conservatives. This is just a personal observation but I think a critical mass of older voters were scared of Covid-19. They appreciated the Government’s hard-line border policy and they related to Mark McGowan’s leadership and the sympathetic manner of his many press conferences.
The election landslide was forecast by the polls. Nevertheless, it was a startling result in a modern democracy. The federal election is a year away. WA was a stronghold for Scott Morrison in 2019 and it is true that voters distinguish between state and federal issues but Labor people in Canberra this week will be smiling.
Jerry Roberts, born and raised in Mid-West USA, trained as a newspaper reporter in Perth and has covered politics, manufacturing, and Aboriginal Affairs. He has spent the second half of his life in outback Australia.
Comments
13 responses to “Western Australia, the One Party State”
Mr Roberts: a bit like Queenslanders, a funny old mob?
So intent on proving a chip-on-shoulder, they don’t mind giving themselves a collective uppercut? e.g. lockdown Perth for no reason for 5 days, celebrated by returning the Government in landslide.
like over here in the Far East, e.g: when Gladys was voted back in: a few prayers they don’t get the Government they deserve might be in order. or Opposition for that matter.
Best wishes, especially to the NW.
It is a good point about the chip-on-shoulder, Petal, and there is no reason for it. The interstate conflict should be restricted to cricket and football. This country needs to pull itself together. The secession movement in the West is stronger than at any time since 1933. My Dad thought it was crazy then and I think it is crazy now.
So the Premier and a couple of junior ministers have seen military (but not front-line) service, and this somehow translates into political authority and a landslide election victory? The author seems to be saying that choosing a strategy (any strategy) and sticking to it will lead to success. Well, rigidity is certainly a character trait of many with a militarist bent, but the history of warfare affords so many examples of where it has led to shattering defeat that one would be unwise (to say the least) to adopt it as an operational principle, whether in military or civil affairs. I think we have to look somewhere else to explain all this.
Opinion pollsters survey everything under the sun, Bernard, and we can be sure they are examining the entrails of this election as we write. The Liberals have skid-marks on their undies. The adjectives I used most frequently to describe the Government in its first term were disciplined and hard-working. The criticism from Labor MPs of their opponents was that they simply did not work hard enough.
Labor’s amazing landslide in 2017 was assumed to be a high-water mark and would have been but for the Covid hysteria of the past year. I personally dislike the West Australian parochialism which the Government played like a violin and I thought interstate border closures were ridiculous but there was no doubting the popularity of the policy.
The West Australian Newspaper now has a heavy responsibility as an extra-parliamentary opposition. In his editorial yesterday, Anthony De Ceglie, editor-in-chief, acknowledged this role.
I left WA many years ago, having spent my youth there in the 1950s and 1960s, and I dare say much has changed there since then. I would hope the West Australian has moved on from being the parochial rag it was in those days, but I don’t imagine it has. In any case, expecting a mere newspaper to perform the role that should be carried out by a parliamentary opposition is a bit of an ask, don’t you think? Sounds rather like glum desperation on the Right.
Dan O’Sullivan, our editor on the Perth Daily News, regarded our paper as the Opposition when Sir Charles Court was the Liberal Premier in the 1970s. Money talks and one story that surprised me was the ALP fundraiser held at the Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club in Peppermint Grove, the heart of the WA establishment. Real estate developers, stockbrokers, mining entrepreneurs and the like are not ideological. They go with the flow. That is why they are rich. The Libs may have taken their support for granted but now Labor has the cash. It has become the establishment..
Yes, I suppose nothing that the modern ALP does should come as a surprise. Money talks, indeed.
I agree with most points of this well written article but i believe that the rape allegations/ and i mean allegations at this stage…….. played a part in the decision by the people to dump the Libs in such a spectacular and decisive manner.
Every journalist in the country are too scared to go any where near that theory and instead are focussing on the Covid part of the story. The people in WA are ashamed and very very angry that two high powered senior Ministers from their State could behave in such a despicable ugly fashion and the only way they could register their disgust and embarrassment was through the ballott box…… and boy did they get their message across!
The Liberal Party’s postmortem should address this question. I don’t recall any State candidates raising the subject during the campaign. I did not think it was a factor but it has clearly influenced you and I dare say you are not on your own.
I am a progressive and i also live and vote in QLD so it hasn’t influenced me at all, and the question i raised still has not been addressed by pollie or scribe and i dare say never will be. But thank you for a truly wonderfully crafted political reply!
I was asked the question by John Menadue and referred to it in the previous story leading up to the election. We all know where this is going. There will be a spate of similar accusations against Labor MPs. Then the gender wars will be bipartisan. Eva Cox is writing that even neoliberalism is a gender issue. I have been raging against neoliberalism for 40 years and had not thought of the gender angle. Perhaps the feminists will have more luck putting a Dent in Milton Friedman’s legacy than the rest of us critics.
Yes i agree…. lets wish them luck!
Thanks Jerry, that’s a very interesting piece of background.