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.
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.
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.
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.
The general perception among the public, right or wrong, is that the Liberal party (state and federal) is for the financial elite and business owners and the Labour party is for the working class.
As the wealth inequality gap continues to grow I think more Australians are beginning to realise they are on the wrong side of that gap. I believe that in the coming couple of decades the liberal parties will lose more often unless they start doing meaningful things for the working class
Funny how the last federal election showed that the working members of the working classes did not identify with labour at all. Labour hasn’t a clue what the real working classes want and has few if any people who actually come from that social group. Labour at federal level is out of touch.
Mick Young is the last one who’d ever worked up a sufficient sweat to have callouses on his hands whom I can recall by name.
I think there was one other whose name I cannot recall….anyone?
As Frank Crean opined, presumably thinking of his waste of space son, simple Simon, “The Labor party used to be the cream of the working class but it is now the cum of the middle class!”
Horny handed sons of toil need not apply.
..oops, that was meant to be “..scum of the middle class” but, on second thoughts, STET.
My electorate (Belmont) is probably about as labor as they come… but still managed a 17% swing to labor (based on 30% poll counted)