Premier Roger Cook and his Labor government were re-elected in yesterday’s WA election and will likely finish with the second-biggest majority in state history – behind the monumental 53 seats won (out of a possible 59) in 2021, but still more than the 41 claimed in 2017 when Mark McGowan first came to power.
At an election when the Liberals were expected to get at least a bit of a return to normality after winning just two seats in 2021, it was yet another landslide.
“It’s a disastrous night for the Liberal Party and will have serious federal implications as well,” Nine political editor Charles Croucher told Weekend Today this morning.
“While this was always going to be climbing Everest for the Liberal Party, they haven’t made base camp.
“So this is really not just about the next four years, but realistically the four years after that as well. That’s how bad this result was for the Liberals.”
Western Australia is set to play an important role in deciding the next federal government – Labor’s gains there in 2022 propelled it into a majority government, and there’s a sizeable handful of key seats around Perth this time around: Moore, Pearce and the newly created Bullwinkel to name a few.
Now, the prime minister has a popular local premier to stand beside once the federal election is called.
“He’s has had the second-largest victory of a Labor Party premier, just beaten by the one four years ago… Roger Cook will drape his arm around Anthony Albanese,” Croucher said.
“In his speech last night, he talked about building things being made in WA. It was a reflection of something that Anthony Albanese will say during the campaign, whenever that is.”
Albanese, who had already appeared at press conferences alongside Cook before yesterday’s election result, was quick to promote the pair’s relationship.
“Roger’s been a friend of mine for a long period of time, since before either of us were in politics,” he said this morning.
There’s no such leader out west for the federal Liberals to embrace.
State leader Libby Mettam has been at the helm for a disastrous election result, and Perth Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas failed to record a resounding victory in what was once a safe-as-houses Liberal seat.
“He was effectively running as a stalking horse against his own party leader,” Croucher said.
“He looks like he’s going to scrape into the parliament, despite standing in one of the most marginal seats, and something that has always been a Liberal Party seat.
“So now you have this situation where Libby Mettam has retained her seat, Basil Zempilas is there but without that real mandate to take over, and the old rule is if you have two leaders, you kind of have no leader.
“So whilst Roger Cook would be an asset for Anthony Albanese, there’s not that asset there for Peter Dutton because the Liberal Party are trying to win back seats here in WA.”
The other issue of concern for the Liberals is their inability to capitalise on a significant 18 per cent first-preference swing against Labor yesterday.
Had those votes gone directly to the Liberals, it would have overturned all the gains made by McGowan four years ago and then some, and probably reduced Labor to fewer than 40 seats.
Instead, the Liberals only gained a swing of about 7 per cent, with another 1 per cent to the Nationals. Many voters instead backed the Greens, who gained a roughly 3.5 per cent swing, and independents, who were up a similar margin.
That’s good news for independent Kate Chaney, who is considered the most likely of the teals to lose her seat (Julie Bishop’s old inner-Perth electorate of Curtin) at the federal election, but poses questions to Dutton and the Coalition about whether they’ll be able to make back their losses in WA in 2022.
That’s not to say everything this weekend has been rosy for the prime minister, with ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred forcing Albanese to rule out calling an election this weekend, and therefore denying Labor its preferred voting date of April 12.
Instead, a March 25 budget will now have to go ahead, and a string of positive developments for the government – the first interest rate cut of the term, best GDP figures in two years, and now the WA election result – will be far from fresh in Australians’ minds when they head to the polls in May.
“It just complicates what was already a difficult act for the prime minister to win re-election in his own right,” Croucher said.
“This makes it even more tough, and provides more time where more things can happen.”