We can be sure that Western Australia’s increasingly desperate Liberals had an exhilarating new year’s eve, the first time they have had anything to celebrate since the dark days of December 2000, when Richard Court’s impending defeat cast a pall over the
We can be sure that Western Australia’s increasingly desperate Liberals had an exhilarating new year’s eve, the first time they have had anything to celebrate since the dark days of December 2000, when Richard Court’s impending defeat cast a pall over the party.
The reason for the joy and subsequent leadership change was that, after seven years, the well-regarded Newspoll showed the Liberals seemed to be in with a chance of winning the coming December 2008 or February-March 2009 state election.
Newspoll had Labor at 49 per cent to the Liberal-led opposition at 51 per cent on a two-party preferred ranking during the October-December 2007 quarter.
That was the mirror image of the July-September quarter, when Labor had 51 per cent to the Coalition’s 49.
Midway through that quarter – at the November federal election – the federal Liberal Party had slipped only 2.6 per cent, compared with a fall of more than double that nationally.
Furthermore, the Liberals won the Labor-held seat of Swan, thereby coming in with a net gain of one seat since they also won Cowan, countering the loss to Labor of Hasluck.
But there was a gloomy downside for WA’s Liberals, one that’s had to be confronted sooner rather than later.
Newspoll also showed that, during the past two quarters of 2007, Premier Alan Carpenter registered 63 and 59 per cent support respectively in the “better premier” stakes, to opposition leader Paul Omodei’s dismal 13 and 14 per cent.
Despite the huge leadership disparities, the Coalition still edged Labor in the crucial two-party preferred stakes.
Understandably, Liberal number crunchers thought that, if only they had a leader who could register in the 30- to 40-point range, not below 15, they’d be well positioned to win the next state election.
It seemed a substantial lift in the leadership stakes would help boost chances of toppling Labor.
This explains the dumping of Mr Omodei.
However, what those planning the overthrow of Mr Omodei didn’t expect was that the now-infamous October Parliament House party involving their chosen man, Troy Buswell, would leak out via an Omodei staffer.
Interestingly, not even that was enough to stop the number crunchers telling Mr Buswell high noon had arrived, so he flew home from Japan to bring on the leadership change immediately.
True, Labor can make the occasional snide remark about Mr Buswell’s embarra-ssing evening, energetically reinforced for them by outgoing Liberal front bencher, Katie Hodson-Thomas.
But the odds are that this will begin wearing thin with the media and the public.
One reason may be that Labor wouldn’t want the name of their man in Canberra – prime minister Kevin Rudd’s – being dragged into any broader discussion about nights out on the town at taxpayers’ expense.
The fact of the matter is that neither Labor with Mr Rudd, nor the Liberals with Mr Buswell, has anything to be proud of.
The odds are, therefore, that both sides of WA politics will quickly get down to planning for the coming election, which could be before Christmas.
One reason for this is that Mr Court did precisely that in 1996, in order to get the election out of the way ahead of festivities.
Politicians dislike election campaigns hanging over them every fourth year as they sit down with family and friends to cut up the turkey and ham.
Mr Court received countless pats on the back in December 1996 for calling it then, rather than waiting until February or March 1997.
Mr Carpenter is undoubtedly keen to follow suit, even though he’s set to be like Mr Court – far from confident of the outcome.
Now that the Liberals have a credible, even if rather inexperienced leader in Mr Buswell, Mr Carpenter and his team of advisers are likely to start feeling the heat because of their very thin achievement record.
Can anyone name one outstanding thing they’ve done? And please, State Scene doesn’t want to hear of Attorney-General Jim McGinty’s so-called one-vote-one-value legislation.
A point that surely needs no re-iterating is that Carpenter-led Labor is an unimpressive conglomeration of individuals who’ve shown, over and over, that they’re simply incapable of offering imaginative and farsighted government.
Since the 2001 election, State Scene has been suggesting to them, and the opposition for that matter, a range of policies just waiting to be adopted.
Labor could, for instance, have reverted to its pre-World War I policy of moving to institute Swiss-style direct democracy so we, the citizens, could block senseless bills and initiate much-needed constitutional reforms and other legislation.
That, more than anything, has helped make the Swiss – all seven million of them – members of a dominant Western European economy and a major international business and financial centre.
Unfortunately, Labor’s power brokers are too scared of the voters – the man and woman in the street – and so won’t take the initiative and adopt the referendum legislation.
State Labor also could have trimmed WA’s exorbitant taxation levels below those of all other states, thereby attracting interstate and international business leaders to WA for reasons other than our huge iron ore and offshore gas reserves.
They could have modernised the heart of Perth CBD by adopting Perth City Council’s farsighted February 2003 proposal – Realizing a New Vision for Perth, compiled by Martyn Webb, Ralph Stanton and Max Hipkins – to sink the Fremantle-to-Perth railway from the Horseshoe Bridge to the Mitchell Freeway.
Predictably, they refused, preferring to retain an ugly 19th century railway yard in the city’s very heart.
Why has central Subiaco been bequeathed such an imaginative layout but not Perth’s CBD?
Why has Subiaco been so creatively enhanced while WA’s window to the world capital has been left with such an ugly, desolate railway yard?
Ask Infrastructure Minister Alannah MacTiernan; she may bother to tell you, if you’re lucky. More likely you’ll be subjected to one of her convoluted lectures.
Labor could have permitted construction of imaginative man-made coastal resorts, like the proposed Mauds Landing, along the state’s northern coast.
Instead, they were scared off by the Greens, who oppose all forms of coastal enhancement designed to make for greater recreational opportunities north of Geraldton.
And the outcome from the Mauds Landing refusal has been the costly growth of old-style and congested Coral Bay.
They could have made WA’s primary and secondary educational sectors the most impressive in the world by emulating the best aspects of those in Finland, Alberta, and South Korea, instead of kowtowing to dull Canberra centralist bureaucrats.
Instead they sit tight, enjoying their spoils of office and quietly calculating what their superannuation handshake will be in 2013 and beyond.
And in the process they’ve become dull seat-warming office seekers, which, more than anything, explains why things have begun steadily swinging away from them despite the Liberals’ aimless floundering.
Imagine what could happen if the badly winged Mr Buswell points all this out in simple terms to voters over coming months.
