Kalgoorlie MLA Matt Birney’s unwavering confidence has propelled him to leadership of the Western Australian Liberal Party at the relatively young age of 35.
Kalgoorlie MLA Matt Birney’s unwavering confidence has propelled him to leadership of the Western Australian Liberal Party at the relatively young age of 35.
This self-belief is sure to be tested, however, when the new one-vote-one-value legislation reconfigures many rural seats, including his own constituency.
Mr Birney is a man many Western Australians want to know more about. What are his values, his qualifications, his background?
Will the former businessman back himself by staying in Kalgoorlie, or will he succumb to ambition and move to a safe metropolitan seat?
Mr Birney’s contemporaries and colleagues in Kalgoorlie lack no faith in the fifth-generation Goldfielder, although they will not pre-empt his decision.
“He has always been very confident,’’ said Goldfields Mining Expo chairman Tom Cole, who has served with Mr Birney on the Kalgoorlie-Boulder Chamber of Commerce and Industry for more than 10 years and known him since he co-founded auto parts business, Goldfields Auto Spares, with Darrall Black in 1992.
Early in his business career, Mr Birney adopted as a role model Bob Muirhead, whose business prowess eventually led to the formation of Automotive Industrial and Mining Supplies.
Mr Birney brought his own personality to GAS. The business would eventually be housed in a blue castle complete with turrets, described by one local as the ugliest building in WA. It is, however, absolutely unmissable.
Other business tactics – slogans such as Bloody Cheap Auto Parts – are testimony to Mr Birney’s unashamed cheekiness. But the business worked and within three years of opening was boasting a multi-million-dollar turnover.
“You could see early on Matt was going to go places,” Mr Cole said, adding that inexperience in politics would most likely get Mr Birney into trouble.
“He can sometimes overreact. His mouth can get him into trouble.
“But I think experience will overcome this and he has the potential to be a good leader.”
Mr Cole believes Mr Birney will ultimately pursue a career in federal politics.
But Kalgoorlie contemporary and close friend Kitty Prodonovich said it was not out of the question that Mr Birney would one day return to business. Ms Prodonovich said Mr Birney was always well read and researched, open-minded, had a thirst for knowledge and made a habit of seeking out and questioning people who had succeeded before him.
It is a picture in stark opposition to recently published first impressions of Mr Birney as the far right’s poster boy, a homophobe, a bachelor (meant as a slur) and as lacking the smarts for politics .
Mr Birney is proving to be something of an enigma to WA business. He opposes the Commonwealth’s push to create a single industrial relations system that would be easier to use for business. At the same time, he declares his would be a pro-development, lower-taxing government.
Mr Birney dismisses criticism he says will eventually prove to be false. He refers particularly to charges his age and his city of residence make him unsuited to leadership.
Such is his confidence that he will boast of creating his own wrong impression.
Mr Birney told media last year he had not met Liberal colleagues to plan a leadership coup but had been drunk for three days in Bali.
In recent weeks, he has provoked outrage by stating he would take his girlfriend to meet the Pope if the pontiff had his partner there.
But it has not stopped Goldfielders loving their ‘son’. Ms Prodonovich said Kalgoorlie had a great sense of pride in Mr Birney, and in Eyre-Murchison MLA and Gallop Government minister John Bowler.
“They give us great exposure at a state and federal government levels,” she said.
Mr Birney said his long-term plan upon entering politics was to eventually return to business.
However, he was enjoying the cut and thrust of politics, and particularly the whirlwind he boarded when he accepted a nomination to become party leader in March.
If there is a sign of what is to come for Mr Birney, it may be his decision in April to sell out of Goldfields Auto Spares.
Mr Birney said party leadership meant he no longer had time to tend to the business.
“I sold out at a good time,’’ he adds, referring to the flow-on effects of a booming gold and nickel sector on mining services businesses.
The sale took on a degree of risk weeks later with the passing of Labor’s electoral reform.
These days, Mr Birney finds himself with the proceeds of the GAS sale, a small remaining interest in Kalgoorlie business and an uncertain political life.
