OPINION: The Liberal Party’s bounce-back at the state election on Saturday was more like a dead cat than a rubber ball.
The Liberal Party’s bounce-back at the state election on Saturday was more like a dead cat than a rubber ball.
If they thought that gravity would swing the electoral pendulum back their way, they did not understand the difference between physics and politics.
The Liberal Party was, however, facing a very difficult task.
The government had a strong tailwind from the resources sector and it worked hard to be a middle-of-the-road government.
On election night Paul Papalia said that Labor’s strategy was to occupy the middle ground and govern for the majority of West Australians. It is a simple but effective strategy.
A good example of this approach is the way they handled juvenile detention. Labor made it clear that their priories were: first, the safety of the public; second, the safety of prison guards; and third, the welfare of the incarcerated juveniles.
That is straight out of the law-and-order playbook and gave no room for the Liberals, the traditional law-and-order party, to score points.
Moving to the right isn’t going to get the Liberals more votes while Labor occupies the centre. All it will achieve is a loss of Liberal votes to the independent movement.
The Liberals can’t move to the left of Labor, so the only option is to fight for the centre.
In any event, the idea of left and right in Australian politics is outdated. Both the Liberal and Labor parties moved to the centre nearly 50 years ago and ever since they have offered slightly different versions of the same policies.
Although their origin stories are different - Labor emerging from the union movement and the Liberals being the party of business - the differences today are more tribal than real.
If a party is considering whether to position itself to the right or the left, it does not understand the nature of politics today. Successful parties have a collection of winning policies, not a fixed location on the left-right spectrum.
The WA Labor Party understands this and that is why it is in government.
Rather than thinking about moving the party to the left or the right, the Liberals should be looking for chinks in Labor’s armour.
In the case of juvenile detention, for instance, Labor’s law-and-order approach is electorally effective, but it is also heartless and does not focus on the underlying causes of juvenile crime.
Furthermore, the community is not made safer when those juveniles are released after years of oppressive detention.
There are professionals and community groups putting forward a different approach but the government is not listening to them.
Maybe the Liberals should.
Ultimately, however, oppositions don’t win elections - governments lose them. The current government is well aware of this and acts accordingly.
In these circumstances the Liberals should focus on positioning themselves for government should the wheels come off the current government.
There are a number of ways this could happen in the next term of government.
The first is leadership change.
Roger Cook has done a great job as Premier and he is cruising, but it is a job that wears you down (and not just from constant smiling).
This happened to his predecessor Mark McGowan, who wisely passed the baton, and that proved to be a masterstroke.
You cannot be an effective Premier if you are stressed and cranky.
You are always in the spotlight and you always have to be on your game. Stay too long and you threaten the success of your government.
So will Roger Cook pass the baton during the term of the next government?
Or will someone think it’s their turn and force the issue?
Leadership change is always a risk.
If it goes well it refreshes the government and sets it up for another electoral victory.
If it goes badly it provides an opportunity for the opposition.
The second opportunity is that all governments age and atrophy. Just like a multiple premiership winning football team, players get older and slower, and teams can lose their hunger for success.
The longer a party stays in government, the more senior ministers it loses through age and “family reasons”.
Winning multiple elections means that there is less opportunity to bring in new blood because existing MPs retain their seats, so the quality of the cabinet declines.
A party can also lose the discipline that kept it in government.
The Cook government has, at least to the outside world, demonstrated incredible discipline and unity of purpose, and is showing no sign of losing it, but there are four years to the next election.
Then there are the finances. Just before the election Rita Saffioti announced that net debt was due to climb to $41 billion, which is almost the same number that the government inherited 8 years ago.
In the interim it has had the benefit of a gusher of revenue from iron ore royalties and very little GST offset thanks to the deal with federal government, but it has not been able to reduce debt.
That raises questions about financial management and points to big problems should the iron ore price fall.
This should be an opportunity for the Liberal Party, but do they have anyone who can add two numbers together?
The general expectation before this election was that the Liberals should be aiming to get back to the 13 seats they held in the Legislative Assembly prior to the 2021 election.
They are well short of that and, even if they had achieved it, the Liberals’ team going into the 2021 election was incredibly weak.
It produced possibly the greatest trainwreck in modern electoral history at the presentation of its financial plan days before the 2021 election.
With such a small team in the current parliament, how do the Liberals demonstrate they are fit to govern if the wheels come off the current government?
There does need to be a leadership change but Libby Mettam should stay on as leader for the time being.
Some people will think that it is a good idea to become Leader of the Opposition at the low point and take the party upwards, but the election is not the low point. That will come sometime during the new parliament.
Governments have a honeymoon period after winning an election so it is best to let that play out. It will end soon enough. Then elect a new leader.
The other factor to consider is that Libby Mettam is the only Liberal MLA with any parliamentary experience.
New members will find that Parliament is a different world. Some will thrive and some will struggle.
It would be a good idea to let the new members show what they can do before deciding who should be the next leader.
Otherwise the wrong person could be elected and that will be awkward as the 2029 election approaches.
And that election will be hard enough, even with the best available leader.
• Simon Withers is a former investment banker and was mayor of the Town of Cambridge. He is a professional company director.
