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WA loves Labor – but not Anthony Albanese · The Front

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Christinamio.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: It's Friday, March seven, twenty twenty five. Cyclone Alfred is
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: slowing down, but meteorologists are warning there could be a
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  Speaker 1: rebound when the Category two storm reaches the mainland in
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  Speaker 1: the early hours of Saturday morning. Experts say Alfred could
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: regather strength and smash Brisbane, the Gold Coast and parts
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: of northern New South Wales with dangerous rain and flash flooding,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: and The Australian's chief political correspondent, Jeff Chambers says the
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  Speaker 1: storm is eroding the Prime Minister's hopes of calling an
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: April twelve election. You can read his analysis right now
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com dot au. The Western Australian
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  Speaker 1: branch of the Liberal Party have unveiled their official costings
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: just forty eight hours before voters go to the polls
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  Speaker 1: in a state election. They're attempting to make up ground
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  Speaker 1: following an historic defeat four years ago. In today's episode,
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  Speaker 1: we get the lay of the land in WA and
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  Speaker 1: unpack why the federal government is watching the results of
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  Speaker 1: Saturday's vote so closely. During the COVID nineteen pandemic. Western
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Australia became the envy of the world thanks to unmatched
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: geographical isolation, which protected it from the brunt of the virus.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Western Australia's borders are likely to remain shut until next year.
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  Speaker 1: The WA Premier is planning to keep the clothes sign
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  Speaker 1: up beyond the vaccination targets. In early twenty twenty, as
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  Speaker 1: nations in Europe, Asia and the Americas scrambled to stop
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: the spread, Western Australia eliminated community transmission of the coronavirus,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: a feat it mostly maintained until December of the following year.
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  Speaker 1: As a result, the state's economy thrived, the jobs market boomed,
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  Speaker 1: struction took off, and retail trade surged. In the midst
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  Speaker 1: of it all, Western Australian voters returned the State Labor
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  Speaker 1: Party to government in the most decisive win in Australian
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  Speaker 1: electoral history.
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  Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, I take great honor in introducing the
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  Speaker 2: Premier of Western Australia, Mark McGowan.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: There aren't many people who want to return to the
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: COVID era, but it's a victory. Mark McGowan's successor, Premier
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Roger Cook, is hoping to replicate when West Australians go
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: to the polls on Saturday.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: For Roger Cook and for the Labor government in Western Australia,
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: that really was the glory days.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Paul Garvey is a senior reporter in the Australian's Western
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Australia Bureau.
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: That's when the borders came down and their popularity went
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: right up. That delivered them that spectacular twenty twenty one
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  Speaker 3: election win, delivered Labor this unprecedented hold over both houses
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: of parliam and I think Roger Cook was really trying
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: to appeal to those memories that Western Australians have of
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: being kept safe in that era of Western Australia, getting
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: the attention and the respect that West Australians believe they
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: deserve from a national perspective, and also just reminding business
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: leaders that the state's mining industry had continued undisrupted through
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: that period, that the rivers of gold from that industry
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: had continued to flow. And so really it was about
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: just prompting the audience to not forget just who delivered
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: those glory days through that period and kept West Australian safe,
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: and it really has set the state up financially for
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: a very strong few years since.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Ironically, Roger Cook was the Health Minister when the pandemic
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: first struck, but stood down from the role following a
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: series of health system bungles. But that little hiccup doesn't
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: appear to have hurt Cook's popularity as premiere.
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: I think we can say with certainty that Roger Cook
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: won't be joining those ranks of labor leaders who have
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: lost their seats, lost their governments in the past few years.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: He's been very mindful from a long way out about
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  Speaker 3: this trend not so much against labor, but a trend
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: against incumbents that's been seen around Australian around the world.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: He's been drilling that into his ministers and his colleagues,
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: that there is this trend in place and that they
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: shouldn't be taking anything for granted with this election. That said,
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: all the polling we've seen shows that Roger Cook can
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: expect to be pretty comfortably re elected on Saturday. There
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: will be some seats lost, there's no doubt about that,
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  Speaker 3: but Roger Cook can certainly look forward to being returned
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: comfortably come Saturday night.
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  Speaker 1: The twenty twenty one state election was historic for the
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  Speaker 1: Western Australian Liberal Party too, but in the bad way.
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  Speaker 4: Opposition leader Zach Kirkup lost his marginal electorate, becoming the
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: first WA major part party leader to lose their own
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: seat in eighty eight years. Labor is predicted to win
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  Speaker 4: fifty three of the state's fifty nine lower House seats,
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  Speaker 4: giving mister McGowan a super majority, Paul, what.
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  Speaker 1: Went so wrong for the WA Liberals at the last
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  Speaker 1: state election in twenty twenty one.
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  Speaker 3: Look, there are a few things. A big one was
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  Speaker 3: what we were talking about before, right, it was that
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  Speaker 3: COVID success of Western Australia. But the Liberals certainly hadn't
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  Speaker 3: helped themselves. They're a party that has been dogged by
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: a lot of infighting, a lot of leadership uncertainty, and
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  Speaker 3: that has continued in opposition. It's also been marred by
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  Speaker 3: this sense that the party has these dominating, controlling behind
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  Speaker 3: the scenes figures, usually from the religious rights, very socially
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  Speaker 3: conservative people, pushing views that they hold strongly and genuinely,
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  Speaker 3: but which perhaps at the fringe of what of Middle
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  Speaker 3: Australians would necessarily believe, and that has led the party
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  Speaker 3: to be tad as one that's controlled by religious conservatives
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  Speaker 3: who are out of step with the general public, and
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  Speaker 3: so that's really hurt the party standing for some time.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: It's still an issue that the party's dealing with today
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  Speaker 3: and it's been interesting because we're talking about the shift
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: politically going on around the world and around Australia. People
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: inside the Liberal Party here feel like there's not a
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: whole lot of votes to be won by fighting a
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: culture war. For all that Trump may have done on
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: that regard, the Liberals are certainly in a difficult phase
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: of trying to find the right balance there, knowing that
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: a lot of their support base and a lot of
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: their actual MPs may be interested in those issues, but
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  Speaker 3: that they really need to try to focus on the
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: middle and run a discipline campaign focused on those things
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: like health, law and order, like the cost of living
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: and housing, which we've heard so much about during this campaign.
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  Speaker 2: Look, our candidates are working hard, the community is engaged.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: We have a mountain to climb. We don't have the
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  Speaker 2: resources of the Labor government. Of course, while they're playing
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: a game of distraction, we're focused on the issues that
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Western Australians are talking to us about.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we've heard that Roger Cook wants to return to
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: that kind of prosperity of the pandemic. What's the pitch
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  Speaker 1: of WA Liberal Party leader Libby Metam to voters.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: The big one of those four for Libby Metam has
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: been health. She's been the shadow Health spokeswomen for this
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  Speaker 3: last period of opposition, so she's at her most comfortable
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: when she's pushing on that. And that's quite convenient for
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: the Liberal Party too, because health is one of those
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: areas where for all West Australia's success, most Western Straians
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: feel like their health system isn't functioning as well as
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: it should be. People can see and feel the wealth
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: in this state, yet they're not seeing that translate into
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: their health system. So Roger Cook, himself a former health minister,
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: has tried to pass the blame on this to the
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: federal government. But really most Wester Australians feel as though
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: the state government could be doing a lot more around health,
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  Speaker 3: that our hospitals could be in much better shape and
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: living metament Liberals have really quite effectively made the most
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: of that.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Data from newspolls suggest the Libs could pick up ten
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: seats at Saturday's election. It's not enough to get them
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: back into government. Far from it, but it's an improvement
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: and it may go some of the way to getting
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: them back into the public's good graces.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: There's been interesting talking to people out in the streets
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: over this campaign. You're not seeing a sense that there's
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: a mood for a change of government, but you do
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: hear a lot people saying we just want to make
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: sure there's a proper opposition. I think people here recognize
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  Speaker 3: that a democratic system is not set up to be
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: a one party state. Regardless of your political persuasion. There's
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: a need to have a well organ eyes an effective
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: team on the other side, pushing back on ideas, scrutinizing policy,
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  Speaker 3: and making sure that the outcomes are where they need
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  Speaker 3: to be.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: So where do they need to be?
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: This election isn't really about who's going to actually win
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: who's going to be the next premier. That's been set
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: in stone really since twenty twenty one effectively, So really
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: what we've all been trying to figure out is what
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: does a good result look like for the Liberals. The
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  Speaker 3: people I talk to inside the party have been throwing
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: around ten as the magic number that looks like a
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: decent day at the office for the Liberals that would
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: give them that injection of new talent to build something
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: around going forward, and Newspole certainly says that they'll get
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: to that point, but not much further beyond it. Where
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: that becomes really interesting is around the future leadership of
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  Speaker 3: the Liberal Party. Beyond this Saturday, it could end up
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: being a very good day for Basil Zemplus. Even though
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: Roger Cook will be the next premier, will get himself elected,
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  Speaker 3: There'll be some decent talent coming in to join him,
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  Speaker 3: and there won't be such a result that Libby can
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: demand or expect to be the one to take the
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: reins for the next four years. As well.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Coming up, why the federal government shouldn't put all its
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: eggs in the West Australian basket. It's long been speculated
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: that Prime Minister Anthony Albanezi would wait until after Western
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Australia votes to call a federal election. It's easy to
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: see why the party's state branch is a shoe in
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: for a third consecutive term, and WA was vital in
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: delivering labor to government in twenty twenty two. But whatever
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: good will Roger Cook and his colleagues have garnered since then,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: isn't necessarily felt towards the Feds.
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: Well, there are warning signs this morning for the Prime
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: Minister in the West. The latest News poll shows voters
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: who turned to Labour three years ago are already in
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  Speaker 5: the mood for change. They didn't take long at all.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Here's Paul Garvey this morning.
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  Speaker 3: It's been interesting that we have now been through this
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: entire campaign and we haven't had a single visit here
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: from the Prime Minister. But there'd be more than a
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: few people inside the Labor Party who wouldn't be losing
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: any sleep over that happening, because the Prime Minister's got
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: very much a mixed standing here in the West. That said,
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: when we're looking ahead at the next election here, it's
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: questionable as to whether we will actually see a whole
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: bunch of seats come back to the Libs. But that's
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: one of the things we're watching for on Saturday night
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: as well, is what can we draw from the seat
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: by seat results. What does that tell us about the
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: way people are viewing the Labor brand more broadly inside
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: those key federal seats.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, Paul, this is looking like a pretty sure thing
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: for the West Australian Labor Party. But are there any
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: battleground seats in this election and where are they?
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's going to be some really interesting ones to watch.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: West Australia is quite different from every other state in
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: that there isn't a formal coalition between the Liberals and
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: the Nationals, so you do have some genuine three cornered
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: races here. So seats like in the regions like Calgooley,
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: which has been held I think the last four elections
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: that's been Liberals, Labor, Independent and Nats have all had
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: to go out holding that seat. And so the way
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: that one falls on Saturday really is anyone's guests. We're
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: waiting to see the anointment of Basil Zemplus as a
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: member of the Liberal Party. He's considered basically a shoeing
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: to win his seat of church Lands. One that will
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: be very interesting to watch is another regional seat of Albany.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: Albany is a seat that's been hit very hard by
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: the federal government's large export band that's really hurt the
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: Labor brand and the state government more broadly has a
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: pretty mixed to poor standing in the regions. Generally, the
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: health issues that are pretty poor in the city or
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: even more acute in the regions. The state governments. Bans
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: around things like that of logging the fishing industry, reforms
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: around gun laws and so on have all proved deeply
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: unpopular in the region. If there was going to be
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: one surprise on Saturday night, I'd be thinking it could
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: come in the regions.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Paul Garvey is a senior reporter in The Australian's Western
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Australia Bureau. You can keep up with his reporting and
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: analysis of this weekend's state election at the Australian dot
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: com dot au