If ya a lib in WA ,read it and weep

If ya a lib in WA ,read it and weep

He is in the same place he has been for a long while now: with the voting public well and truly on side.

“At the end of the day, I think I have a fundamental difference of opinion with some people,” McGowan said on Monday.

“That is, if you commit very serious crimes, serious assaults, grievous bodily harms homicides, sexual assaults — you’re going to end up in detention.

“I actually think that’s where some people should be, whereas others don’t think they should ever end up in detention.”

It’s the sort of thing you might expect a Liberal law-and-order police minister to say, but it is exactly the political ground McGowan now dominates.

It’s another illustration of how the conservative side of politics in WA has absolutely nowhere to go.

With the biggest war chest in WA history, McGowan emphasises his conservative economic credentials, paying down debt as every other budget sinks further into red, and taking on unions with “responsible” pay offers so as not to add to inflationary pressures.

Already the owner of a $6 billion operating surplus, fuelled by surging mining royalties, he has nonetheless managed to extract even more cash from the miners.

Last week, he announced a $1 billion “community investment fund” underpinned by $250 million from iron ore majors BHP and Rio, $100 million from Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting, and $50 million apiece from Woodside, Chevron, Mineral Resources, with more requests for donations coming.

It prompted a message from a former state Liberal minister, who knows the northern coastal suburbs intimately, who said that if Labor had really tried it might have won Moore too.

After sticking solidly with the Liberals at state and federal levels for most of the last 30 years, there was no sense of buyers’ remorse from voters.

“The general feel is, ‘We chanced our hand on a Labor MP … it has worked out even better than we thought’,” the former minister said.

“If they keep the steady hand that they have shown so far, they could get a swing to them up here.”

While McGowan outflanks the Liberals from the economic and law-and-order right, what if the teals were to mop up the evolving environmental and social sensibilities now apparently prevalent in some of Perth’s richest areas?
The Nationals, led by Mia Davies, would appear to be on much safer ground in their traditional constituencies.

https://www.watoday.com.au/politics/western-australia/what-mcgowan-s-banksia-hill-brawl-says-about-his-politics-and-wa-s-20221129-p5c2cb.html
I note as of yesterday the WA nats are in favour of Federal labors voice.

Raider