If there’s one thing most people from Australia’s eastern states know about Western Australia, it’s that they don’t think about it much.
Perth is the most isolated major city in the world.
And if there’s one thing Western Australians know about the rest of the country, it’s that they don’t understand WA one bit.
That’s why East Coast political leaders have to work extra hard to win over WA voters.
That doesn’t always happen, because there are only 15 federal seats in the West, compared with 136 in the rest of the country.
But WA tends to swing wildly at elections, or not at all. In 2022 it fell behind Anthony Albanese’s Labor Party.
It was the first time in decades that Labor won more seats in WA than the Coalition.
But this was after the Mark McGowan years, when the prime minister was emerging as a giant over state politics.
At the last state election, his Labor government reduced the Liberals to just two seats in the state’s lower house. No, that’s not a typo.
Perth looks good this time of year – Anthony Albanese settled in WA on Friday
But the prime minister, who had an approval rating of more than 90 percent during the pandemic, has retired from politics.
The question is whether a federal Labor Party in power will be able to hold on to the share of seats it won in the west. If it cannot, it will not retain its majority.
I have spent the last two weeks in WA, during which time Opposition Leader Peter Dutton paid a visit and stayed longer than other leaders usually do.
Today, Anthony Albanese is making a whirlwind visit to the state where he strategically launched his 2022 election campaign in an attempt to woo locals.
Coincidentally, Scott Morrison will be here next week as a witness in the defamation case between Linda Reynolds and Brittany Higgins.
Suddenly Perth is the centre of the world!
It will be interesting to see how the votes in this state move in the upcoming federal elections.
Western Australia is not suffering economically in the same way as the rest of the country. Not yet. It may be if the Premier delays the election until next year and the mining boom continues as inflation rises and pressure on the cost of living increases.
Western Australia has always been a boom or bust economy.
Labor swept the West at the last election, taking the seats of Hasluck, Swan, Pearce and Tagney from the Liberals.
The Liberals also lost Curtin to a Conservative party, Stirling was abolished in a redistribution and they almost lost the seat of Moore as well.
The results were a disaster for the conservative side of politics.
A new seat will be formed in WA at the next election to take account of the population increase, and the Liberals look set to preselect an excellent candidate in Matt Moran to try and win the seat.
He’s not the chef: his namesake is an Afghan veteran.
If there’s one thing most Australians from the eastern states know about Western Australia, it’s that they don’t think about it much. Above, a panoramic view of the Swan River
But party strategists are divided over whether the state seats will return to the Liberals or give the governing Labor Party a second chance to up its game.
That’s why leaders from both parties are spending time here. They know that winning in the west will be crucial to whether or not Labor can hold on to its majority in government.
Similarly, if the Liberals can regain the share of seats they previously held here, they could be in a position to compete to form a government themselves.
So while the rest of the country pays little attention to our political leaders’ quick visits west, no one should underestimate the importance of them doing so as they try to muster the numbers they need to govern after the looming federal election.