On March 19 the new, expanded WA Labor cabinet was sworn in, one and a half weeks after Labor’s decisive state election victory. The next day, Liberal Party leader Libby Mettam vacated her position, thus opening the way for high-profile, newly-elected MP, Basil Zempilas to replace her.

The ALP suffered a state-wide swing against it of over 18 percent with up to 22 percent recorded in some seats and a spectacular 26 percent swing in what should have been its safest electorate. The Greens garnered over 130,000 votes state-wide, a significant increase in their support base

The swing did not translate to a significant gain in seats for the conservatives, given the overwhelming landslide won by the Mark McGowan-led ALP in 2021. In that election the Liberals retained two seats and their National Party coalition partners four.

With a total of six seats won in this election the Liberals only achieved a minor recovery in their seat tally from their 2021 drubbing and the Nationals have a similar number.

The McGowan victory was a significant factor in preparing WA for the 2022 federal Labor victory. If Peter Dutton is to be the next prime minister, then the LNP coalition must win back once-safe conservative seats in the looming federal election.

What lessons can both Labor and Liberal federal party strategists take from the WA election? Within the voting patterns there are contradictory movements that could spell disaster if either of the mainstream parties fail to recognise popular sentiments.

McGowan/Cook neo-liberalism and anti-environmentalism

In 2021, McGowan had a personal popularity rating of 88 percent, due to his strong handling of the Covid crisis. His tight border policies safeguarded the profitability of the WA mining sector, but experiencing distance from the irresponsibility of the Morrison Commonwealth government WA residents on the whole felt secure.

Upon retirement in 2023 McGowan was duly rewarded with advisory positions with BHP and Mineral Resources. He also entered into a consultancy business with Joe Hockey.

Inheriting the premiership and a budget surplus of five billion dollars, Roger Cook maintained McGowan’s tight, neo-liberal spending policies. WA health services have been in crisis mode for at least a decade and the state is reeling under a housing crisis while the government is bulldozing Homes West residences. However, Cook closely attended to the needs of the resources corporations while packing the prisons and youth detention centres.

In preparing for the 2025 election, he intervened on behalf of the WA mining oligarchy to destroy federal Labor environmental legislation.

Around half of Australia’s exports of goods originate from WA including minerals, petroleum, agri-food and some specialised manufactured goods. Western Australia is the largest iron ore supplier in the world, accounting for 38 percent of global supply in 2023, followed by Brazil at 18 percent. The corporations profiting from these exports tower over WA society.

From 2022 the federal ALP was proceeding with “nature positive” legislation aiming to reverse environmental decline and restore biodiversity. These were reforms to environmental laws, particularly the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).

The first part of the legislation successfully passed in December 2023. That established the so-called “water trigger” that enables the federal environment minister to consider the effect of proposed extraction projects on water tables. This is particularly important in relation to the looming prospect of gas fracking in the Kimberley region.

However, when bills passed the House of Representatives in 2024 establishing a federal Environment Protection authority, a data collection body called Environment Information Australia and increased penalties and new enforcement powers in the EPBC Act the WA mining industry oligarchy protested and Roger Cook struck. He said publicly that he was speaking on behalf of a “unity WA ticket” formed by the state’s business and mining industry.

Before the legislation could pass in the Senate, Cook personally contacted Anthony Albanese warning that keeping WA safe for Labor meant grovelling before the mining corporations. In speaking about the resulting debacle, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said the prime minister “has been bullied by the mining and logging lobby again.”

WA Labor also changed the WA Environmental Protection Act so that the state’s EPA is severely restricted in its assessments of proposals. It is no longer allowed to factor in carbon emissions when considering projects. This ensures that carbon criminal corporations like Woodside can operate freely.

Conservatives at “rock bottom”

In 2025 it was expected that the Liberals voting base would revert to traditional loyalties. This would give them at least 10 seats. However, the result was described by Nationals leader Shane Love as “rock bottom” for the conservative parties. “It’s like a drug addict finally realising they have to change,” he said, describing the task ahead for his side of politics.

With counting still proceeding, the ALP is guaranteed 46 of 59 Legislative Assembly seats (down from 53 won in 2021) and probably 16 of 36 in the Legislative Council. The Liberals, Nationals and further right parties will hold 14 Council seats, giving the four Greens MLCs (up from 1) a predominant role.

The results show a very mixed consciousness in the electorate and a deep distrust of what the mainstream parties are serving up as political leadership. WA and federal politicians may want to change their messaging, but how can they decide which is the way forward in WA? Should they wage a culture war? Should they try green washing their policies?

In the state election a couple of notorious Liberal candidates identified with a Trump-like agenda of hatred of trans-sexuality, homeless people and abortion rights did not decisively cut through. If Peter Dutton wants to campaign openly on such culture war issues the WA result would not bring him comfort.

The brazenly reactionary Liberal candidate for Albany, Tom Brough was defeated in a three-way contest with Labor and National candidates. Brough made headlines in 2024 as a town councillor by claiming that the “plus” sign in LGBTQIA+ refers to paedophiles.

Basil Zempilas, who is certain to be the new Liberal leader has been mayor of Perth since 2020 and at the same time maintained his long-term radio shock-jock career. On air, Zempilas made hostile comments about trans-sexual people, offering a one-hundred-dollar Retravision voucher to any caller who “has a penis but is a woman.”

As Mayor, Zempilas drove homeless people out of the Perth city area by using the city’s regulatory powers to shut down charities helping destitute people.

Should it be concluded from his successful run in Churchlands, rewinning the seat for the Liberals that Dutton could gain by staging a Trump-like performance in WA? Probably not.

Zempilas won Churchlands with a swing of only 2.2 percent, the second-lowest swing to the Liberals on the day. Given that he spent a fortune on publicity, flooding the electorate with his image and Liberal propaganda his result is pathetic. It probably registers that traditional Liberal voters are content with ALP-style neo-liberalism and reject the culture war agenda.

ALP in trouble with its voting base

On the other side of the ledger the ALP has to face up to the fact that in Fremantle, which should be its safest seat, it suffered the largest swing against it in the election. It has only retained the seat by the barest of margins.

The issue in play was the McGowan/Cook government’s environmental record, in particular its support for gas fracking in the Kimberley region of north west WA. It is remarkable that an urban electorate nearly flipped a sitting Labor member, who is a cabinet minister on the basis of a climate change issue centred on an area thousands of kilometres away.

The McGowan government banned fracking in all but two percent of WA. Regions close to Perth and the south-east of the state, where vocal environmentalist groups were organised, were spared. The government claimed that the size of the remaining area in the Kimberley was insignificant. In fact, at over 50,597 square kilometres, the designated Kimberley fracking zone is larger than the size of the country of Denmark.

Approximately a year before the election, Frack Free Kimberly activists in conjunction with Lock the Gate began campaigning in Fremantle. Using mass organising techniques they collected over 23,000 signatures on a petition calling on the Cook government to entirely stop fracking in WA.

Yellow, triangular Frack Free Kimberley placards began appearing on front fences. In the months leading up to the election other, larger placards began appearing saying “I’m voting for an MP who will ban fracking in the Kimberley.” These spread like wildfire.

In parallel, the Greens began door-knocking the electorate early. It could have been expected that the Greens would be rewarded for all this consciousness raising. However, a community independent, Kate Hulett swooped in just before the election, lifting Greens policies and backed by a huge advertising budget from the Climate 200 group. She reaped the harvest, coming within 500 votes of unseating ALP minister, Simone McGurk and has now announced her intention to run in the federal seat of Fremantle.

Fremantle registered a swing of 26.4 percent away from Labor. This indicates that Labor’s heartland is sick of ALP back-sliding on environmental issues and possibly on neo-liberalism in general. It appears the Labor base is committed to change.

Albanese/Dutton navigation through stormy WA seas

Can the major parties expect to gain or defend seats in WA by using either a small target strategy or a right-wing culture war strategy?

Realities on the ground make WA volatile and the fact that blue ribbon seats for both sides now have experience of breaking from traditional ties means that more electors may think outside the box in the federal election.

The effects of the housing crisis can be seen on WA streets every day. According to the RUAH charity organisation, 10,000 people experience homelessness in WA every night and almost a quarter of those people are rough sleepers.

WA has the highest proportion of rough sleeping in Australia and the second highest rate of ATSI homelessness in Australia. Almost half of the homelessness population in WA are young people or people over the age of 55 and just under half of the homelessness population are women.

WA desperately needs a housing policy based on recognising social need and not propping up the collection of failed development companies that dominate the industry. The fiasco surrounding Niche Living in 2024 is an example of how negligent the ALP is in these matters.

Western Australia is one of the most urbanised jurisdictions in the world. With a land mass bigger than continental Europe it has a population of just below three million, of whom about 400,000 live outside Perth. Perth residents are increasingly feeling the effects of global warming. Gradually more destructive storms are sweeping through parts of the city.

With both Labor and Liberal failing to properly address climate change the WA electorate could be expected to react badly to either green washing or denialism.

Looming above all this is the construction of the massive AUKUS submarine base at Garden Island, on the southern outskirts of the city. While not a feature of the state election it is a sleeper issue that both Albanese and Dutton would likely want to keep under wraps during the federal campaign.

If Perth residents become aware of the ramifications of what AUKUS means for them they could react in fury.

The nuanced and contradictory results of the WA election and the combination of social, environmental and international issues at the federal level mean that both major parties could find it difficult navigating through the WA electorate.