PETER VAN ONSELEN: The rest of Australia doesn’t understand WA – but Albo and Dutton know it’s the key to election salvation

If there is one thing most eastern states Australians know about Western Australia it’s that they don’t think much about it at all.

Perth is the most isolated major city anywhere in the world.

And if there is one thing West Aussies know about the rest of the country, it’s that it doesn’t understand WA one little bit.

Which is why east coast political leaders have to work very hard to win over WA voters.

That doesn’t always happen, because there are only 15 Federal seats in the west compared to 136 elsewhere around the country.

But WA does tend to swing wildly at elections, or not at all. In 2022 it fell in behind Anthony Albanese’s Labor Party.

It was the first time Labor picked up more WA seats than the Coalition in decades.

But it came off the back of the Mark McGowan years where the premier loomed like 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.

But the Premier who had an approval rating of over 90 per cent during the pandemic has retired from politics. 

The question is, can an incumbent federal Labor Party retain the share of seats it won in the west again? Because if it can’t, it won’t retain its majority.

I’ve spent the past two weeks back in WA, during which time Opposition Leader Peter Dutton made a visit, staying longer than leaders often do.

Today Anthony Albanese is making a flying visit to the state where he strategically launched his 2022 election campaign in a bid to appeal to the locals.

As coincidence would have it Scott Morrison will be here next week as a witness in the Linda Reynolds – Brittany Higgins defamation case.

Suddenly Perth is the centre of the world!

How votes swing in this state at the next federal poll will be interesting viewing.

WA isn’t suffering economically the same way the rest of the country is. Not yet. It may do so if the PM delays the election until next year and the mining boom continues to come off as inflation rises and cost of living pressure bite.

WA has always been a boom or bust economy.

Labor stormed to victory in the west at the last election, picking up the seats of Hasluck, Swan, Pearce and Tagney from the Liberals.

Liberals also lost Curtin to a teal, Stirling was abolished in a redistribution and they almost lost the seat of Moore too.

The results were a disaster for the conservative side of politics.

At the next election a new seat is being formed in WA to account for a rise in population, and Liberals look set to pre-select an excellent candidate in Matt Moran to try and win the seat.

Not the chef – his namesake is an Afghan veteran.

If there is one thing most eastern states Australians know about Western Australia it’s that they don’t think much about it at all. Above, a scenic view of the Swan River

But party strategists are divided over whether or not the state’s seats will swing back to the Liberals, or give Labor in government a second chance to improve their game.

Which is why both party leaders are spending time here. They know winning the west will be all important to whether or not Labor can retain majority government.

Equally, if the Liberals can reclaim the share of seats they previously held over here they just might be in a position to compete to form government themselves.

So while the rest of the country barely tunes in to the flying visits west being made by our political leaders, no one should underestimate the importance of them doing so as they seek to cobble together the numbers they need to govern after the looming federal election.