Zempilas says he’s unscathed after rough week in politics
Perth Lord Mayor and Liberal candidate for Churchlands Basil Zempilas says the past week of political turmoil has not damaged his election chances.
Speaking to 6PR’s Gary Adshead this morning he maintained he did not lie about his connection to the polling, facilitated by his former campaign manager Cam Sinclair, that triggered a challenge of Libby Mettam’s Liberal leadership.
Perth Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas is also the WA Liberals’ candidate for the state seat of Churchlands.Credit: 9News Perth
When asked whether this week had damaged his prospects at next year’s state election Zempilas said: “I don’t think so.”
Zempilas has been under increased pressure from Labor ministers this week seeking to exploit the chaos in the Liberal Party as the number of days until the election dropped below 100.
In Parliament on Thursday, Housing Minister John Carey accused Zempilas of blatantly lying to the public in denying he knew Sinclair’s Ammo Marketing agency facilitated the Sodali & Co poll.
The poll had suggested Zempilas replacing Mettam as leader would improve the Liberal primary vote in target seats by 7 per cent.
Zempilas told Adshead he accepted it looked “unusual” but reiterated that until he read about it this week he did not know about the poll or that it had been facilitated by Sinclair, who stepped aside as his campaign manager on Thursday.
“The events of this week were not of my doing, were not of my making, and were not of my encouragement,” he said.
“What other people were doing is a matter for them and clearly some people are no longer in roles that they previously were.”
The identity of a businessman who commissioned Ammo Marketing to do the poll remains unknown despite Mettam challenging the “coward” to come forward.
Zempilas revealed earlier this week he had the businessman’s name and would discuss it with Mettam “if she asked” but on Thursday Mettam said Zempilas had refused to tell her.
Zempilas told 6PR he did not know if that name was correct and it was not his information to pass on, brushing aside questions over why he didn’t call that person himself.
“You want me to ring other people that are responsible for polling as well? Ring and say, ‘How you going? What’s going on? Why did you do that poll?’” he said.
Carey told 6PR that the saga had weakened Mettam’s leadership.
“I’ll tell you what I would do if I was Liberal leader. I’d say, ‘Basil, you tell me now, you tell me the truth. You tell me who funded it, or you’re out of the team’,” he said.
Zempilas also responded to Police Minister Paul Papalia telling Parliament on Thursday that Ammo Marketing helped build the WA Firearms Community Alliance website and by extension was an “architect” of its campaign against gun law reform.
He challenged Zempilas to publicly support the Cook government’s reforms, particularly given he was seeking to represent Churchlands where in May Mark Bombara had fatally shot Jenny Petelczyc, 59, and her 18-year-old daughter Gretl.
Papalia challenged him over which he supported: the “toughest gun laws in the country designed to elevate community safety to a number one consideration”, or the campaign against those laws.
Zempilas said he did support aspects of the laws but the Liberal party’s position was that they had been rushed and needed proper scrutiny.
He said to suggest he had in any way advocated for more guns to be available in the community was insulting, misleading and outrageous.
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