Basil Zempilas ready to add flavour to WA parliament

Basil Zempilas acknowledges that he can be polarising, but argues that Labor’s attacks on him have backfired.

Liberal candidate for Churchlands Basil Zempilas with wife Amy and supporters at Jackadder Lake in Woodlands.

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Ask Churchlands resident Stephanie Power where Basil Zempilas’s political career could take him, and her finger points straight to the sky.

“To the very top,” she says, without hesitation.

Ms Power was one of the dozens of supporters to turn out for Mr Zempilas – the longstanding media personality, City of Perth lord mayor and great hope of Western Australia’s embattled Liberal Party – at a recent event at Jackadder Lake, in the middle of the Churchlands electorate where Mr Zempilas is running.

She told The Australian she had been keeping an eye on his career since his days as a lanky, ponytailed ruckman for the West Perth Falcons in the early 1990s and believes he has was it takes to be premier one day.

“I have followed Basil since he was a teenager playing WAFL football,” she said.

“I just have a lot of faith in him. Even before he stood for the seat, I’ve always admired him as a person anyway. I think he’s a man of principle, he has a nice young family, he knows what’s going on and how to fix things. I just hope that we see him in parliament.”

The arrival of Mr Zempilas on the WA political scene has added a much-needed element of interest to a state election campaign that, given Labor’s seemingly inevitable path to victory, has been lacking in tension.

His presence has caused headaches for both Labor and the Liberals, with Liberal leader Libby Mettam having to juggle the desire to make the most of one of her most valuable candidates with the need to keep the person most likely to take her job under ­control.

Labor, meanwhile, appears to be grappling to find the best way to counter Mr Zempilas.

On the day the writs were issued for next month’s election, Premier Roger Cook used his first press conference of the official campaign to launch an unprompted spray against Mr Zempilas. He repeated the dose over the next few days, while Labor rolled out campaign advertising that highlighted Mr Zempilas’ record as mayor and his role in a failed leadership coup against Ms Mettam.

Sources close to Labor say the party’s research has found Mr Zempilas to be a polarising figure. The TV and radio veteran has no shortage of self-confidence, which can come across to many as arrogance.

Yet after mentioning Mr Zempilas by name some 33 times during the first four press conferences of the campaign, Mr Cook has not spoken his name since. It’s a shift that has not gone unnoticed by Mr Zempilas, who says it is clear that Labor has realised that its attacks on him have backfired.

“Their focus on me has been a diversionary tactic,” he told The Australian. “They would prefer people looking at anything other than their record, their record in housing, their record in spending, their record in health, which by every measure really is quite ­appalling,”

The “polarising” tag, he says, is something he has carried with him throughout his three decades in broadcast media.

“But nobody has questioned my work ethic. Nobody says they don’t respect what I do, or my prioritising of Western Australia and always pushing WA and Perth up. Nobody has said to me they think I’m not somebody that can get things done,” he said.

“Not everybody has to love you in politics. Not everybody loves Roger Cook, believe it or not, not everybody loves (deputy leader) Rita Saffioti, but there are people who respect politicians that can get a job done.

So the longer they go with that line and convince themselves that it’s helping their cause, the better it is for me and the Libs, because the reality is people want candidates and politicians who can help bring about change, who can make their lives better, and will listen to what they need. I know that that’s how people see me.”

Assuming Mr Zempilas is elected – Labor’s Christine Tonkin won the previously forever Liberal seat by a margin of just 1.6 per cent in 2021 – he will arrive in ­parliament with a profile unlike any other novice MP.

His name recognition will be on a par with, if not even better than, the Premier and he is a better media performer than arguably any other parliamentarian.

The dislike towards Mr Zempilas from some within Labor is genuine, not just strategic, and parliamentary question time is likely to go up another gear.

While Mr Zempilas maintains that the aim of the Liberal campaign is to win government, he says the number of new Liberal faces set to enter parliament means another stint in opposition won’t carry the baggage that it typically does for career politicians. If we fall short, no problem. Because I understand that the people that will have won their seats are committed, they’re hungry, they’re largely, like me, first-timers,” he said.