Follow the McGowan playbook, Albanese told

WA senator Glenn Sterle says federal Labor can win a majority of seats in the state with the right policy agenda and political strategy.

Illustration: Johannes Leak

West Australian senator Glenn Sterle says federal Labor can win a majority of seats in the state if it takes a leaf from the playbook of Mark McGowan and promotes itself as being pro-mining and supportive of the China relationship.

Senator Sterle was among WA MPs who declared the stunning victory for Mr McGowan in the state election showed federal Labor could win over the west if Anthony Albanese went into the election with the right policy agenda and political strategy.

Senator Glenn Sterle. Picture: File

“It is very easy to win the hearts and minds of West Australians if we promote blue-collar industries. Mining is integral to our economy and China is not our enemy. It is not hard,” Senator Sterle told The Australian.

“Not only mining but blue-collar industries. This is a state that is built on the back of fluoro shirts: resources, transport, construction. We are a blue-collar industry state.”

Labor won just five out of 16 seats in WA at the 2019 federal election, with a primary vote of 29.8 per cent.

With counting under way on Sunday, the WA state Labor government had registered a primary vote of 59 per cent, up from the 2017 primary of 42 per cent.

At a federal level, Labor has not won a majority of seats in WA since Paul Keating led the party to victory in 1993. The federal party’s highest primary vote in the state since the Rudd government's mining tax fiasco was 32.5 per cent in 2016.

Labor’s primary vote in WA was 31.1 per cent in the 2010 election and 28.8 per cent in 2013.

The federal Opposition Leader said Mr McGowan’s victory was “good news” for federal Labor ahead of the next election. “The fact is, many people have voted Labor for the first time. It shows they’re open to voting Labor and I take great encouragement from it,” he told Sky News.

The situation in WA mirrors Queensland, where Labor’s primary vote at a federal level has been lower than 34 per cent at every election since 2007, including lower than 30 per cent on two of those occasions.

This is despite Labor domin­ating Queensland at a state level, losing just one election since Wayne Goss won in 1989.

There are concerns from some within Labor that the caucus, dominated by NSW and Victorian MPs, sees the resource-rich states as “too hard” to win at a federal level as the party increasingly appeals to the environmental vote.

Mr Albanese appointed WA MP Madeleine King the party’s resources spokeswoman in January in an effort to lift Labor’s stocks in the state.

WA senator Louise Pratt said the state “needs to be taken seriously” as an area of potential gains for federal Labor. “You can’t presume that it is a Liberal state,” she said.

“Clearly there is strong momentum and opportunity here and federal Labor should be delivering for WA so we can make the most of that.”

Perth MP Patrick Gorman said “federal Labor are still the underdogs in WA but if we never give up, stay disciplined, develop clear ­policies and focus on jobs, we can win the next federal election”.

“We will continue to show that the Labor values of being on the side of Western Australians is in our federal DNA,” he said.

Burt MP Matt Keogh said it would be “hard to imagine” some of state Labor’s support in WA would not translate federally.

“The overall impact of that is hard to assess before we at least see the draft boundaries of the WA redistribution at the end of the week,” he said.