For most new opposition leaders, the biggest challenge is getting the public to know them. For Basil Zempilas, the biggest challenge will be getting the public to like him.
Zempilas arrives in the West Australian Liberal Party’s top job with a level of public profile unmatched by any parliamentary newcomer in the state’s history.
He spent years as the sports newsreader on Perth’s top-rating television station, was a talkback radio host, and called some of the greatest moments in Australia’s Olympic history.
He was a highly visible mayor of the City of Perth and never shied away from picking a fight with the state Labor government if he thought it was in the best interest of his ratepayers.
He is not burdened by the need to wake up West Australians to who he is.
But the downside of having such a high profile is that public opinions about Zempilas are already baked in. And not all of those opinions are favourable.
In the lead-up to the recent state election, Labor’s focus groups found Zempilas to be a polarising figure who was either loved or loathed by the public.
On election night, as results from Zempilas’s targeted seat of Churchlands showed a much tighter race than expected, senior Cook government minister Amber-Jade Sanderson noted that women in particular had mixed views on Zempilas.
While Zempilas bristled at those suggestions, the result from Churchlands backs up Labor’s findings. He won the seat by fewer than 400 votes from incumbent Christine Tonkin, and could only muster a swing of 2.2 per cent, far below the statewide 12.2 per cent two-party-preferred swing to the Liberals.
That result could have been a big reality check for Zempilas and the Liberals, but instead did nothing to dampen the push from his colleagues to install him as leader.
Zempilas now has four years to convince those West Australians in the “loathe” camp that their initial impressions of him were wrong.
History shows it would be a brave call to say that any WA Liberal leader will get four full years in the role.
The party is now onto its seventh leader since Colin Barnett’s defeat in 2017 and, as outgoing upper house MP Peter Collier told reporters on his way into Tuesday’s party room meeting, “when we’re in opposition, we’re not flash” at holding on to leaders.
“That’s one thing the Labor Party actually do well in terms of the fact that they do unify behind a leader, and that’s something we can learn from,” Collier said.
However, there is a growing realisation inside the WA Liberals that the chopping and changing of leaders has to stop.
That, and the absence of any other viable option, should be enough to ensure that Zempilas can buck the trend and lead the party all the way to the 2029 election.
Zempilas brings a big – some would say arrogant – personality to the role, but he also brings an equally large work ethic. He once held four jobs at the same time.
If he can make the most of every minute of those four years, he may finally put the Liberals in a position to be relevant in the west once again.
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