Call for heads to roll over WA Liberals’ election debacle

The man who led a damning ­investigation into the WA Liberals’ record-breaking 2021 election defeat has called for the party’s entire state executive to be replaced.

Mark Trowell KC. Picture: Colin Murty

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The man who led a damning ­investigation into the WA Liberals’ record-breaking 2021 election defeat has called for the party’s entire state executive to be replaced in the wake of the weekend’s latest landslide defeat.

Mark Trowell KC told The Australian the party’s future was at risk without more action being taken to address the multiple ­issues identified by him and long-term Liberal stalwart Danielle Blain in their 2021 review.

That review warned that the party was “near extinction” without sweeping changes to the ­organisation and its culture. Mr Trowell said the weekend’s result – a third straight landslide defeat which has so far seen the party claim only five of 59 lower-house seats – showed that the party was “drifting to oblivion”.

“It’s not an aberration, it’s a trend. It’s not a one off. It’s not something you can explain away with Covid or (Mark) McGowan or something else,” he said. “It’s happened since 2017, and if they can’t reverse that trend, I think it’s all over.”

He said the latest result was even worse than 2021 and he called for wholesale changes to the party’s leadership.

“Frankly, the state executive of the Liberal Party should all resign and make way for others, because under their administration the Liberal Party has been a disaster,” he said. “The Liberal Party has really become irrelevant to voters. The danger is that the longer the party spends in the wilderness, that it may become a permanent feature of elections.”

He said that while some of the recommendations put forward by him and Ms Blain in 2021 had been adopted, many of their suggestions had been brushed aside.

He said there had been a prevailing and ultimately misguided view from many in the party that the Liberal vote would self-correct from the dismal levels of 2021.

“After we provided the report, we heard so many people say, ‘Oh well, look, this is just cyclical, it’ll all turn around, and we’ll get back the seats that we’ve lost’. But we said that’s just not going to work, because this was a highly unusual situation where the party had found itself completely lacking in terms of performance and policy, and the voters didn’t trust the Liberals,” he said.

WA Liberal leader Libby Mettam. Picture: Paul Garvey

He said that while the efforts of Liberal leader Libby Mettam could not be criticised, the party itself had not done enough to differentiate itself from Labor. A ­failed attempt to replace Ms Mettam with Basil Zempilas last November further hurt the party’s prospects.

“The party has no policy or ­vision for WA and, with some ­exceptions, it’s suffered from a very ordinary pool of talent and candidates. The factional control and manipulation is still firmly in place,” he said. “And then you’ve got the proposed leadership challenge months before an election. I mean, are you kidding me?”

The reforms that were introduced in the wake of his report, he said, had not gone far enough to curtail the influence of factions – including the so-called Clan – over preselections and party decisions. Those factions, he said, were more interested in controlling their influence over the party rather than helping it get to a position of influence.

“They have presided over what potentially could be the ­demise of the Liberal Party in this state,” he said.

Liberal Party WA president Caroline di Russo hit back at Mr Trowell’s criticisms. “A majority of the recommendations of the review were adopted. Mark Trowell is entitled to his opinion, but that is the fact,” she said.

Liberal Party WA president Caroline di Russo

The reforms to the party’s preselection process since 2021, she said, had led to the most open and competitive preselections in the party’s history. Multiple candidates had emerged who would have struggled to secure a nomination under the old system.

“Is it perfect? No, it was never going to be perfect, but it has been a substantial and marked improvement,” she said.

Ms Mettam played down suggestions the perceived influence of the Clan had hurt the Liberals. “There is no Clan ... we have gone through a rigorous reform process,” she told the ABC.