Dirt sheet sees WA Liberal leader race turn nasty

The battle for the leadership of the WA Liberal Party has turned nasty, with the circulation of a dirt sheet on emerging favourite Zak Kirkup.

WA Liberal MP Zak Kirkup. Picture: Facebook

The battle for the leadership of the West Australian Liberal Party has turned nasty, with the circulation of a dirt sheet on political cleanskin and emerging favourite Zak Kirkup claiming the 33-year-old had a “women problem”.

State Liberal MP Alyssa Hayden, who has known Mr Kirkup since he was 16 years old, ­described the note — titled Zak Kirkup has a women problem — as fundamentally wrong and dirty. It was circulated without attribution to an author, and MPs contacted by The Australian on Monday said they did not know where it came from.

“He doesn’t have a female problem. I have always found Zak very respectful to women,” Ms Hayden said.

“This is a dirty low blow.”

Liberal powerbroker Peter Collier is backing Mr Kirkup in Tuesday’s leadership spill, triggered by current leader Liza Harvey’s announcement on Sunday — six months before the state election — that she would step down. Internal polling told the WA Liberals they were headed for a wipeout in March.

The Australian has been told Ms Harvey had agreed to step down if the party’s polling got worse and it did.

Supporters of Mr Kirkup, a former political staffer, were on Monday confident he had at least 12 of the 22 votes required to beat main rival Dean Nalder. Mr ­Nalder, a former banking executive and minister in the Barnett government, told The Australian he believed Tuesday’s vote would be close. He was focused on a strong reform agenda targeting both stamp duty and payroll tax. He said he had not seen the note about Mr Kirkup.

The note alleged Mr Kirkup had a “credibility gap with both female parliamentary members and female voters” that was ­“accentuated by the breakdown of his own marriage in 2018-19”. The note about Mr Kirkup referred to his new relationship with the assistant editor of The West Australian, Jenna Clarke.

The relationship is well known in Perth’s political and media circles. The Australian understands that if Mr Kirkup becomes the state opposition leader on Tuesday, Ms Clarke’s role at the newspaper will become more clearly defined in an effort to protect the newspaper from allegations of conflict.

On Monday Mr Kirkup said he believed it was important for the WA Liberals to have a unified team during the state election campaign.

“We have a herculean task ahead of us,” Mr Kirkup said.

The WA Liberals lost in a landslide in 2017 after the end of the construction phase of the last resources boom. House prices began to fall and the state that once drew 1000 new residents a week began to experience an ­exodus.

Before the pandemic, the WA Liberals saw the 2021 election as a chance to claw back some of the seats they lost in 2017 and maybe even pull off an upset win.

But Premier Mark McGowan’s popularity soared because of his deft handling of the corona­virus crisis, effectively protecting the mining industry and jobs while locking the state’s borders. He had an 89 per cent approval rating at the end of April, according to Newspoll.