Labor’s latest western triumph ‘the template for Albo’

WA Labor’s latest landslide was built on the biggest research spend in its history, frequent focus groups, and a volunteer army. State secretary Ellie Whiteaker says it’s a template.

Anthony Albanese in Perth with Swan federal MP Zaneta Mascarenhas at Curtin University on Friday. Picture: NewsWire/Philip Gostelow

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One of the masterminds behind Labor’s emphatic West Australian election win says Anthony Albanese must appeal to the paro­chialism of West Australians if he is to hold on to the gains made in the state.

WA Labor state secretary Ellie Whiteaker was a key figure in the campaign committee that delivered last Saturday’s successful re-election of the Cook government.

The committee – comprising Ms Whiteaker, her deputy Lauren Cayoun, Premier Roger Cook, Treasurer Rita Saffioti, Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson, Emergency Services Minister Stephen Dawson and Resources Minister David Michael – met daily throughout the campaign, which culminated in a third successive landslide Labor win and the second-biggest victory in the party’s history.

Ms Whiteaker – who holds the lead spot on the Senate ticket for the upcoming federal election – said the successful state campaign had provided a template for the Albanese government.

“It’s really important for anyone campaigning in WA to talk up WA,” she said. “Western Australians are proud of our state, they think we’re doing well, and they want us to continue on to do well. And anyone who tries to talk that success down does so at their own peril.

WA Labor state secretary Ellie Whiteaker. Picture: Paul Garvey

“I do think that WA pride, that WA parochialism really does exist and is an important factor in any campaign.”

Labor in 2022 ran for the first time a dedicated WA campaign. That helped Labor to its best-ever result in WA, with the four seats won by Labor in the state allowing Anthony Albanese to form majority government.

Labor’s ability to hold those WA seats will determine whether that remains the case, and Ms Whiteaker said the party would again be running a specific campaign tailored to WA audiences.

“There is an understanding that things are different in WA, the sentiment is different in WA in any given election – and so you have to take a WA approach to a campaign,” Ms Whiteaker said.

Labor plans to have a constant procession of federal Labor ministers through WA during the campaign, with Mr Albanese, Defence Minister Richard Marles and Health Minister Mark Butler likely to be particularly prominent.

Labor has long maintained that the Prime Minister’s popularity is holding up better in the west than in other parts of the country, and Ms Whiteaker said the Cook government’s emphatic re-election showed the strength of the Labor brand in WA.

“It shows that Western Australians do have faith in Labor governments,” she said.

“They do think Labor governments can deliver and have delivered for them. And that certainly gives us a lot of energy heading into this election.

“Our aim is to hold the seats that we won in 2022 and to win (the newly created seat of) Bullwinkel. I thought that was possible before the eighth of March, and I think that’s possible now.”

Last weekend’s victory was the third massive win in a row by WA Labor and is rated by Ms Whiteaker as the best.

The 2017 win came against a longserving Liberal government that was on the nose, while 2021 was a Covid election at the height of Mark McGowan’s popularity.

This election, for a Labor Party seeking a third term, headed by a new Premier, and at a time when incumbent governments around Australia and the world were being rejected by voters, had the ingredients for a strong Liberal result but that never materialised.

The Liberals have so far secured only five of 59 lower house seats. “A third term is historic, and we knew going into it that if we could secure a third term, regardless of the size of the win, that would be a huge achievement. But to come in and not only achieve a third term, but the second-best result we’ve ever seen for WA Labor is pretty extraordinary,” she said.

Ms Whiteaker said Labor carried out three times as much research during this campaign than they did in 2021.

That started immediately after that 2021 win, and kicked up a gear as soon as Mr Cook was named as Mr McGowan’s successor.

“We don’t take any guesses. Every decision we make in the campaign is driven by research,” she said. “We invested a lot of time in getting the Roger story right.”

WA Premier Roger Cook wrestles with an election day hotdog after casting his vote at Calista Primary School in Perth’s southern suburbs. Picture: Paul Garvey

Roger Cook celebrates his win with his family at the Labor election night main party in Perth.

Labor began running focus groups multiple times a week after Mr Cook became Premier, and continued that right through the campaign. Those findings were combined with sophisticated data modelling looking at voting trends and demographic trends.

One of the key findings to emerge from those focus groups was a perception that the Liberals’ star candidate, media personality and former City of Perth lord mayor Basil Zempilas, was not as popular as the Liberals thought.

“We knew from day one that Basil was extremely polarising,” Ms Whiteaker said. “(Voters) don’t believe that Basil has the state’s best interests at heart. They think that Basil is all about Basil; there’s a sense that he’s in it for himself.”

Labor focused heavily on Mr Zempilas, prompting him to lament he was the target of a $1m smear campaign. In a vindication of Labor’s research and campaign, Mr Zempilas only narrowly scraped home in the former Liberal stronghold of Churchlands.

Ms Whiteaker denied that the focus on Mr Zempilas was done with an eye to the next election, at which Mr Zempilas is widely expected to be opposition leader.

“A lot of people have asked me whether that was a strategy for 2029 but every election is about that election. He was in our ads because we knew that he was not winning votes for the Liberal Party,” she said.

Labor also benefited from a lack of a bold policy vision from the Liberal campaign, with Liberal leader Libby Mettam failing to pitch any major signature policy.

West Australian Liberal Leader Libby Mettam makes her concession speech. Picture: Paul Garvey

While everyone knew the Liberals would lose the election, given the size of their 2021 defeat, this election could have presented an opportunity to pitch a grand idea that could have captured the imagination and given the party something to build on.

Ms Whiteaker noted Labor had first pitched its Metronet rail project in the unsuccessful 2013 state campaign. That project was finally completed in the weeks leading up to the election.

The negativity of the Liberal campaign about the state of play in WA, she said, simply did not match up with the experiences of many West Australians.

“If you look at everything from their advertising to even the announcements they were making towards the end of the campaign, there was nothing really capturing people’s attention. There was nothing that kind of kept that narrative going,” she said.

“In particular, their attacks on us were extremely inconsistent and didn’t match with how people were feeling about how Western Australia was going.”

The Liberals repeatedly lamented their lack of resources during the campaign, while Labor had the benefit of not only a massive pool of incumbent MPs but also an army of volunteers.

Ms Whiteaker said Labor MPs and volunteers together knocked on 227,269 doors and made 148,494 phone calls during the campaign.

That, Ms Whiteaker said, was the most effective tool at the party’s disposal.

And it will be put to use again in the coming weeks as the federal poll nears.