Libby Mettam: WA Liberal leader has a mountain to climb
Libby Mettam is taking on the challenge of toppling the WA Cook Labor government with the most meagre resources of any major party.
Libby Mettam has what must be the worst job in Australian politics: trying to lead the WA Liberals back from the brink of electoral extinction.
While she continues to tell anyone who will listen that she is running to win, next month’s election is really a test to see whether the former journalist and political staffer can get the party to a position from which it can have a real crack at winning government in 2029.
If Newspoll is correct – and it accurately predicted the 2021 disaster in which the WA Liberals won just two of 59 lower house seats – then Ms Mettam will lead the party to either its second-worst or third-worst result in history. By putting her hand up to lead the party to this election at such a low ebb, she has effectively given up any shot at ever becoming premier herself.
Speaking to The Australian less than four weeks out from the state election, she acknowledged the potential implications for her career but said she had been driven by a determination to try to improve the way the state was being governed.
“This election is certainly not about me,” she said. “There’s nothing personal about the ambition of this election from the Liberal side. It is about being able to deliver a better outcome for Western Australians, and we are seeing such poor outcomes.”
Ms Mettam is taking on the challenge with the most meagre resources of any major party leader. The 2021 election result was so bad it left the Liberals, as Ms Mettam puts it, “effectively wiped out”. They lost their status as the official party of opposition, with that title – along with the increased salary and additional staffing – going to the Shane Love-led Nationals.
It took an act of charity from the Cook government to provide Ms Mettam with a driver and security detail for the four weeks leading up to the election.
In Queensland, when Liberal National Party leader David Crisafulli delivered his election night victory speech last year, he thanked his “humble” staff of 23. Ms Mettam has a staff of four.
The hopelessness around the WA Liberal Party has also meant it is in the leanest financial position of any party in the nation. According to Australian Electoral Commission data released last week, the WA and NSW Liberals were the only two state branches trailing Labor for income.
Ms Mettam faces the added disadvantage of trying to run for premier while also being a regional MP. Her seat of Vasse in WA’s picturesque southwest takes in the tourist town of Dunsborough, where she lives with her winemaker husband (one of his roses recently won a medal) and their chocolate labrador Charlie. It means that Ms Mettam has had to do the six-hour round trip countless times over the course of her parliamentary career.
As the election nears, she wants the voters of WA to remember the saga of the Cook government’s Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act, a new regime introduced in the wake of Rio Tinto’s legal destruction of the Juukan Gorge rockshelters in the Pilbara. Roger Cook repealed the laws in one of his first acts after replacing Mark McGowan as premier after a concerted campaign by the Liberals and Nationals.
That success, achieved off the back of meagre parliamentary numbers, is a pointer of what the party can be capable of. “We’re in it to win,” Ms Mettam said. “And I accept every commentator is saying we can’t, and I accept that we’ve got minimal resources and that getting a message out is very challenging, but we have to be as competitive as we can be.”
One glimmer of hope for the WA Liberals has been the difficulties in the west for Anthony Albanese. The federal government’s sheep live export ban and the since-withdrawn nature positive legislation have proved particularly unpopular in WA.
Ms Mettam says she is mindful that voters differentiate between state and federal Labor, which could limit the extent to which her candidates benefit from Mr Albanese’s falling popularity in WA.
“There’s an opportunity to highlight the fact that Roger Cook has been weak when it comes to standing up to Anthony Albanese on live exports and other issues important to this state,” she said.
“And while nature positive is on hold for now, we cannot trust Labor at a state and federal level to not see nature positive legislation come back in some form.”
While she has a good relationship with federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, she does not have any expectations that he will be joining her on the campaign trail. “There are two very different elections happening and I think the public do understand that,” she said. “I imagine that Peter Dutton’s popularity will continue to grow, and the more people get to know Peter Dutton, and the more time Anthony Albanese has in the prime ministership, will only serve Peter Dutton well.”
Labor has had unchecked power over both houses of parliament since Mr McGowan led the party to that 2021 Covid landslide, and has also enjoyed an unprecedented financial windfall courtesy of iron ore royalties and a controversial GST carve-up.
Despite that, the last term of government delivered little in the way of landmark economic, social or environmental reform.
The government’s only major project of note was the long-awaited Metronet rail line in Perth’s northeast. That was initially expected to cost $3bn, but changes in scope and cost blowouts took the total price to $13bn.
Ms Mettam says the government’s infrastructure record pales in comparison to great Liberal premiers such as Sir Charles Court and Richard Court, and even that of Colin Barnett, who delivered three new hospitals, Optus Stadium and Elizabeth Quay.
“While this government have had the luxury of being able to pull any policy lever that they have liked, thanks to those numbers in the house ... as well as the resources of an iron ore boom and a GST fix delivered by the former federal Coalition government, they have comprehensively failed the people of Western Australia on those key areas that really matter,” she said.
The Liberal campaign has been focusing on health, cost of living, law and order, and housing.
Earlier this year, Ms Mettam became a grandmother when her eldest daughter, Bianca, gave birth to a girl, Remi. Bianca, 25, lives in Wollongong, where she is studying medicine, while 22-year-old Sophie lives and works in Sydney. Ms Mettam is confident neither will follow her into politics.
Last year, Bianca and her partner made a visit to Parliament House. Ms Mettam says they were stunned by the behaviour of the government. “They were pretty shocked, their faces dropped.”
Regardless of the result next month, Ms Mettam hopes the next parliament will operate at a higher standard. “We can do a lot better,” she said.
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