Election 2022: Debt to be paid for Mark McGowan’s role in ALP win

Mark McGowan is to use his new-found role as the kingmaker of Australian politics to protect WA’s increased share of the GST.

West Australian Premier Mark McGowan, left. with Anthony Albanese at the Labor campaign launch in Perth. Picture: Twitter

Mark McGowan is to use his new-found role as the kingmaker of Australian politics to protect Western Australia’s increased share of the GST and push for more federal funding for remote Aboriginal communities and a bigger share of defence contracts.

The Premier was a significant factor in the WA swing that won Anthony Albanese the prime ministership and Labor a ­majority. The party recorded an 11 per cent swing in traditionally conservative-leaning WA. Labor recorded its highest two-party-preferred result in the state, with the Liberals reduced from 11 seats after the 2019 election to just five.

Observers have warned that the increased significance of WA federally, and Mr McGowan’s prominent role in Labor’s successful campaign in the state, could cause headaches for the Albanese government as other Labor states step up calls for GST reform and some federal MPs try to curtail the progress of major gas projects in WA.

Mr McGowan’s growing influence showed during the campaign itself, when he quickly snuffed out talk from his federal colleagues about a potential end to the live export industry. He has already called for tempered language from Canberra towards WA’s biggest trading partner, China, and has also made it clear he expects to see a strong representation of WA MPs in federal cabinet.

Sources close to Labor in WA said Mr McGowan, who has long proven adept at securing cash from Canberra, would lobby for more federal funding for Aboriginal communities and seek more major defence contracts for the state.

Anthony Albanese with WA Premier Mark McGowan in Perth during the election campaign. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

In his press conferences since the election, Mr McGowan ­labelled Peter Dutton an unintelligent extremist, criticised ­Victoria’s Labor government over its Commonwealth Games spending, branded Clive Palmer’s supporters misfits and losers, and slammed the conduct of the Canberra press pack. He has also made it clear he expects the debate of the GST carve-up is over.

“Western Australia getting 70c back for every dollar we put in is hardly fair, but it’s far better than what we were getting before,” he said this week. “So the arrangement is permanent as far as I’m concerned and that’s the assurance I’ve had from all of my now federal colleagues, Mr Albanese and Mr (Jim) Chalmers and other federal colleagues.”

But the man he dethroned as WA premier, Colin Barnett, has warned that Mr McGowan may not be smiling for long if history is anything to go by.

Mr Barnett, who came to power during the first Rudd government, says he saw first-hand how his Labor counterparts had to fall in line with the policy decisions of Canberra – such as the mining tax and the proposed federal takeover of the health system – and expects to see the same ­dynamics under Mr Albanese.

“I don’t think Albanese is the same sort of character as Rudd, but I think you will see pushes by the federal government to have stronger control over states, particularly where there are Labor premiers,” he said.

He sees the GST deal, a resurrected mining tax, and federal ­resistance to planned gas projects as the key areas where WA could end up worse off.

Labor states Victoria and South Australia have already called for changes in the GST, while the increased parliamentary influence of the Greens and the perceived role of climate change in the election result could also cause federal roadblocks for the likes of the $16bn Scarborough LNG project in WA.

Peter Kennedy, the author of the anthology Tales from Boomtown: Western Australian Premiers from Brand to McGowan, says he has never seen a WA premier with the Canberra influence of Mr McGowan.

“A prime minister, when push comes to shove, will try to pull rank on a state Labor premier, but that massive result on Saturday makes WA Labor very important to federal Labor, particularly when you look at federal Labor’s poor first-preference vote,” he said. “The federal Labor bargaining position over Western Australia is not very strong, and McGowan would remind anyone who tried to pull rank on him of that score.”

He said Labor had paid a heavy price at both a federal and state level in the past when prime ministers ignored the interests of WA. The Rudd government’s ­attempt to introduce a mining tax marked the start of a decade in the wilderness for Labor in WA and paved the way for the Liberals to dominate federal politics in the state.