West Australian election: How long before feds step in to shambolic WA Libs?

West Australian Premier Mark McGowan. Picture: Colin Murty

The amateur-hour spectacle of the WA Liberal Party’s pre-election surrender could soon warrant an unprecedented federal intervention.

This is where the debacle is headed if the WA Coalition is plunged into single-digit status in the lower house, as predicted.

It may well become a self-fulfilling prophecy after the admission by neophyte Liberal leader 34-year-old Zak Kirkup that they had already lost the state election three weeks before it is held.

Considering pre-polling started this week, this sort of ridiculous message can only add to the slaughter. Which would be fine in Canberra if it didn’t threaten to have some sort of residual impact on the federal scene for Scott Morrison.

Zak Kirkup. Picture: Colin Murty

The front page of yesterday's West Australian.

Morrison’s key messaging has, is and will continue to be that the Coalition is the political emblem of stability and competence. Kirkup is telling WA voters that the Coalition in their state is not only incompetent but a joke.

His green energy plans directly repudiate the pro-worker and pro-mining platform Morrison took to the 2019 federal election.

Federal MP Andrew Hastie, whose local state member is Kirkup, must be beside himself.

For Morrison, the real danger is brand damage.

If the polls are correct, and such as the numbers are on the floor of the WA parliament, the Nationals could well become the dominant Coalition party in WA after the election.

The Liberal Party, unlike Labor, doesn’t have a history of federal intervention when state divisions go rogue.

Considering the WA division has usually been a Coalition powerhouse, having governed in that state for 44 of the past 74 years — since the Liberals first took office — the demise of the party is even more spectacular.

And if the electoral carnage is as bad as predicted, it is hard to imagine how a federal intervention could not be considered for WA.

The LNP has been on the cusp of it, and if the Victorian Liberals continue their preference for golfing and boating weekends, it may head that way as well.

Most voters are savvy enough to brand differentiate between the state and federal parties. But the political messaging coming out of the WA division could not be more at odds with Morrison.

Federal Liberal MPs from that state are in despair.

And the division is clearly suffering from the absence of Mathias Cormann, who would likely have stepped in to stop Kirkup becoming leader and prevented the party embarking on a policy platform that contradicts so starkly that of the federal Coalition government.