Why is Anthony Albanese launching Labor’s election campaign in Perth?

The West Australian Labor Party’s story has been a fairytale the past two years and now their federal counterparts hope to write a sequel with Anthony Albanese as the protagonist.

Chapter one will begin with the party bringing its official campaign launch to Optus Stadium on Sunday – the first time a major party has done so in the city since the 1940s when, as one senior Labor member put it, wartime prime minister John Curtin “stood on a stump somewhere” in Perth.

Mark McGowan and Anthony Albanese at an announcement in Perth earlier in April. Credit: Matt Jelonek/Getty Images

Labor needs to gain eight seats to form government next month and Western Australia was no help to the party at the 2019 election, failing to provide any new seats.

This time around, though, polling suggests a fruitful outing for Labor in WA and the metro Liberal seats of Swan, Pearce and Hasluck are prime targets, making the state key to Anthony Albanese’s path to victory.

Notre Dame politics professor Martin Drum said the launch’s location sent a strong signal of how crucial the state was to Labor’s prospects.

“You launch campaigns in areas which you think are important, and you are genuinely hoping to do well and to make an impact,” he said.

“If three seats were to change hands, that would make an enormous difference to Labor.”

Perth MP and Labor’s shadow assistant minister for Western Australia, Patrick Gorman, said the launch was the political equivalent of bringing the AFL grand final to Perth.

“Following in the footsteps of John Curtin it shows that Anthony Albanese understands Western Australia,” he said.

The McGowan factor

WA Premier Mark McGowan will feature heavily at the launch.

He razed the state Liberal Party’s parliamentary presence to just two lower house seats in March 2021 on the back of his government’s management of COVID-19, and continues to command high levels of popularity, with an approval rating of 64 per cent in February even after controversy over restrictions and vaccine mandates.

WA has the nation’s highest vaccine booster rate, the lowest COVID-19 hospitalisation rate, and another record-breaking multibillion-dollar surplus is expected to be handed down in the May 12 Budget.

McGowan copped criticism from within his own party after he appeared alongside Scott Morrison just weeks before the election was announced, but three weeks out all has been forgiven. Labor is actively pitting Morrison against McGowan on social media, particularly when it comes to economic management and the pandemic.

The pandemic is a sore point for the Coalition in WA after it supported Clive Palmer’s High Court challenge to the state’s hard border. The policy, which was in place for 23 months, won McGowan support within WA but was often a flashpoint with other states and the Morrison government. Morrison criticised states keeping hard border policies in place as ‘cave people’ in a reference to the children’s movie The Croods.

Whenever Morrison fields questions about McGowan he is quick to point out the contest is between himself and Albanese, and that the WA Premier will still be Premier after election night.

One Labor MP, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so they could discuss the campaign freely, said their party planned to push the Coalition harder on the Palmer case and on comments made by senior Coalition MPs – including Barnaby Joyce likening WA to North Korea – during the pandemic.

“There is a tone that lacks respect for the West,” they said.

“Not one Liberal politician from WA broke ranks over the border case.”

The MP said the McGowan government’s budget wins also bode well for federal Labor.

WA Labor and Labor members are pitting Mark McGowan against Scott Morrison in election material.Credit: Facebook

“I think part of the thing that Mark and the team have done in WA is just shift the dial on how people see and trust Labor on those big economic questions,” they said.

Drum said McGowan’s presence at the campaign would be used to drum up support from WA voters, but the party would need to balance the message so McGowan didn’t put off eastern states Labor supporters.

“It’s a delicate balancing act, because on the one hand, you’ve got a situation where all those tactics make sense in WA but there’s a national campaign message you’re giving,” he said.

“It’s not really clear that McGowan’s government has any popularity beyond our borders. In fact, the odd disparaging comment he might have made about other states might [mean] the opposite.”

McGowan, who was also isolating after contracting COVID at the same time as Albanese this week, told media upon re-emergence on Thursday that he was looking forward to the Opposition Leader arriving in WA.

Seats in play

If Labor nab their target seats from their opponents they will even a ledger that has been skewed towards the Liberals since the Hawke era.

Pearce, held with a margin of 5.2 per cent, and Swan, held by 3.2 per cent, are considered the party’s best prospects thanks to the retirements of party stalwarts Christian Porter and Steve Irons.

Hasluck is considered a tougher prospect due to the personal profile of its incumbent, Indigenous Affairs Minister Ken Wyatt, who holds a 5.9 per cent margin.

Brand MP and opposition resources spokeswoman Madeleine King, who won’t be able to make the campaign launch after contracting COVID-19, said retirements breathed life into elections.

“That’s always, in any seat, an opportunity for change because you’ve got two new names and less influence of the incumbency,” she said.

King said Pearce, being contested by Labor’s Tracey Roberts and the Liberals’ Linda Aitken, had morphed into more of a Labor seat thanks to significant boundary redraws.

“It’s increasingly urbanised, kind of like Brand to be honest, that sort of outer suburban area,” she said.

Earlier this month Morrison said Labor was “counting seats as won before the vote was cast” in the west.

“I think that hubris of counting seats on the path of the Labor Party, assuming they have already won them, I think is quite offensive to people,” he said.

A WA Liberal party spokesperson said every seat in WA was important to the Liberal Party.

“Our candidates are talking with their communities about the Morrison government’s plan to keep the WA economy strong and build a stronger future for this state.”

Cut through the noise of the federal election campaign with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Sign up to our Australia Votes 2022 newsletter here.