‘Not a quitter’: Mettam retains leadership after Zempilas push fails

Libby Mettam remains the leader of the WA Liberals after a party room motion that would have opened the door for Perth Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas to head their election campaign failed.

Mettam threw down the gauntlet to challengers after polling handed to her office by federal Liberal candidate Ben Small a fortnight ago predicted the “immediate appointment” of Zempilas as leader would allow the flailing party to gain back five seats at the state election.

Perth Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas, WA Liberal leader Libby Mettam. Credit: WAtoday

She labelled the polling, commissioned by a mystery Perth business person with links to the party, as ‘flawed and clearly biased’, and challenged anyone who wished to be leader to move a no-confidence motion against her during a party meeting on Tuesday morning.

“Today at the Party Room meeting of the WA Liberals, I gave my colleagues the opportunity to move a motion of no confidence. No one did,” she said.

“We can now put this debacle behind us and move forward as a party to contest the March 2025 state election.

Following the meeting, Mettam said she had secured a clear mandate for her leadership which put a line in the sand.

She also took aim at the mystery businessman who commissioned the poll, urging media to expose them.

”It would be of benefit to the people of Western Australia for the individual businessmen to come forward who commissioned the poll,” she said.

“There is some great work that can be done by journalists of this state to find out who has commissioned such a poll and is trying to intervene in this way.”

Zempilas told media he had nothing to do with the polling nor did he have anything to do with its leaking and he unequivocally backed Mettam.

However, he was more ambiguous when asked whether he would rule out taking on a campaign leader role if it was presented to him.

“I can’t rule something out that I’m not a party to...it’s not something that I’ve considered, clearly, I heard about it today, but it’s not something that I have ever given any thought to, because it’s not a situation that I saw eventuating, or actually even a possibility,” he said.

Zempilas said he had been told a name behind the polling but would not share it. He said, however, he may share it with Mettam.

“I might discuss it with her, but she hasn’t asked, and I don’t feel like it’s my information to share,” he said.

During the party meeting, a motion by Neil Thomson to have both a parliamentary leader and a campaign leader failed.

Earlier on Tuesday, Mettam accused those who commissioned the polling of undermining her leadership.

Sodali & Co polling on the WA Liberal Party.

“Constant undermining of leaders, especially from the shadows within, is a sad reality in politics today,” she said.

“But rather than weaken me it has made me stronger and more determined to succeed – not for myself, but for the people of Western Australia who deserve better.

“I’m not a quitter, I’m a fighter.”

The polling, conducted in target seats for the Liberals including Churchlands, Nedlands, South Perth, Bateman, Bicton, Carine, Riverton, Scarborough, Dawesville, Hillarys and Kalamunda, suggests another catastrophic election for the Liberals come March.

The party currently holds just three out of 59 seats in the Legislative Assembly, with the polling predicting it’s gone backwards since the 2021 election, from 35 per cent of the primary vote to just 31 per cent.

The polling suggested Mettam leading the party to the next election would result in a 3 per cent swing away from the Liberals, and that swapping her out with Zempilas would result in a 4 per cent swing toward the party resulting in victories in Churchlands, Nedlands and Carine, and putting Bateman and Scarborough in striking distance.

One in five had never heard of Mettam, while Zempilas ranked favourably with older West Australians.

Mettam said the polling had been assessed by a reputable specialist who said it showed obvious bias and was “an exercise loaded in favour of Zempilas, masquerading as genuine voter insight”.

Many elements of it, including the key ‘aided’ vote measure used to make the central argument regarding Zempilas, had not adopted a statistically rigorous or transparent approach and provided no meaningful insight, she said.

The polling asked directly about how people would vote if Zempilas was leader.

She said while the poll was designed and conducted by third parties to benefit Zempilas, she thanked Zempilas for publicly making his support for her clear.

Zempilas is the Liberal candidate for the seat of Churchlands, not an elected member of parliament; but there is precedent for Liberal leaders to lead the party from the outside. Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman led the Liberals to victory at the 2012 state Queensland election in a similar situation.

Liberal David Honey publicly backed Mettam before the party meeting, while colleague Peter Collier labelled the polling ‘fake’.

At a morning press conference, Premier Roger Cook said the Liberal Party was a shambolic, broken mess and the timing of the furore during the domestic violence campaign spoke volumes for how shambolic the Liberals had become.

“They can’t even agree with themselves, let alone the National Party,” he said.

“I am not sure how they’re going to come back from what is almost a terminal condition of disunity.

“You’ve got these cowards in the shadows sitting back and waiting for Libby to do all the hard work … they’ve been discovered as not having any policies for the people of Western Australia.”

He said it didn’t “take a rocket scientist” to figure out who Mettam was speaking of when she spoke about those people in the shadows.

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