Nationals even the ledger as Zempilas’ chance at opposition leader rests on Kalamunda

The WA Liberals’ hopes of securing opposition party status has taken a huge blow after a recount of votes in Albany saw the Nationals take the seat over controversial Liberal candidate Thomas Brough.

On the current count, both the Nationals and Liberals have won three extra seats each in the lower house, taking their totals to six seats each.

WA Opposition Leader Shane Love.Credit: Michael Genovese

For the Liberals to take opposition status, they need to be the party with the second-most seats in the lower house, and the only way that can happen is if their candidate Adam Hort wins the seat of Kalamunda.

On the latest count, Hort leads Labor’s Karen Beale by just 64 votes, making Kalamunda the most marginal seat in WA. It will likely be automatically recounted, given the margin is below 100 votes.

Not securing opposition status would be the latest embarrassment for the Liberals, which significantly underperformed as Labor recorded its second-best election result.

It also highlights the Nationals’ strong showing in WA’s regions.

Ironically, the Nationals’ Albany candidate Scott Leary ran for the Liberals in 2021 and was overlooked in favour of Brough during preselection ahead of the 2025 election.

After Libby Mettam’s resignation on Thursday, Churchlands MP Basil Zempilas will be rubber-stamped as Liberal leader at the next party room meeting on Tuesday.

If the Liberals win Kalamunda, this would make Zempilas opposition leader.

Zempilas told the ABC on Friday he believed Hort could win Kalamunda, but said if they didn’t he was not afraid of negotiating with the Nationals.

“Now that’s not something that I would be fearful of, or would hold any great trepidation of. I think we have seen, at times, a really strong working relationship between the Nationals and the Libs,” he said.

“I accept the times it hasn’t been, from the outside looking in, quite as well functioning as it could be, but I’ve seen nothing from the Nationals to suggest that they are not prepared to work together with the Liberal Party to achieve that common goal of holding the government to account.

“It’s clearly not beyond the realms of possibility that we operate as an alliance.”

The opposition alliance fell to tatters in the last term of parliament, with Love and Libby Mettam unable to reach an agreement that would see the Nationals and Liberals run a joint ticket in the upper house to shore up regional MP numbers after Labor introduced “one vote one value” reforms.

The relationship was strained further when North West Central MP Merome Beard defected from the Nationals to the Liberals.

Love left the door open to him remaining opposition leader, but said there would be discussions about resourcing and sharing of portfolios.

Pressed on whether the Liberals were natural leaders in opposition, Love told the ABC: “Well that might be their view, but it’s the people of Western Australia who determine that.”

Leary told the ABC he believed there would have been some long-time Liberal voters who voted for the Nationals for the first time.

“There’s a few disappointed, probably with the pre-selection process as to what had transpired, and sort of long-time supporters of myself, so they would have chosen to vote the Nationals way for the first time,” he said.

Preference counting is not expected to resume in the Kalamunda race until Sunday.

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