The West Australian, which has been gunning hard for the removal of Troy Buswell from the Liberal leadership for the past week, has published a “snap” Westpoll survey of 400 votes showing the Liberals would lead 57-43 on two-party preferred if Colin Barnett was leader. It also finds they would be in front even with Buswell at the helm, but only by 51-49. One normally likes to exercise caution in interpreting poll results, but I think it can be stated with confidence that the latter finding is definitely wrong. This means we can either dismiss the poll as rubbish and pay it no further mind, or take the view that the six-point difference says something enormously significant about the Liberal leadership even if it does come from a dud sample. Excitingly, the paper reports that the election “could be called as early as tomorrow”.
UPDATE: Click here for a timely trip down memory lane, back to a month before the 2005 election.
UPDATE 2: The following questions are not meant to indicate a conspiratorial mindset: they are merely questions that have sprung to my mind, as questions sometimes do.
• What do the dashes following “don’t know” indicate? That all but a statistically insignificant number of respondents did know, or that those who didn’t have been excluded from the calculation?
• Why would you lump “informal” together with “other”, rather than with “don’t know”?
• Given that this has been done, we can ascertain that the “others” vote is less than 4 per cent under Buswell, or less than 2 per cent under Barnett. This compares with 11.2 per cent at the 2005 election and between 8 per cent and 12 per cent in the past six Newspoll surveys. The Greens vote at least is in the ballpark of the 2005 election, down only from 7.6 per cent to 7 per cent (The West Australian rarely provides figures for the Greens, but on the four occasions it has done so in the previous year they have been between 8 per cent and 11 per cent). In the current political environment, would we really expect the combined major party vote to have shot from 81.2 per cent at the election to either 88 per cent (under Buswell) or 89 per cent (under Barnett)? The two Newspoll surveys this year have had it at 80 per cent and 76 per cent.
• Shouldn’t we expect the 7 per cent of respondents who would vote Coalition under Barnett but not Buswell to be largely parking their votes with minor parties or independents, rather than going straight for Labor?
UPDATE 3 (28/7/08): Robert Taylor in The West Australian:
Troy Buswell will not step side and Colin Barnett will not challenge for the Liberal leadership despite overwhelming evidence that the Cottesloe MP is the party’s best chance of defeating Alan Carpenter’s Labor Government at the coming election. Mr Barnett again made it clear yesteday that he was availbale to lead the Liberals despite having already announced his retirement at the next election. But Mr Buswell was adamant that no one had asked him to step down in favour of the former Opposition leader and he intended continuing in the role. And Mr Buswell received strong support from Liberal Party president Barry Court, who clutched a Bible as he said the chair-sniffing, bra-snapping Opposition Leader had shown strength to push through his problems and was beginning to have an impact on the Government in the polls.
UPDATE 4 (29/7/08): Peter Kennedy reports on ABC TV news that “Labor strategists have put a plan to the Premier” for an election on September 13 or September 20, thereby preventing the resumption of parliament in two weeks.
UPDATE 5 (4/8/08): Buswell quits.
Rebecca Carmody reports Troy Buswell will hold a press conference at noon.
Common sense at last. Perhaps also it will let the opposition enjoy the Bunbury sittings, now the Premier seems to have committed to them with his tough on ‘one strike’ laws.
It will be a setback for WA Labor, if Opposition leader Troy Buswell confirms he will resign. I dub him Shadow Minister for Losing Women’s Votes.
“Liberal forces say that Mr Buswell saw internal party polling on Friday night which showed him that the Liberals would be devastated under his leadership at the next election.”
Hang on, Westpoll suggested Buswell would come close didn’t it? What happened?
Like I said at the time, my favourite explanation of Westpoll is that the sample was skewed heavily to the Liberals, but that the finding that they would be 6 per cent better off with any other leader rang true. No doubt the Liberal polling showed a close result under Barnett and a wipeout under Buswell.
Very interesting… it actually surprises me that this resignation hasn’t come sooner. Colin Barnett doesn’t have a good media presence but he really is the only one left (much like Howard was in his day).
He’s Gooooooooooooooooooooooooneee !
[TROY Buswell has quit as leader of the West Australian Opposition, saying he wants the focus to be on the failures of the Carpenter government and not him.]
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,24125418-5005361,00.html
It will be interesting to see how the West Australian paper reports this. How did they handle the reporting of the change from Barnet to Buswell?
I’m sure Carpenter would compliment Buswell on his time in the leader’s job, and thank him for his service.
[It will be interesting to see how the West Australian paper reports this. How did they handle the reporting of the change from Barnet to Buswell?]
The WEst were touting Buswell as “The Saviour of The Liberal Party”, during the leadership challenge of Paul Omodei, who was the second leader after the Election loss after Matt Birney imploded.
Frankly, all Labor has to do is recyvle the 2005 Election material they have on Barnett, who will no doubt attempt to pull another “Canal” type stunt, plus the Libs don’t have the safety net of the Nationals, who are running candidates against the Libs in every rural seat, this splitting the Conservative vote.
Comment from Joe Spagnolo.
[WHAT did the Liberal Party expect? Did the powerbrokers, the Liberal politicians, the senior administrators of the party expect anything else?
Did they really believe that a leader who was exposed as having snapped open the bra of a Labor staffer and sniffed the chair of a former Liberal staffer could lead the party to anything else but an election loss?
Did they really need to wait for polling before an election to decide that this wasn’t the right time for Buswell to lead the party?
Buswell wasn’t ready to become the leader of the party – and he knew it.
He admitted just six days before he became leader of the party in January this year that he wasn’t ready for the job.
Buswell has told The Sunday Times since being elected as leader that he decided to go for the leadership after powerbrokers, and members of the parliamentary Liberal party convinced him he was the man for the job.
It is unbelievable to think that Buswell was elected leader of the Liberal Party just four days after The Sunday Times revealed he had been involved in the bra scandal which forced a Labor staffer to take stress leave and seek another job away from Parliament House where the incident occurred.
It is unbelievable that after The Sunday Times also exposed the chair sniffing scandal the majority of the party decided to stick with him decided two attempts to get rid of him as leader.
After the chair sniffing incident was exposed, Buswell himself should have resigned.
But he was encouraged by the likes of powerbrokers Peter Collier and Mathias Corman to hang on.]
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,24125592-5005371,00.html
Video of Buswell’s Announcement.
http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200808/r278394_1178703.asx
WA Libs Doomed Whoever Leads.
[Today’s speculation that Mr Buswell will resign indicates the polling must have been “hopeless”, Curtin University political analyst Professor David Black said.
“The only assumption I can make is that the only reason he is doing this is the polling must have been so hopeless that there really wasn’t anywhere to go,” Professor Black said.
“The only assumption I can make is that this has to be an absolute, last-ditch move,” he said.
“It may or may not improve the situation of the election. I don’t know how much it will, when it comes to the crunch.”
Professor Black said if former opposition leader Colin Barnett stepped up to the plate, it would be a short term move.]
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/wa-libs-doomed-whoever-leads-analyst-20080804-3pmu.html
Barnett’s Full Statement.
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,24125758-948,00.html
So, what are the odds on Carpenter calling a snap poll? I can’t remember (or find) the info from Antony Green on what were the dates for calling an election (keeping the two houses in sync etc), but I figure it must be soon.
Anyway, good government relies on there being good alternatives, and a Buswell-lead Liberal Party couldn’t be good for quality parliamentary scrutiny (not that I considered Omodei was any better). But I would question David Black’s comment about a Barnett leadership being short-term – with Carpenter possibly to call an election asap, such a move would position the next Lib leader as the challenger, so would have to be serious. So either Barnett says ‘Yes’ to being leader and rolls Wilmott to keep his own seat in the election and beyond, or he says ‘No’ and retires. The only other scenario would be to say ‘Yes’ but retire anyway, which would be somewhat quixotic and not likely to save the Liberal Party from loss.
Keeping the houses in sync ceased to be an issue a while ago, so there’s nothing stopping Carpenter calling an election now. While Labor would have to start favourites, I’d have hedged my bets a little more if I were David Black. However much everyone has been expecting a blowout over the past few months, all the published polls other than last week’s Westpoll rogue have been stubbornly around 53-47 and 54-46. Whatever its faults, clearly the Westpoll indicated that a new leader would give the Liberals a bounce, which on any metric would turn the election into a contest. Don’t forget how much of a Liberal state WA is – Labor have only topped 40 per cent on the primary vote once at a state or federal election since 1987, which was at the last state election when they polled 41.9 per cent. That makes it pretty tough for them to win an election unless everything lines up their way.
Frank Calabrese, a little premature aren’t you?
Stewart J, I believe the point is that it’s surprising Barnett would agree to run as leader again given his extremely low profile since the last election, the fact that he was going to quit and the fact that they’d already chosen someone else for his seat.
What does it say about the party if the person they’ve chosen to have lead them was more or less ready to quit? The Labor Party would be foolish not to highlight this fact over and over in a campaign. Colin Barnett had only 1 plan for the future, his retirement plan.
Well now we will have at least a test of the Government; Colin sans canal v Labor sans Gallop.
Frank and Mr Black are almost certain to be right re the final result, but a very close election would not be what our dear leader wants … if it is a close election it will look a lot like dear leader carps should have called last weekend.
They have no choice they have to give Colin his seat back (surely); win he is Premier and can find a job for the about to retire candidate; lose he can retire and the by-election pops the now retiring candidate back into another campaign.
If he wins he can be premier as long as he wants surely? But no-one thinks he will.
No-one thought Dr Gallop would beat the two term Court Govt either, and he ran on fix police, schools etcetera just like Troy is suggesting the Libs should do.
Maybe not game on; but at least there is a game.
Couple thoughts:
1. I still think it reflects badly on the Libs that Buswell took so long to see the writing on the wall and that he wasn’t dumped in what could have been a strong signal about that the Libs expect from a leader, a parliamentarian and a person. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t expect perfection but I (and I believe most people) expected more and better.
2. Of course Barnett’s planned retirement is going to be a big issue. It might well be as significant as Howard’s retirement speculation – who knows how long he’ll hang around for. If I was Deidre Willmott I’d be wondering what my position is – I hope someone has clued her in…
I must say that IMHO this change has made it easier to see people voting Lib. Many naturally conservative voters would have had a battle of conscious to vote for them under Buswell if they are anything like me.
Yes, surely some journalist will have already called Ms Willmott to ask her whether she intends to challenge Mr Barnett for Cottesloe still.
LTEP the only really neat way is for Ms Willmott to withdraw, the party reopen nominations and close as quick as is possible under their rules.
Unless they have great rules, squashing Ms Willmott and installing Colin could lead to all sorts of legal nightmares.
I would have thought a photo-op with Ms Willmott handing over to Colin, and a press release saying she was delighted to pull out for the next premier of WA and that what is more she’d cut-off her left arm to see Labor defeated would be a good start.
Jasmine – you couldn’t be more right about the dream hand-over.
It would be a good start to the new line-up, show a great deal of class and give her a real boost for wherever she ends up. I would have thought they could at least line her up for a winnable upper house slot. Today’s West was saying that there were a bunch of seats with no endorsed candidate as yet – albeit most of them considered to be fairly safe ALP seats (not too many that aren’t nowadays).
Now, let’s just see if they can pull that off or if it will descend into another debacle.
Oh, another thought. I thought that Anthony Fels was a Barnett supporter.
With the change will that mean the untimely demise of the anti-daylight saving party?
Any speculation on winning back any of the others? Maybe Katie, probably not Sue, Dan might be a stretch…
VPL I think the damage from Buswell is pretty terminal. The material the ALP now has to work with is going to be like a phone-book thick.
Another couple thoughts
1. Does anyone think that bringing in Barnett is an attempt to have a shot at WINNING or is it merely a last ditch attempt to hold the line and avoid a massacre???
2. Does Barnett disassociate himself from the canal (this issue from the last election seems to be the crux of lots of the flakaimed at him) with a ‘never ever’ type promise, does he stick with it or does he leave the option open but not commit to anything???
Hmm, the WA Constitution allows for someone to be elected Premier without holdin a seat.
[Political analyst Harry Phillips, of Edith Cowan University, said there was a possibility the pre-selected Liberal candidate for the seat of Carine, which will be vacated by Katie Hodson-Thomas, could step aside.
But the WA constitution provides an answer for the Liberals which would avoid upsetting their star recruit.
“Whether there’s a possibility there that the person that’s been chosen to run in Carine might be prepared to step aside,” Dr Phillips said.
“That is a problem but there is a constitutional answer for it in the short run and that is that you don’t actually have to be in the parliament.”
It was a very strong convention for the Premier and the Opposition Leader to hold a seat in parliament but the constitution would allow the Liberals a short term fix, Dr Phillips said.
“I’m not suggesting this wouldn’t be the long term plan for Colin Barnett but in fact he could be elected Premier without a seat, in at least a short run,” he said.
“I think the public in the long run would demand that the premier take a seat.”]
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/constitution-favours-barnett-20080804-3psv.html
Joe Spagnolo on the Return of Barnett.
[COLIN Barnett always had the look of a man who wanted his old job back as leader of the Liberal Party and who knew he could do the job better than anyone else.
Dressed in his $1000 Hugo Boss suits, Barnett would walk the aisles of Parliament looking like a man who knew he – and not young guns Matt Birney or Troy Buswell or Paul Omodei – should lead the Liberals to the 2008-09 election.
Barnett would say he wasn’t interested in resuming the leadership – but would always leave the door open a little, just in case powerbrokers and MPs who disdained him would have a change of heart and literally beg him to take over.]
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,24126002-5008620,00.html
#124
1- Damage minimisation at the moment, I’d think. If Barnett gives them a poll boost, they could dare to dream, but not yet.
2- Not sure how good Colin is at humour, but i think a very self-depreciating “yeah, well, I’m not gonna try that one again” might be the way to go. The canal seems to have been regarded as a huge joke, so better to have them laugh with you than at you.
Interesting to hear Diedre Willmont’s comments on Ten News urging the Liberal Party to find Colin Batnett a new seat, instead of her giving up the pre-selection meaning it’s going to get ugly.
125- The Federal Consitution also allows this. Howard did it for nine days last year. Gorton did it changing from senate to HoR. Bruce did it briefly like Howard and Barton did it for before any elections were held.
However, I can’t see the public standing for it. It would result in the total sidelining parliament, making it something like the American electoral college. That would put the cat amongst the pigeons.
I forgot to add that according to Ten News, Liberal internal polling revealed they would’ve lost EVERY Lower House seat except for Nedlands.
It is an interesting idea. I have a vague recollection from Con Law that none of the executive in WA need be in Parliament.
You could have the Premier and entire Cabinet outside parliament if this memory is true. But it the ‘convention’ of the whole executive holding a seat in Parliament is pretty ingrained.
But practically as one of the items above seems to accept, there is a question of whether the electorate would cope with the idea of a Premier elected without a seat.
Also the parties aren’t really setup for it I am assuming – I assume they would have to be amended to allow the Premier to be part of caucus. But this is cart in a different paddock to the horse stuff.
If you don’t like the libs having Ms Willmott doing exactly the wrong thing would make you deliriously happy; if indeed that is the path she is taking. Shouldn’t someone mention to them a ‘look’ of unity, even if it is entirely untrue is important for the next three of four months?
Didn’t hear that, Frank. Gee. I’ve got to say though, Nedlands seems an unlikely exception – surely Sue Walker would hold it under those circumstances.
[Nedlands seems an unlikely exception – surely Sue Walker would hold it under those circumstances.]
The libs could endorse Fat Cat as a candidate in Nedlands and would win with a swing to it :-), which is how entrenched the Liberal vote is.
I believe that in WA s43(3) of the Constitution Acts Amendment Act 1899 sets out that at least one Minster must be a member of the Legislative Council, but no other stipulations. So, it appears it would be legally valid. But I agree it would be a hard pill for the public to swallow.
Blair, the Commonwealth Constitution only allows that for 3 months.
As for Western Australia, the state does not have an consolidated constitution act. There are constitutional provisions dotted across a range of Acts. In addition, just because there is no specific provision does not mean that the convention on Ministers being in Parliament doesn’t apply. The Constitution was passed under powers granted by a UK Act of Parliament granting responsible government to the colony, the same Act that allowed self-government in the other states. There was clear implication by the UK parliament that government was to be resonsible, implying elected.
A now removed Section 29 also said that Ministers must be eligible for re-election, also implying election was required.
Isn’t it is part of the old tradition that an MP could not accept an office of the crown (like being a minister) without resigning? So if you became a minister, you would then go for a by-election in your seat to get approval of the voters to the dual role?
That used to be the way in the states, though it never applied in the Commonwealth. It applied in NSW until 1906, and I think in WA until the 1940s. I don’t know about other states. But yes, after an election, a new government would form and all the ministers used to resign their seats in Parliament.
Ah, no, that’s not quite right.
There was never a constitutional necessity for a government to resign and a new one to be formed after each election. If the government wasn’t defeated at the election, it could just continue in office, and any ministers continuing in office wouldn’t need to resign and face by-elections. _If_ a new government was formed, then all ministers would have to resign and face by-elections–but this didn’t necessarily happen after an election–and also _could_ happen at other times. We are used to thinking now of elections as being the normal time when government changes, but in earlier times that wasn’t the case–changes of government in between elections were at least as common.
Also, of course, if a new minister was appointed to an existing government, that one new minister alone would have to resign and face a by-election.
Back in the days when these things happened, however, it was common (although not invariable) for ministerial by-elections to be uncontested. When the first Labor government in Victoria was formed, all the ministers had to resign and face by-elections and all were unopposed. However, they were technically out of Parliament while the formal processes were carried out and had to sit in the gallery to watch the debates about the future of their government. Once they were formally re-elected and could return to the chamber, their opponents had patched up their differences and promptly voted their government out again.
I agree entirely. My wording was loose. I meant only if after an election a new government was formed. And also any time a new government formed mid-term. And it wasn’t if it was defeated at the election. In the 19th century, government didn’t change until the parliament sat because the parties were so loose. In NSW, the first election which caused a change of government before parliament sat was in 1894.
I agree entirely that if a government continued on, only the new ministers had to resign and face by-elections. In the first 18 months of self-government in NSW, there were four ministries appointed, and every one of them brought on a suite of by-elections.
I’ve indexed all NSW by-elections, and as you can see, there could sometimes be a dozen or more by-elections in each parliament caused by ministerial appointments.
http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/resources/nswelectionsanalysis/ElectionIndexes/ByElectionIndex.htm
Mr Bowe. It looks like you will need to update your WA Election graphic to reflect the change of leadership. Perhaps for now a black silhouette with a question mark would suffice.
Well, Barnett has now officially declared he will stand for Liberal party leadership tomorrow.
Apparently the issue of the unfortunate candidate nominated for the seat he was supposed to vacate is not his problem, but one for the party, and he’ll address his Canal issues with reporters tomorrow also, (together with, one would assume. an assurance that his familiarity with basic maths has improved dramatically since the eve of the last election he lost).
Good luck.
Meanwhile, Noel Crichton-Brown seems to think it’s Omodei’s fault. There’s some bitterness there, obviously…
link: http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20080805-Buswell-The-latest-political-tragedy-for-the-WA-Liberal-party.html
Ouch!
Can someone remind me exactly happened with Matt Birney? I understood the party was doing not-too-bad under him, then one or two poor polls came out and they panicked into picking Omodei, which then led to the merry-go-round circus we’ve seen in the past year. Was Birney really that bad…or more accurately, would he have been any worse than the last two?
So, what do they do about the woman already preselected as candidate for Cottosloe? I’d laugh if she decides to stand as an independent in protest!
That’s a good question MDMConnell – after Buswell I’m starting to think that Birney maybe should have been allowed to stay on.
It all seems fairly minor now – comment about the Pope having a partner, drinking, being over-friendly with some press, altering the share register, perhaps being a bit young, inexperienced and unsophisticated, perhaps not being the world’s greatest intellect.. Given what has happened since I’m sure there are many people in the parlt Lib party who probably wish they’d given him more of a go.
As for Diedre Wilmott – wasn’t she Richard Court’s former Chief of Staff? I would suspect that she’ll go if a place can be found for her but it looks like she ain’t going to take it lying down.
As I read it now that ‘altering the share register’ seems to really jump out. The rest you could maybe shrug off, not too sure that one falls into the same category…
My understanding is that Deidre Wilmott’s current position is still that she’s the endorsed candidate for Cottesloe?
I imagine there’s a lot of negotiating/pleading going on in the Liberal party right now.
It really is a mess. The kid shooter didn’t work. The chair sniffer didn’t work. Let’s go back to the canal guy who is retiring – you know, the one that will reduce our chances to attack the ALP on the gas crisis because he was the Energy and Resources minister that privatised our gas supply…? (I probably have that completely wrong actually)
So, October 18 it is then?
[Let’s go back to the canal guy who is retiring – you know, the one that will reduce our chances to attack the ALP on the gas crisis because he was the Energy and Resources minister that privatised our gas supply…? (I probably have that completely wrong actually)]
No, you are indeed correct as he was the Minister responsible under Richard Court for that mess 🙂
Ok, maybe I’m being a bit sensitive about this but it seems to me that the ‘gas crisis’ issue isn’t legitimately capable of political mileage on either side (of course, putting aside cheap stunts). Are you suggesting that the explosion on Varanus Island was the former Energy Minister’s fault, or simply that more wasn’t done by him (and presumably his forebears and successors in that role) to protect the gas supply?
If the former then you are crazy, if the latter then no-one is innocent and both major parties are equally guilty.
How do you think that would run – Lib ‘this is the government of cold showers’, ALP ‘you cocked it up when you were in power’, Lib ‘you didn’t fix it either’ Both ‘nah nah na na nah’…???
Like I said, maybe I’m a bit sensitive about it. 😉