The most recent scandal to afflict the WA Liberal Get together includes an embarrassing personal aim and a disgraced former premier.
It’s not simply on GST income that Western Australia provides greater than its justifiable share — thanks largely to the state Liberal Get together, the state additionally produces extra farce than it could eat domestically. For the previous three years, the WA Libs have been a sort of eerie inverted clown automobile: all of the components maintain flying off, however moderately than a comical variety of jesters rising, it’s principally empty. By no means have so few generated a lot embarrassment for therefore many.
The most recent scandal to afflict a celebration that in any other case may barely area a full group for a social sports activities kickabout is the resignation of deputy chief Steve Thomas after it was revealed he’d used none aside from Brian Burke, probably essentially the most famously disgraced premier in WA’s historical past, to facilitate conferences with high-profile businessman John Poynton.
Let’s complete it up. Not solely did Thomas have common contact with a determine so totally and completely disgraced that successive Labor leaders have banned their colleagues from contacting him. Not solely did he deflate one in every of Liberal chief Libby Mettam’s simpler assaults on the Prepare dinner authorities by admitting to having contacted Burke after Mettam had confidently asserted — after Burke’s involvement in COVID-19 assist packages turned identified earlier this month — “I’m very comfy in saying that there isn’t a connection between Liberal Get together members and Brian Burke”.
And to high it off, Thomas liaised with a Labor Get together determine. He reached throughout the aisle for the very worst his opponents needed to provide. There are the predictable questions on Mettam’s judgment and management — if she have been to go, it might be the sixth time the occasion has modified chief since they have been final in workplace. Because it stands, Merome Beard, who give up the Nationals to hitch the Liberals final yr and thus elevated their decrease home illustration by a 3rd in a single transfer, is the one decrease Liberal left who hasn’t at one level been chief. So… it’s her flip, we guess?
