WA Liberals endure bruising week as election race gets tough

In a campaign where the Liberals need everything possible to go their way, this week has delivered few opportunities for optimism.

The party’s focus was to convince voters they’re in the midst of a “crime crisis”, and that the key solution is having more police on the beat.

“The most important thing is to make sure that Western Australian police are adequately resourced,” Shadow Attorney-General Nick Goiran said on Tuesday.

It can be argued WA is in the grip of a crime crisis based on some statistics, although WA Police highlighted the overall number of offences compared to population is down 8 per cent from 2018.

But the pledge to bolster the police force has been a shambles, in a week where the headaches just kept coming.

‘Happy with the maths?’ 

The Liberals have promised to grow WA Police by 500 officers above attrition before the next election. 

In the meantime, they’d get an extra 300 officers on the beat through overtime.

But it’s taken two press conferences AND a clarification email to get to the bottom of how the overtime policy would work.

It started to unravel on Monday, when Shadow Police Minister Peter Collier was asked if the policy was equivalent to adding an extra 300 full-time officers to the force.

Collier: “It’s not 300 officers. It is 300 officers doing one hour or two hours or three hours or four hours [of overtime each day], it is not….”

Journalist: “So it’s 300 officers doing some overtime, that’s not the equivalent of if you had an extra 300 [full-time] officers on the beat every day.”

Collier: “Yes you will. Yes you will. That’s exactly what it means.”

“Everybody happy with the maths?” one of the party’s media advisers asked, trying to move things along.

Clearly, their leader wasn’t.

Correcting Collier 

The next day Libby Mettam set the record straight.

“It is the equivalent of 300 additional officers every year,” she said, correcting her colleague.

That requires 3,000 officers of the estimated 5,000 eligible to take up the overtime offer, which the Liberals are confident can be achieved. 

Asked whether that was realistic, WA Police Union president Dave Flaherty told ABC Radio Perth: “I wouldn’t say no, but I wouldn’t be prepared to say yes.”

“There’s certainly a need for police officers to bridge the gap at the moment with the financial or the cost of living pressures, but it’s certainly not a position that we would be supporting for the long-term.”

Mettam had dodged the question of what would happen if not enough officers put their hands up, but her media advisor clarified in an email that the promise wasn’t a guarantee because the overtime was voluntary.

“On occasion, if we don’t reach the 3,000 officers who agree, there will still be a significantly larger police presence on WA streets under our plan, compared to Labor’s plan,” it read.

That plan, Police Minister Paul Papalia said, was effectively to do more of the same because the police academy is running at capacity.

Candidate controversies 

Having finally got to the bottom of the policy, Mettam would have been hopeful the focus would return to her prospective policies.

But just as the storm settled, a series of candidate controversies emerged.

First were social media posts from Kimberley candidate Darren Spackman referring to break-ins to his Kununurra tavern as a ‘Welcome to Country’.

Bunuba, Walmajarri and Gooniyandi elder Olive Knight said the phrase was used “out of context”, urging “that particular term must not be used in any other way than its true meaning”.

But Spackman doubled down, saying criticisms were “creating a divide not togetherness”.

By Thursday evening, after making further controversial comments in an interview, he was asked to pull out of the race, although he’ll still appear on the ballot paper. 

At her press conference on Friday, Mettam said 11 times that Spackman’s comments would not be tolerated, but gave few specifics about why.

“Well, it is clear such behaviour is offensive and it will also not be tolerated,” she said.

“Was it the language? Or was it because it was racial?,” a reporter asked. 

“It will not be tolerated — I’ve made my position clear.”

Derogatory posts

Then came a series of derogatory social media posts, including homophobic slurs and two lewd posts about women from Darling Range candidate Paul Mansfield a decade ago.

To make matters worse, he was confronted with the posts at a press conference announcing some of the Liberals’ domestic violence policies.

Cue awkwardness.

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“We’re not making any other comment,” Mettam offered after being shown the posts

“I can’t recall those posts,” Mansfield told reporters.

Only, he had remembered them at some point, because state director Simon Morgan later said he’d disclosed them as part of the pre-selection process.

“He acknowledged to preselectors that they are not things he would post today, nor posts that reflect his values,” he said.

‘People have faults’ 

Mettam tried to downplay the issues, acknowledging prospective MPs “are not without fault”.

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“Candidates, like many people across the community, make mistakes and it is regrettable, and the state director has been speaking with these candidates directly,” Mettam said on Thursday. 

Deputy Premier Rita Saffioti went on the attack. 

“People do have faults, but I think it’s the range of faults and the amount of candidates that have very, very dodgy pasts,” she said.

Saffioti also pointed to Albany candidate Thomas Brough, who linked the LGBTQIA+ community to paedophilia before offering a limited apology, and Perth candidate Sean Butler who was previously a One Nation candidate.

These issues aren’t new for the party, after last election pre-selecting a candidate who claimed allegations against Christian Porter were part of a conspiracy, and another who falsely suggested a link between 5G and COVID-19.

“The party needs to recruit suitable candidates for pre-selection. These people should be properly vetted,” their post-mortem after the 2021 poll warned.

Easier said than done, especially when the Liberals’ resources are stretched so thin just doing the basics, and with nearly $1.5 million less in donations than Labor since July.

Mounting a strong campaign against the Labor juggernaut requires good policies communicated well and without distractions.

The party has a fortnight to get back on track — but if the trend of early voting continues, time could be running out.

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