If you see a blue monster eyeing off your wallet in downtown Perth, don't be alarmed: It's just Labor's new debt monster trying to feed his insatiable appetite.
And the giant muppet tried to pocket a few staffer's wallets and purses when he unexpectedly popped into Fairfax Media's Perth HQ on Thursday morning.
Labor leader Mark McGowan said while the pale blue furry animal might look like a bit of fun, he wanted to make a serious point about the Barnett government's mismanagement of the state's coffers.
"We all know very few people read the budget or listen to parliamentary speeches, so we wanted to make use of every forum we can to point out what the government has done," he told Fairfax Media.
"And that is, take Western Australian's finance from the best in the country to the worse; create the worst debt per person than any state in Australia and lift the state debt from $3.6 billion when they arrived in office to $36 billion by 2018."
Mr McGowan admitted the giant moolah muncher was an interesting way to get the public's attention.
"It's just another way that we hope the public recognises what the Barnett government has done to the state," he said.
@WA_Debt_Monster stormed the 6pr studios demanding our money pic.twitter.com/CnKtf9Lxcb— 6PR Breakfast (@6PRbreakfast)
May 28, 2015
"People come up to me in the community and say to me 'where has all the money gone'."
And while the debt monster sounded more like a wrestler than a cuddly clod, he did mumble something about staying in the suit until the Barnett government was booted out of office.
He could be in there for a long time to come, given voters left Labor in their droves at the 2013 state election.
