AS PREMIER Colin Barnett spends the day massaging his list of who’s who in the new state cabinet he will announce this week and take to the next election, he won’t be looking kindly upon his National party coalition colleagues.
He will be thinking about the coalition agreement with the Nationals that delivers them a guaranteed three ministers, but also his junior coalition partner’s decision to block the privatisation of Fremantle Port.
This torpedoed a key part of the Premier’s plan to tighten a budget suffering from the collapse of the mining royalties that had underpinned government spending over the past 15 years.
The Premier might also be briefly tempted to reflect on former Nationals leader Brendan Gryll’s brinksmanship after the 2008 election that almost delivered government to Labor.
But the failure of the port deal is a more recent and resonant sting, and spells nothing but trouble for the regions.
Fixing the state budget is a pillar of the Premier’s re-election chances, especially given Labor is promising a massive and largely uncosted blowout in state finances in the form of “Metronet”, an extension of the metropolitan public transport network.
Tensions between the National party and their conservative partners have always been fractured...
To keep government, the Premier has to fix the budget.
Last week, the Premier told reporters he felt as though he was running a minority government and pointed to Royalty for Regions, the National party’s signature policy, as an area where savings might be found in lieu of the port sale.
The regions have also missed out on a dedicated live export facility, which the Premier had on offer to smooth the passage of the port deal.
This would’ve been a key piece of infrastructure for the regions, but now an opportunity lost for the foreseeable future.
The Pastoralists and Graziers Association criticised the Nationals saying the decision "goes against the interests of their regional constituents".
Nationals leader Terry Redman said his party had little choice but to block the sale because of a lack of consultation, but this doesn’t quite ring true coming as it does on the back end of his party’s failed attempt to boost its representation in cabinet.
The Nationals aren’t doing themselves or their constituents any favours by being seen as willing to horse-trade on matters of critical importance to the bush.
The privatisation of ports and the TAB, Royalties for Regions and the funding or defunding of critical regional infrastructure shouldn’t be on the table if both parties are serious about investing in the regions, especially when the nation’s economic future depends on meaningful and affordable infrastructure spending.
Tensions between the conservative partners have always been fractured in Western Australia. But the current tensions between the Liberals and the Nationals are no good for regional Western Australia, and the leaders of both parties need to fix the divisions well before the next election.
Who, aside from the opposition, benefits if both conservative parties head into another round of three cornered races in regional seats or can’t agree on a unified budget policy?
The National party will always be the junior partner in any coalition agreement, and the Liberal party will not always need them to govern.
So both should start looking at their partnership with less self-interest and keep an eye on what can be achieved in the regions through cooperation.
