Katharine Murphy and Stephanie Peatling
March 11, 2013
Prime Minister Julia Gillard returns to Canberra this week facing fresh speculation over the viability of her leadership after Labor's poor showing in the West Australian state election.
Supporters of Kevin Rudd are using the result to rally despairing MPs before the return to Parliament on Tuesday, pointing to what one MP described as a ''feral anti-Labor and anti-Gillard mood'' throughout the state campaign.
Liberal Premier Colin Barnett, and wife Lyn arrive at the Liberal celebration party. Photo: AAP
The weekend election result saw Liberal Premier Colin Barnett returned to office for a second term with an emphatic swing.
Two big newspaper opinion polls are due in the next fortnight.
Cabinet sources insisted on Sunday that key players' support for the Prime Minister had not changed, and there had been no substantive shift in the caucus numbers despite Labor's messy start to the political year.
WA Labor senator Mark Bishop rounded on his party for failing to understand the modern fundamentals of his home state. He warned of significant consequences for the ALP federally if the party failed to heed the message.
Senator Bishop, one of Kevin Rudd's strongest public supporters in last year's leadership ballot, said changing leaders in Canberra ''in isolation'' would not address Labor's structural weakness in WA, reflected in Mr Barnett's thumping victory.
He argued that Labor's failure to engage with WA's ''size, distance and wealth was a matter of more significance than who the leader is''.
Feedback from campaign workers and state MPs during the state election reflected the fact ''a lot of ordinary people had strong, well-articulated and colourful views about the Prime Minister''.
Special Minister of State Gary Gray called on colleagues to concentrate on governing. ''[The WA Coalition] haven't let their internal differences get on top of them, and that is a lesson for the ages,'' he said.
Other senior WA sources argued that the state result, while bad, suggested Labor would hold on to its federal seats, rather than go backwards.
Mr Barnett played down the impact of federal matters on the weekend result, saying the campaign had been fought and won on state questions. But senior federal Liberals stepped up their efforts to blame Ms Gillard for Labor's poor showing and foment a sense of despair in the Labor caucus.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott pounced on the election result, saying it was ''also a strong message to the Gillard Labor government, that their carbon tax and mining tax are toxic to the Australian economy, toxic for local jobs and are adding to people's cost of living pressures''.
Liberal deputy leader Julie Bishop declared ''the Gillard factor'' and federal matters, such as the mining tax and clean energy reforms, decisive in the WA result.
Defence Minister Stephen Smith conceded that Labor's difficulties federally had been a drag on state Labor's campaign.
''We've had a tough time federally - you don't need to be a rocket scientist to work that out - and there's no doubt we have been a drag on Mark,'' Mr Smith said on Saturday night. ''We have a range of tough political issues to work through between now and September.''
WA Labor senator Louise Pratt argued state Labor leader Mark McGowan ran a good campaign but landing the message had been made harder ''by the tough time we are having nationally''.
''Clearly the people have an expectation that the Labor Party will be united, and perceptions of disunity are taking their toll,'' Senator Pratt said.
The PM congratulated the WA Premier and looked ''forward to continuing to work . . . on a range of important initiatives which will benefit the people of Western Australia''.
But former WA Labor planning minister Alannah McTiernan called for Julia Gillard to resign, saying the party faced an ''absolute massacre'' in the federal election.
Ms MacTiernan told ABC news on Monday that she believed the federal result could be worse in that state, such is the animosity she observed towards the Prime Minister.
''It's pretty simple and it's pretty brutal,'' Ms MacTiernan said. ''They're saying they don't like Julia Gillard, they don't believe her.
''The overwhelming reportage from the doorstop, from the shopping centres, was that people were saying, in Labor heartland, they were saying 'ok we'll vote for you guys but no way are we voting for federal Labor and Julia Gillard'.
''And if we do not take note of this there is going to be an absolute massacre in the federal election''.
But one senior WA Labor figure saw a silver lining in the result. Special Minister of State and WA federal MP Gary Gray told ABC news he felt ''particularly pleased'' that if one extrapolated from the weekend's poll, federal Labor would hold its three seats in September's election.
The lesson federal Labor should take from the WA defeat was that ''back-biting and undermining of governments from inside is fatal'', said Mr Gray, alluding to the push within Labor's caucus to oust Ms Gillard and install Mr Rudd.
Western Australians, he believed, rewarded Premier Barnett because he ''has been able to work in complete harmony with both his own parliamentarians and his Coalition colleagues''.
with Jonathan Swan
