WA’s premier Colin Barnett is being
justifiably criticised for
a number of poor decisions or practices that have occurred since his
re-election in March. But no one would be surprised by his actions and
behaviour if they first understood that the premier has not learned the
lessons derived from his predecessors' periods in charge of the state.
I don’t want this article to be a boring history lesson but,
bear with me, I hope it will be instructive.
I first got involved in the political process in the
mid-1980s when I joined the Liberal Party. At that time, Brian Burke was WA’s
premier and the corruption of the WA Inc years was still well hidden. The opposition
leader was Barry MacKinnon, someone who I developed much respect for as he
attempted in the face of a media largely under Burke’s influence to expose the
millions of dollars lost in the state government’s business dealings (and
worse!). Barry achieved a 6.5% swing against the ALP at the 1989 election and the Liberal Party received
a majority of votes – 52.38% - but lost the election thanks to the ALP
gerrymander orchestrated by my former friend…… well, I’ll leave that story to
another time.
In spite of MacKinnon’s hard work and majority vote at the
1989 election, he was replaced by Richard Court as leader of the opposition in
1992, a year before he won the 1993 election and became premier. I was really
upset at MacKinnon’s dumping s leader. Even the media nicknamed Court ‘the wimp’
in the belief that he wasn’t a strong enough character to lead the state as
premier.
I’m pleased to say that I subsequently found Court to be an
excellent premier, making tough but sensible decisions to rid the state of the
WA Inc legacy. Many of his first term decisions were potentially unpopular with
electors: increased taxes, for example, to cover debt left behind by Burke. In
recent years, my opinion of Court has gone higher, thanks to his personal
interest in MPs like myself who lost their seats in less than honorable ways,
but that’s also another story.
In 1996, Court was re-elected with an absolute majority in
the lower house of Parliament. As yet another demonstration of his positive,
constructive way of doing business as premier, he included the National
Party as a member of the coalition government, even though their support wasn’t
needed to give him government for a second term. As an aside, Hendy Cowan’s
valedictory speech in 2002 showed a complete lack of respect and common courtesy
for the former premier, but that’s another story too…!
This is where my story really starts. For the first six
years of Richard Court’s eight years as premier, my personal view is that he
governed well. No serious controversies; no poor decisions; no wastage of
public money. But from 1999 onwards, things changed. In the final two years of
his reign, Court stood idly by and allowed a series of bad decisions to be
made:
·
* No action was taken against Doug Shave who was
the minister responsible for fixing the mortgage brokers’ scandal which saw
thousands of Perth investors (mainly retirees) lose most or all of their money
in dodgy financial dealings
·
* He displayed poor leadership in the face of the Liberals for
Forest campaign to stop logging of old growth forests
·
* There was no community consultation on the design of the
Bell Tower, a building that made Court something of a laughing stock when the
design ended up being copied from an existing building in Dubai
·
* The community consultation on the design
of the Convention Centre, variously described as looking like a squashed cockroach
or a thong (a flip-flop to overseas readers), was inadequate.
·
* He rejected the advice of a committee Court had himself
set up on deregulation of the dairy industry, whose chair Barry House made sensible and reasonable findings and recommendations.
After two years of poor decisions such as these, Court lost
the 2001 election to the ALP, handing Geoff Gallop the premiership.
Why was Court such a good premier for his first six years
and such a bad one for the remaining two years? The answer, I believe, lies in
the quality of the advice he received from his principal policy advisors. From
1993 to 1999, Ian Fletcher was Court’s chief sounding board. Most people
including myself had never heard of Fletcher nor met him, yet it was clear that
Fletcher told Court what he needed to hear. When Fletcher retired in 1999 to
take a well–earned break, his replacements – nice people though they were –
gave Court information which they believe he wanted to hear. Deidre Willmott
and Dean Smith – both were and are competent, capable individuals who also happen to
be nice people but, as history shows, both had political ambitions and my guess
is they were not prepared to strenuously stand up to Richard Court to tell him
what he needed to know in case it affected their future political careers.
Now let’s examine the ALP government from 2001 to 2008. Dr Geoff
Gallop was an effective premier who went on to win the 2005 election before
handing over to Alan Carpenter. While Gallop was premier, he had a strong team
of advisors around him – Ross Field, Keiran Murphy, for example – and I’m sure
they gave him the advice he needed to know. When Carpenter took over in 2006,
one of the first decisions he took was to appoint Norm Marlborough, a close
friend of now disgraced former premier Brian Burke, as a minister while also
allowing ministers to interact with Burke, something that had been banned by
Gallop. Very quickly, the manure hit the fan, with the Corruption and Crime Commission's subsequent
inquiry into the Smith’s Beach land development proposal highlighting Carpenter’s
poor judgment and costing several people their power, prestige or credibility.
Largely as a result of Carpenter’s poor decision to allow
Burke back into the fold, the 2008 election was won by an about-to-retire but newly reappointed opposition leader in the form of Colin Barnett. It wasn’t a clear-cut win, with Barnett having
to form government with the support Nationals MPs, a couple of whom
had wanted to form a coalition with the ALP. As well, Barnett needed the
support of independent MP Liz Constable and soon he also enjoyed the support of
other independents such as John Bowler and Adele Carles. Barnett’s dependence
on people such as these and the narrow tightrope he had to walk as premier in a
hung parliament forced him to listen to advice that he needed to hear. The end
result was four years of what was generally considered to be good government.
All this changed in 2013 immediately after the state
election. Barnett was returned with a strong majority. No more hung parliament;
no need to rely on independents; no kowtowing to the Nationals who really didn’t
do well at the election.
Suddenly,
the weight was lifted and Barnett could do things
he’d been prevented from doing in the previous term as premier. Foremost
among these
newly found freedoms was his desire to leave a legacy that people would
remember
him by – Elizabeth Quay, a new football stadium, a new light rail link
to Perth
airport, a new light rail line from Girrawheen. Spend, spend, spend! It
wouldn’t matter what the bill came to
because, as I believe, Barnett will retire before the next election,
hand over
to his treasurer Troy Buswell (lots of potential stories there for
another
day!), retire to a life of leisure on his Toodyay hobby farm and watch
from afar as the ALP win the 2017 election and spend the next one or two
terms of government grappling with a large state debt, reduced GST
income and a
subdued mining-based state economy.
So, with Barnett’s power almost beyond challenge, he does
not need to listen to what his advisors say. Instead, knowing that this is
his chance to leave a legacy that will be remembered fondly in decades to come,
he simply puts up with the political damage arising from proposed reductions in
solar feed-in tariffs (now reversed), additional school fees for the children
of 457 visa holders (now watered down), the sacking of 500 teaching and support
staff from the Education Department (he’ll probably get away with this policy
decision) and forced local government amalgamations (but let’s see what the
Liberal Party back bench MPs have to say about this decision).
Barnett’s not a fool of course. The reason why he’s backed down
on a couple of decisions made as part of the August 2013 budget is because even
he recognises there are more important issues to take account of. The September Federal
election was one such issue which caused the solar feed-in tariff to be
changed; genuine hardship that would be felt by people who couldn’t afford
large increases in state government charges will be another strong influence on
his thinking.
But the bottom line is that, like Richard Court in 1999 and
Alan Carpenter in 2006, Colin Barnett appears to have decided to ignore his advisors and
make decisions on the basis of his personal understanding of issues or his desire to push "the grand scheme"
that he wants put in place before he retires. Clearly, in spite of many positive
personal characteristics, Barnett does not have the wisdom of Solomon. Without
being willing to have strong and unafraid policy advisors around him and with
no desire to act upon fearless advice even if it's given to him, Barnett is consigning the Liberal
Party to an election loss in 2017. By then, of course, he’ll be gone from WA’s
political scene so he won’t mind if the Liberals become Her Majesty’s
opposition for one or two terms. He’ll have achieved his goals and will retire
happy.
