The WA Disease

I swear to God, WA Day is a wash out every year. I’m writing this from Redgate where it rained all day yesterday and 80mm more is forecast today. This suits me perfectly after the exertion of recent weeks, which we’ll pull apart on this week’s podcast, but it does make one wonder about signs from the divine and whether there’s a message in the annual downpour. Rain means change, they say, but sadly the only shift here appears to be centrifugal. As Albanese and the federal cabinet fly into the storm, it seems like all the energy is flowing the opposite way. Every day, Australia looks more and more like WA.

I’ve always said that Perth is the Australia of Australia due to its exaggerated isolation, insularity and temporal distance. Mark McGowan said it even blunter during COVID — an island within an island. Post-election, it seems like the converse is true. My friend Patrick Marlborough has described Australia as the Perth of the world, and that now feels more apposite. And if WA is Australia squared and Australia is now WA then the inverse relationship rule means that WA is now Australia to the power of four. I haven’t done any maths for 20 years but it seems to me that risks an exponential line that tends towards infinite sprawl. Who knows when the singularity hits but Roger Cook is surely just the banal vestige of a man to shepherd it into existence.

Federal Parliament now looks a lot like WA Parliament — a Labor landslide in the lower house giving them total dominion over a rump of Liberal/National seats, while the Greens and other crossbenchers retain balance of power in the upper house. While it remains to be seen how Roger Cook will wield this newly refired weapon for the next four years, it’s pretty clear what Albo plans to do. Last Wednesday, UNESCO announced they were knocking back World Heritage status for Murujuga until the government could show they were serious about protecting the ancient rock art by removing the source of industrial emissions, of which the biggest by far is Woodside’s North West Shelf. Literally hours later, new Environment Minister Murray Watt announced that federal Labor would be extending the North West Shelf until 2070. It came after a roll call of international rock art experts had accused the government of covering up the findings of its flagship research into the impact of industry. 

The corruption was so naked that it almost seemed like a flex. And from a government that came to power in 2022 with twin mandates on climate and First Nations justice, it was a striking note to start their second term by approving the biggest fossil fuel project in the country on Australia’s most extensive Aboriginal heritage site. In both respects it was redolent of WA Labor, who bulldozes its way through any moral objections safe in the knowledge that no one can hold them to account. As with Cook and McGowan before him, it’s not as though Albo is especially impressive as he does so, but he is sufficiently committed to the bit that it doesn’t really matter. Apparently Cook has decided he can afford to bleed seats to progressives in places like Fremantle in order to hold the centre firm. Presumably, Albo has made the same calculation in the course of his innumerable visits to the state.

On this trip, Albo has already picked up a new Senator, scoring Dorinda Cox off the Greens to add to his trophy cabinet. It’s unclear if she still believes his government is “colluding” with the gas industry, as she alleged at Parliament in 2024, but it certainly appears that allegations of widespread bullying and two dozen staff turning over in just three years aren't enough to worry the PM who also came to power promising better behaviour in Parliament than under the Liberals. At this point, though, if it lets him dunk on the Greens he detests so much, Albo is willing to overlook almost any hypocrisy. Such are the perks of almost absolute power in this temporal realm. Much like his mentor, who came perilously close to overcooking the rock art report and may still find himself in hot water, Albo appears unburdened by reminders of traditional Labor values and voters. Why would you care when you’ve got three years to convince everyone to forget the experience and trust you again? If the reception in the comments and in the media is anything to go by this week, Albo risks giving the game away without the same protections afforded to leaders in WA. Nice captured state you’ve got there — it would sure be a pity if, oh I don’t know, WA Inc Mark II was actually Australia too.