PETER VAN ONSELEN: The rest of Australia doesn’t understand WA – but Albo and Dutton know it’s the key to election salvation

If there’s one thing most eastern states in Australia know about Western Australia, it’s that they don’t think about it at all.

Perth is the most isolated major city in the world.

And if there’s one thing West Australians know about the rest of the country, it’s that they don’t know anything about WA.

That is why political leaders on the east coast must do everything they can to win over Western Australian voters.

That doesn’t always happen, because there are only 15 federal seats in the west, compared to 136 elsewhere in the country.

But WA tends to swing wildly in elections, if at all. In 2022 it fell behind Anthony Albanese’s Labor Party.

It was the first time in decades that Labor won more seats in Western Australia than the Coalition.

But it emerged from the Mark McGowan years, when the prime minister loomed like a giant over state politics.

At the last state election, his Labor government reduced the Liberals to just two seats in the state lower house. No, that’s not a typo.

But the prime minister, who enjoyed an approval rating of over 90 percent during the pandemic, has withdrawn from politics.

The question is whether a sitting federal Labor Party can retain the number of seats it has won in the west. Because if it can’t, it won’t retain its majority.

I have spent the last two weeks in Western Australia, during which time Opposition Leader Peter Dutton visited. He stayed longer than leaders normally do.

Anthony Albanese is today making a brief visit to the state where he strategically launched his 2022 election campaign in an effort to appeal to the local population.

Coincidentally, Scott Morrison will be here next week as a witness in the Linda Reynolds-Brittany Higgins defamation case.

Suddenly Perth is the centre of the world!

It will be interesting to see how the vote in this state swings in the next federal election.

WA is not suffering economically in the same way as the rest of the country. Not yet. That could happen if the Prime Minister postpones the election until next year and the mining boom continues while inflation rises and the cost of living pressures increase.

Western Australia has always had an economy that can either boom or bust.

The Labour Party won a landslide victory at the last Western election, taking the seats of Hasluck, Swan, Pearce and Tagney from the Liberals.

The Liberals also lost Curtin to a blunder, Stirling was axed in a redistribution of seats and they almost lost the seat of Moore too.

The results were disastrous for the conservative side of politics.

A new seat in Western Australia will be created at the next election to accommodate population growth. The Liberals appear to be looking to pre-select an excellent candidate in Matt Moran to win the seat.

Not the chef, but his namesake is an Afghan veteran.

If there’s one thing most eastern states Australians know about Western Australia, it’s that they don’t think about it at all. Above, a scenic view of the Swan River

But party strategists are divided over whether the state’s seats will swing back in the Liberals’ favour, or whether Labor in government will get a second chance to up its game.

That’s why both party leaders are spending time here. They know that winning the west will be crucial to whether Labor can retain majority government.

And if the Liberals can regain the number of seats they previously had here, they could well be in a position to form a government of their own.

While the rest of the country is largely unaware of the fleeting visits our political leaders are making to the West, no one should underestimate the importance of their doing so as they seek to muster the numbers needed to govern after the approaching federal elections.