Joe Spagnolo: Liberals’ war of the roses must end

Libby Mettam’s face-off with her nine Liberal colleagues this week and with her candidate in Churchlands, Basil Zempilas, had to happen.

The behind the scenes whispering in the corridors of Parliament, and within Liberal and Labor circles, had gotten louder and louder over whether Mettam would be replaced by Zempilas as leader before Christmas.

Behind the scenes in politics in 2024, there has been no bigger talking point than whether Mettam would last as leader, and be replaced with the ambitious Zempilas.

It had become a massive distraction for the already struggling Liberals just a few months out from the election.

When I approached Zempilas a fortnight ago to get it straight from the horse’s mouth whether he would challenge Mettam for the leadership, the Perth Lord Mayor played a straight bat, saying he had no intention of challenging.

But his refusal to rule out leading the Liberals to the next election — if that was the will of the Liberal parliamentary party of 10 — only made things worse for Mettam.

Several bits of polling published since the beginning of 2024, backed up by the internal polling of not just the Liberals but by Labor, showed another massive victory to Roger Cook’s team with the number of Liberal MPs in the Assembly possibly swelling to maybe 14 out of 59 members after the March 8 election.

That was already making Liberals nervous, until it started to emerge that there was in existence another poll — independent of the party — which showed an even worse result for the conservatives.

What we now know is that poll was faciitated by a mate of Zempilas — Cam Sinclair — who has been working on the Churchlands candidate’s election campaign.

Zempilas denies prior knowledge of that poll, but the murkiness of that poll and question marks over the validity of the results of that poll, saw disenchanted Liberals get cold feet when they met to discuss Mettam’s future as leader on Tuesday.

Only Mettam’s treasury spokesman, Neil Thomson, showed himself to be a Zempilas sympathiser by unsuccessfully moving a dumb motion to make the Perth Lord Mayor some sort of spiritual leader during the campaign.

And Mettam, who no doubt had crunched the numbers before the caucus meeting, challenged anyone who had a beef with her leadership to move a vote of no confidence — which no one did.

In the end, nervous Liberals came to the view that the timing was not right for a Zempilas take over and it was better to stick with Mettam.

I have zero doubt Zempilas will one day — after, as expected, he becomes a member of Parliament next year — challenge Mettam for the leadership of the WA Liberal Party.

He will wait for the right moment.

Mettam might have convincingly won round one of this match, but the issue is far from settled.

So where does this leave the WA Liberals, about 13 weeks out from a State election?

I think what’s been forgotten this week, as Mettam went for blood calling out the so-called “cowards” who dared to try and overthrow her, is the fact that trusted polling shows that the Liberals will not just lose, but lose big this election.

This is not an election about who will win.

We know Labor will win the March 8 poll — the question is: by how much and will the 2025 result be good enough for the Liberals to seriously challenge at the 2029 poll.

Now that the entertainment is over and the Liberals have settled on Mettam as leader, the conservatives need to get serious about good policies, good politics, and somehow work out a way they can present as a unified Opposition to the public.

Mettam and Zempilas will never be buddies.

Mettam, while she is leader, will now forever be looking over her shoulder, wondering if Zempilas is plotting to overthrow her.

No matter that Zempilas denies involvement or knowledge of the Sinclair poll, Mettam will never trust him again.

Regardless, they need to bury the hatchet — at least until the election.