Updated
Western Australia's Labor Premier, Mark McGowan, has described his party's failed federal election campaign as overly ambitious to appeal to his state.
Key points:
- Labor allowed themselves to become the issue, the Premier says
- Opposition Leader Mike Nahan credited the GST fix with winning the west
- Mr McGowan said he was pleased voters had "seen through" Clive Palmer
It comes with the ABC election computer predicting the Coalition has secured majority government with at least 77 seats, as the Liberals appear set to secure the seats of Bass, Chisholm, Boothby and Wentworth.
Mr McGowan said the ALP's "grandiose" policies painted a large target on the party, which the Government had plenty of time to hone in on given many were announced up to three years prior to the election.
He said the party's efforts may have been better placed highlighting faults with the Government's policies and record.
"They planted a huge target on themselves, their policies were way too grandiose, way too many, they didn't have a core theme to them," Mr McGowan said.
"Because they had so much to talk about, people couldn't latch on to a single thing, and then they allowed themselves to become the issue.
"In an election campaign when you're fighting against the Government, the Government should be the issue, not the Opposition.
"What they did was allow themselves to become the issue and that wasn't good."
Mr McGowan said he respected the number of good policies and ideas he said Bill Shorten put forward, but felt the funding required for some of them depended too much on unguaranteed savings measures.
"Sometimes I felt that some of the announcements being made were such extraordinarily large amounts of money that some people in the community may not have believed it," he said.
"And then you had to pass your measures through the Senate, which may well have been hostile, in order to fund those things."
Porter lays in to Labor's 'shocking arrogance'
Attorney-General Christian Porter successfully retained the seat of Pearce, despite a well-funded Labor campaign backed up by external groups including GetUp.
He said Mr McGowan needed to explain why he was now criticising policies that just days ago he was advocating alongside Labor leader Bill Shorten, labelling the mixture of state and federal politics during the campaign as "unwise".
Mr Porter said his success was rooted in a strong local campaign, as opposed to the Labor campaign which was bolstered by "outside influences".
"What they were is shockingly arrogant and complacent and they were relying on outside influences — Get Up, several of the larger trade unions including the CFMEU — to campaign on their behalf, and people just don't like it," he said.
The Liberal MP also took a swipe at Labor candidate Kim Travers, a former police officer who was criticised by WA Police Commissioner Chris Dawson for campaign posters showing her in police uniform.
Commissioner Dawson told Ms Travers to take the posters down.
"I expressed my view to Ms Travers that the posters adversely politicised WA Police and that the Force should always be regarded as apolitical," he said.
Mr Porter said such tactics had hurt Labor among the electorate.
"They engaged in every tactic imaginable, including putting up posters in my electorate which breach long-standing conventions about maintaining the independence of the West Australian Police …people don't like it," he said.
GST fix helped Liberals: Nahan
State Opposition Leader Mike Nahan attributed the Liberal Party's strong result in WA to the role it played in fixing the GST.
The Liberal Party's vote in WA was the strongest in the nation, just marginally higher than Queensland.
Mr McGowan congratulated WA's returned Labor MPs and also thanked those who were unsuccessful.
They included Ms Travers in Pearce, Hasluck candidate James Martin and Swan nominee Hannah Beazley, who had been picked as potential seat-stealers before the election.
He paid particular tribute to Ms Beazley, saying politics had not seen the last of her.
"I have a lot of time for Hannah and I look forward to Hannah one day, hopefully not too far away, being a member of a state or federal parliament, and I will support her to the hilt in that regard," he said.
Congratulating Scott Morrison on his victory, the Premier said he did not have any personal differences with the Prime Minister and would "work in the best interests of Western Australia".
Premier says voters saw through Clive Palmer
But it was not all congratulations from Mr McGowan, who said he was pleased billionaire Clive Palmer's Senate bid had failed.
The pair traded insults during the campaign and Mr Palmer took out full page advertisements blasting the Premier for threatening to alter a state agreement with his private company Mineralogy, which has interests in the Pilbara.
Mr McGowan said voters had seen through the United Australia Party leader.
"You shouldn't be able to buy a seat in Parliament. You shouldn't be able to buy a seat in the Senate with crazy, ridiculous, untrue advertising, which is what Mr Palmer attempted to do," he said.
Battle for Cowan continues
Not a single seat changed hands in WA, although the electorate of Cowan has not yet been finalised.
With almost three-quarters of the vote counted, Labor incumbent Anne Aly maintained a slim margin ahead of Liberal candidate Isaac Stewart.
Dr Aly admitted to ABC Radio Perth her party had struggled with the number and size of policies on which it had campaigned.
She also conceded the Coalition's "Kill Bill" campaigning strategy had been very effective.
"From the very beginning the Libs had this 'Kill Bill' strategy, and they made it very personal, they made it about playing the man, not the ball," Dr Aly said.
"So I don't want to see an Australia that goes down the path of the US with personality politics in play."
Read more about the federal election:
Topics: government-and-politics, federal-elections, elections, federal---state-issues, states-and-territories, perth-6000, wa, australia
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