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An ousted WA Liberal MP says his party's preference deal with One Nation was a disaster and Colin Barnett should have been toppled as leader last year, as the fallout continues from Labor's landslide election win.
The Liberals are trying to determine where it all went wrong, after an election which saw them lose 18 seats to Labor and ended the Barnett Government's eight-and-a-half years in office.
Six Liberal ministers are in danger of losing their seats, including leadership aspirant Joe Francis, following the biggest swing ever against a sitting government.
Many Liberal MPs are expressing frustration with the party's controversial preference deal with One Nation, which critics said proved a major campaign distraction and turned voters away from the party.
Upper House MP Phil Edman, who appears to have lost his seat, took aim at the party figures who orchestrated the One Nation deal.
"The kingmakers and the powerbrokers of our Liberal Party have got a lot to answer for," Mr Edman said.
"I think the One Nation preference deal did us a lot of damage ... I think it is the main thing that caused us damage."
Barnett 'not right choice': Edman
Mr Edman said sticking with Mr Barnett during last year's leadership spill was "clearly not the right choice".
"There was an opportunity last September for a change and perhaps that was the right choice," he said.
Former minister Tony Simpson, who lost his seat of Darling Range, said Mr Barnett's leadership was the "number one" reason for the Liberals' loss.
Mr Simpson, who unsuccessfully called for a spill motion against Mr Barnett in September, said the Premier had stopped listening.
"I think the voters thought that he was out of touch with them," he said.
Former Parliamentary speaker Michael Sutherland, who has lost his seat of Mount Lawley, said there was no single factor the result could be attributed to.
"There was land tax, the taxi drivers, the things that didn't go away and there were too many balls in the air," he said.
"Western Power is one of the factors, it was one of the balls in the air."
Veteran Liberal MP Simon O'Brien said the party now had to focus on rebuilding, urging colleagues to keep the blame game behind closed doors.
"We now have to focus on building for the future, that is what thousands of Liberal supporters would expect from us," he said.
Meanwhile, ousted Independent MP Rob Johnson, who lost his seat of Hillarys to Liberal Peter Katsambanis, has released a vitriolic phone message to him left by Mr Katsambanis on election night.
Mr Katsambanis can be heard on the voicemail message, which was apparently recorded at 2:49am, gleefully saying "have a great day, and enjoy the rest of your life, thank you, bye-bye".
Mr Johnson, a former Liberal, said the "drunken message" was "deplorable" and "representative of the dirty, vindictive and dishonest campaign" Mr Katsambanis had run against him.
But Mr Katsambanis said he meant everything he said in the voice message, urging Mr Johnson to cease what he described as the "threats, bullying and intimidation" and get on with his life.
Antony Green's analysis on the preference deal:
Pauline Hanson [said] herself that perhaps the deal wasn't a good thing.
This is a party that is an anti-politics party, and they did a deal with a Government that is unpopular.
It astonishes me that the Liberal Party would put One Nation ahead of the Nationals — I thought that was the most astonishing aspect of the entire deal.
It didn't surprise me that One Nation did some sort of deal, but it really has backfired.
The voters who support One Nation want to vote against politics, they don't want to vote for deals.
Topics: elections, liberals, wa
First posted