Even if the Liberals could win in WA, it wouldn’t change who really runs the place

The one and only debate between the leaders of Western Australia’s major parties (although calling the WA Liberals “major” at the moment feels a touch generous) was a dispiriting affair. Both leaders — current Labor Premier Roger Cook and Liberal contender Libby Mettam — spoke haltingly, tripping over their words and clearly looking down at their notes.

There was an understandable focus on cost of living, health and housing, with Cook and Mettam barreling past any difficult questions to nestle comfortably in their talking points. But, as ever, what wasn’t discussed was every bit as revealing (and given the largely insubstantial answers, probably more revealing) as what was. At no point did the topic of mitigating the environmental impact of WA’s mineral wealth come up.

As with the Tasmanian election and the bipartisan silence on gambling influence, this is what state capture looks like. This week Cook has airily invited any teal independents reelected in 2025 to “go to the Pilbara, see where their standard of living is actually based, and see where the economy is being driven”.

It’s widely agreed that the Liberal Party, recovering from the worst defeat in its history back in 2021, has absolutely no chance of winning on March 8. But even if by some miracle it did, the following areas would stay more or less the same. See if they give you any clue as to who really runs the show in WA.

Indigenous heritage

There was some minor needling of Mettam during the debate for her craven support of Peter Dutton’s gratuitous refusal to speak in front of the Indigenous flag. But symbolic gestures aside, the parties differences in this area aren’t completely irreconcilable.

Cook’s backflip on Indigenous cultural heritage laws in 2023 was done with bipartisan approval. The laws were introduced under Cook’s predecessor Mark McGowan after mining giant Rio Tinto destroyed nearly 50,000 years of irreplaceable Indigenous heritage at Juukan Gorge in the Pilbara region. The laws were in operation for less than a month before outcry from farmers and what the AFR called “behind-closed-door lobbying by the resources industry” saw them entirely scrapped, on account of (according to Cook) the impositions they placed on “everyday WA property owners”. Mettam welcomed the capitulation, which the traditional owners of Juukan Gorge called a “betrayal”.

Meanwhile, in the last days of 2024, it was revealed that the WA government was pushing for changes to the Native Title Act to provide greater protection to miners.

Environmental protection

We have Cook’s personal lobbying on behalf of the resource sector to thank for the collapse of the federal government’s promise to implement a federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Of course, WA Labor’s Ghostbuster’s-like contempt for the EPA extends to the state’s own version.

This week, reporting by Rhiannon Shine in the ABC detailed the just-released WA EPA report on the state’s environmental approval systems, that the government had attempted to keep from public view for over a year. The report, commissioned in response to complaints from the state’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry regarding waiting times for environmental approval, was conducted over six weeks and did not, apparently, speak to a single conservation group among its interviews with “peak bodies, industry proponents, key stakeholders and state and commonwealth government agencies and departments”.

In 2023 previous EPA head Dr Tom Hatton made the “extraordinary” claim that in 2019 McGowan personally intervened to ask him to withdraw the agency’s proposed emissions guidelines.

“He made it very clear that he didn’t feel that consultation was sufficient within industry, and he asked us to withdraw the guidelines,” Hatton recalled. “I tried to have a conversation to say … we are happy to do further consultation if that’s what’s required. He said, ‘no, I want you to withdraw the guidelines’.”

An unrelated detail which just popped in my mind, for some reason: upon his resignation from politics, McGowan swiftly took jobs at BHP and Mineral Resources, while a few years earlier, his treasurer and Aboriginal affairs minister Ben Wyatt took a gig with Rio Tinto.

Meanwhile, late last year, Labor legislation aimed at reducing emissions was quietly shelved.

Protest

In case the monolithic approach to the environment makes our WA readers so angry they wish to take to the streets, we have more bad news. Turns out the government isn’t simply an advocate for the fossil fuel industry — it’s also a private security service for it.

In recent years there have been a series of raids and arrests by WA’s counterterrorism police aimed at climate-related protestors. In August 2023, three people were arrested by the Western Australian Police Force’s state security investigation group for the planned graffitiing of the home of Woodside CEO Meg O’Neill. Two people were arrested for the “stink-bombing” of Woodside’s annual general meeting that April, and there was an armed raid on the home of climate activist Joana Partyka after she had spray-painted the Woodside logo on a Frederick McCubbin painting at the Art Gallery of Western Australia. Two years earlier, six members of Extinction Rebellion were arrested for covering a pedestrian footbridge near Woodside’s Perth headquarters with slogans. The slogans had been written in chalk that could be washed off.

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