I quite like Colin Barnett, I’ve even kept the birthday card he sent me a few years ago. But regardless of my personal views of him,  I’m certainly not going to let the pissant “senior Liberal insiders” comments in today’s West Australian go unanswered. 

These anonymous senior liberal sources claim it is because of Barnett’s unpopularity that the latest poll shows 54% Labor and 46% Liberal. Well first, I believe that at the end of today we’ll see things closer to 42% for the Libs than 46%. And the reason is not because of Barnett.

I understand that when about 16 Liberal pollies lose their job, they’ll want to blame someone. But they actually need to blame themselves. They’ve been in meetings for either the last 4 or 8 years when they could have spoken out. Spoken out about the atrocious decisions from the EPA, the great unrest over planning decisions (SAT, DAP, WAPC) which negatively impact everyday lives, the wasted cost of the failed council amalgamations, the budget ballooning from $5 billion to close to $40 billion, the weakness shown over the Scaffidi gift scandal, the increases in stamp duty etc etc.

So please, don’t blame Colin Barnett, don’t blame the One Nation preference deal and don’t blame Menzies House over the campaign. Doing that simply shows how out of touch and how ignorant of the issues you are. Some of those who will lose their job today have been very hard working and conscientious representatives of their community – I salute you and your efforts. Others have just represented themselves, and in the absence of the party pre-selection process separating the wheat from the chaff, the electorate will step in and do it themselves.

As for me, I’m going to help Tony Simpson who was someone who did speak out and even gave up his ministership. Hopefully he’ll be one who survives the red-wash that will descend on the State today.

Power to the People. Views are my own.