Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Western Australia
Parties and the party system
The core elements of WA’s modern party system had emerged by 1914. Prior to this
time,electionsandparliamentwerelargelythepreserveof‘notables’,whoformed
loose groupings in parliament. The formation of the Australian Labor Party (Labor)
in 1902 radically altered this dynamic. Created to represent newly enfranchised
workers and unionists, Labor quickly developed into a disciplined electoral party,
enabling it to dominate the contest for government for much of the period until the
late 1950s. 51
Labor’s organisational and political successes triggered the mobilisation of the
Liberal and National (formerly Country) parties. While a group claiming to
represent business interests used the ‘Liberal’ label in 1911, it was not until the
establishment of the federal Liberals in 1944 that the WA Liberals acquired the
organisational discipline to emerge as the major non-Labor rival. For much of the
period from the late 1950s until the 1980s, 52 the Liberals dominated government,
although, since this time, they have alternated with Labor in office. In the nine
elections held since 1986, the Liberals have held government on four occasions, and
Labor five times.
While the Liberals were slow to institutionalise, the Nationals had established
robust organisational underpinnings by 1914. The party was able to leverage its
close relationship with rural interests, along with its organisational structures, to
become a competitive conservative party. However, similar to divisions of the
National Party elsewhere, the WA Nationals have been under intense pressure from
demographic changes, structural change to the economy, electoral reforms and
competitive pressures from the Liberals. 53 At various times, this has led to internal
fracture and the existence of two separate rural parties in the state. 54
Acrimony within the Nationals has also affected the party’s ties with the
Liberals. There have been two key inflection points in the relationship between
the conservative parties, the first of which was between 1978 and 1986, when
the coalition disbanded. The second, and present, opened up in 2006, when the
Nationalsabandonedthecoalitiontopursuealooserpost-election‘partnership’
with the Liberals, in which they sought ministries and funding commitments in
exchange for supporting the Liberals in office. While some scholars have declared
the Nationals’ latest strategy a triumph, 55 it is unclear whether this tactic will
ultimately be sufficient to save the party from demographic forces over which it has
no control.
Prior to the 1990s, the Council overwhelming favoured the election of members
from the three major party groupings, and the conservative parties more particularly.
51 de Garis 1991.
52 Black 1991.
53 Moon and Sharman 2003.
54 Gallop and Layman 1985.
55 Phillimore and Mahon 2015.
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