Campaigns split Liberal opposition

WA Liberal MP Dan Sullivan has resigned from the opposition frontbench after party leader Paul Omodei made a drastic bid to end internal feuding over election funding. The Liberals voted to support the project last week but dissident MPs revived their opposition later after it emerged that Attorney-General Jim McGinty had cut a deal with the Nationals to secure their support. The threshold at which parties qualify for party status was lowered, allocating the Nationals about $435,000 a year by keeping their party status, which would have otherwise gone to the Liberals. The electoral funding project was initiated after major parties were hit by a steady fall in their membership and the difficulty to raise funds because of shareholder activism and electoral disclosure laws.