Making sure the GMO stays right on message

POLITICS wouldn't be the same without ideological differences, even within the governing party.

Colin Barnett's government is only weeks into its term, and many of its advisory appointees just days into their roles, but already controversies rage over the spoils of winning.

For instance, Deirdre Willmott's appointment as chief of staff to the premier has irritated some as a return to the past, notably the dying days of Richard Court's government when she held the same position.

Many within the party acknowledge this as strong experience and note how much Ms Willmott gave up when she bowed out of the race for Cottesloe to allow Mr Barnett a smooth return to the leadership. But there are some who will be watching her handling of this key role, especially given the Liberals' precarious electoral position.

Some of these dissenters highlight her policy positions at the WA Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA, notably retail trading hours, as being in stark contrast to what the Liberal Party took to the polls.

Conspiracy theorists see a link to another voice from the deregulation side of trading hours debate, Paul Plowman (pictured right), who has been appointed as the government's communications chief and will oversee the Government Media Office as part of wider role to restructure the way the state talks to the electorate and deals with the media.

Via his business, Atticus Communications, Mr Plowman was a spokesman for Franchisees Against Inequitable Retailing, a group backed by national retailer Harvey Norman.

He also worked for the Kimberley Land Council and the Conservation Council, which puts him at odds with many conservative Liberals, even though he is not in a policy position.

Mr Plowman acknowledges his past work may haunt him to some extent but his new role is not policy based, should members of the Liberal party be concerned.

Insiders dismiss these concerns and affirm the government's stance on trading hours. But detractors point to the number of former Labor staffers, particularly in ministerial media officer roles, as a worrying trend, even though their initial contracts are for just three months.

"The GMO should have sacked the lot of them got some new people," said one Liberal source, who believes Richard Court's team made the same mistake in 1993 by failing to purge the system and left Labor stooges in its ranks.

However, some claim the GMO was left in the dark by decisions driven out of then-premier Alan Carpenter's office.

While this may be the Nuremburg defence, there is also the huge problem of finding enough advisers to do the work, whether ideologically sound or not.

About half the ministerial media advisers worked for Labor ministers. But many key roles have been taken by newcomers such as Joey Armenti, who is handling the premier's media after doing so for a string of opposition leaders, and Bob Pride, who has come out of semi-retirement from CCIWA to run media for Troy Buswell.

As everyone involved admits, it's very hard to replace dozens of people overnight, especially in an isolated state such as Western Australia, where the resources boom has already leached the community of every competent person with a smidgen of understanding about the workings of government.

And while detractors point to errors in Mr Court's first term of government, others take aim at Labor's decision to do the opposite when Geoff Gallop took the premiership.

"Labor got rid of all the media people and that was a really bad idea," one observer told WA Business News. "There was chaos for about 18 months because people really didn't know what to do."