I FEEL compelled to respond to your issue of June 22 following a number of recent State Scene articles which have inaccurately reported on work within the Liberal Party and relayed incorrect facts and figures. State Scene says that: “WA’s Liberal Party now has well below 2,500 members”. The Liberal Party of Western Australia has well over 5,000 members, and a further 2,000 who are currently unfinancial and have been recently sent a reminder notice. It is interesting to note that Mr Poprzeczny, the author of the article, has not contacted either the state director or myself to verify his statistics. Further, we continue to be amazed at his mythical past 20,000 members, of which no real evidence can be found. Mr Poprzeczny goes on to say that the Liberal Party: “is seeking to stay afloat by resorting to compulsory taxpayer funding at state elections”. Public funding of state elections is just that, for the assistance of funding of state elections, not to assist in enabling the party to ‘stay afloat’. The Liberal Party is not broke. It has considerable assets but the current executive, unlike some previous, is not prepared to sell assets to pay for recurrent expenditure. Unlike the Labor Party, which receives guaranteed regular financial support from trade unions, the Liberal Party must seek financial support from individual donors in order to keep the party operational. This remains a constant challenge. Mr Poprzeczny comments on Mr Paul Everingham’s reason for leaving the party are both mischievous and totally incorrect. In 2002, Mr Everingham, when being interviewed for the position of state director, told his selection committee that he wanted to serve three to five years in the party, after which he would return to the private sector. Mr Everingham successfully fulfilled his commitment. Further, the comment about our current state director may well be the opinion fed to Mr Poprzeczny, but the reality is that the job of a state director is to administer the constitution of the party without fear or favour, a job Mark Neeham is performing well. I do not intend to further enter into Mr Poprzeczny’s diatribe on our party, apart from to point out that we are about to hold our annual internal party elections, which is a time when disaffected members always come to the fore. This sort of misinformation is both damaging to the party and very disconcerting to the thousands of volunteers who give their time because they believe in democracy. I look forward to Mr Poprzeczny either justifying his statistics or printing a correction. Danielle Blain - Liberal Party state president
