Losing a seat in a costly by-election is an unforced error the Liberals can ill afford.
DAVID Honey was never going to lead the Liberal Party to the next election.
That much was obvious as far back as October, when The West Australian published polling that put his approval rating at a miserly 9 per cent.
Internal polls were understood to have returned only marginally better results.
Indeed, it’s understood in recent months that Dr Honey’s support in the party room had dwindled to all but two MPs, with Libby Mettam effectively becoming the leader in waiting.
Not that his demotion proved acrimonious. Despite initially promising to challenge for his position, Dr Honey eventually chose to avoid a contest and support Ms Mettam, in a much-needed show of unity for the long-suffering Liberal Party WA.
Better still, Dr Honey vowed to stay on as the member for Cottesloe despite some openly musing about whether he should leave parliament.
No doubt there are strong arguments against keeping Dr Honey, a 64-year-old former Alcoa manager, in a seat such as Cottesloe, a blue-ribbon jewel in the crown that’s ripe for the picking as the party mulls where to install credible candidates ahead of the 2025 state election.
Put bluntly, Dr Honey contributed to the Liberal Party’s visibility problem in recent years as he retreated into the job of opposition energy spokesperson, to the detriment of others.
His lack of political nous in recent years has been evident.
Prone to wooden performances in parliament and less than charismatic when fronting the press, Dr Honey’s frequent use of social media could generously be described as faux Trumpian, replete with memes and childish nicknames, like the silly moniker ‘Blackout’ Bill Johnston.
But none of this behaviour can diminish his substance as a person. Holding a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Western Australia, Dr Honey spent nearly two decades in management before contesting Liberal preselection, and arguably came to the job with greater experience in the private sector than many on the government benches.
He also deserves significant credit for his role in confronting party powerbrokers in the 1990s while serving as director of the state party; experience that may prove handy if Ms Mettam follows through on her threats to crackdown on ‘The Clan’.
More importantly, though, ditching him and forcing a by-election could simply add further pressure to an undermanned opposition.
That’s in part because Celia Hammond, who lost the federal electorate of Curtin at last year’s national poll, managed just 47.1 per cent of first-preference votes in overlapping booths when she was narrowly bested by ‘teal’ independent Kate Chaney.
That translated to 52 per cent of the two-party-preferred vote, or a 3 percentage point overperformance against her overall result.
Dr Honey, by comparison, ran much stronger in corresponding booths amid Labor’s thumping state election win, picking up 48.6 per cent of first preference votes and finishing with 59.9 per cent of the TPP vote.
That amounted to a 2.1 percentage point overperformance in TPP terms compared to his overall result.
Assuming a similar number of disaffected Liberals are willing to buck the party (and the Liberal result is below 40 per cent in TPP terms in the electorate’s North Fremantle booth), a by-election could be yet another unforced error for a demoralised bunch.
Obviously, all elections are different, with candidate quality and local issues playing a part.
Notable, however, is that despite the enthusiasm with which Climate 200 and the community mobilised ahead of Victoria’s state election, ‘teal’ candidates fell just short of knocking off incumbents in the similarly well-healed, blue-ribbon seats of Kew and Hawthorn.
Still, finding someone willing to stand on a platform of climate action and transparency in government can’t be ruled out in a state like WA.
It should go without saying, but with the Liberal brand as damaged as it is, the potential to lose another seat shouldn’t be dismissed by those keen to force the party’s hand into an early rebuild.
After all, a 9 per cent approval rating is marginally easier to accept than being left with one seat in parliament.
