Colin Barnett has survived a threat to his leadership in Western Australia with a motion for a spill defeated by 16 votes at a party room meeting in Perth on Tuesday.
The spill motion was voted down 31 votes to 15, according to government whip Phil Edman. It took just 15 minutes. Former frontbencher Dean Nalder, who instigated the spill with his resignation over the weekend, did not get to nominate for the leadership position.
Party room source says spill motion defeated 31 - 15. It's done.
— Daniel Emerson (@DanEmerson14) September 20, 2016
The result appeared set before the meeting began, when Nalder said he was “not really concerned either way with what the outcome will be” and suggesting that he never intended to be involved in a spill.
“Yeah, look sometimes I end up at the centre of things that I don’t necessarily intend to end up at the centre of,” he told reporters outside parliament house in Perth.
He said losing the spill motion would not be personally embarrassing and he was unlikely to be involved in another spill motion – but then, he said he was not involved in this spill motion, in which he was the only known alternative leadership candidate.
Nalder, a first-term MP, resigned as transport minister on Saturday, citing a lack of confidence in Barnett’s “erratic and illogical” leadership style, saying he was “embarrassed” by the backflip on the Perth Freight Link project and had quit “on principle”.
“Colin is making irrational decisions without consultation with respect to ministers or cabinet,” said in an interview with the Sunday Times announcing his resignation.
He maintained that he was not intending to trigger a leadership challenge but “would not rule it out”.
His criticism of Barnett’s leadership echoed that of veteran frontbencher Tony Simpson, who also resigned from the ministry on Saturday, and was backed by the former mental health minister, Helen Morton, and backbencher Murray Cowper.
Senior frontbenchers including deputy premier Liza Harvey, long-tipped as Barnett’s successor, stood behind the premier.
Nalder’s supporters were reportedly claiming more than 20 votes in the 46-member party room before the doors closed at 10am.
However the majority of MPs stopped by the media pack on their way to the meeting said they intended to vote against the spill motion.
Barnett is currently Australia’s longest-serving political leader and passed his eighth anniversary as premier on Friday. He has been scathing of leadership changes in other jurisdictions and joked with reporters before the meeting that facing a challenge was a “new experience”.
Harvey described the spill as “nonsense” and said the government should be focused on winning the 2017 state election. She also ruled out ever challenging Barnett for the leadership, but is expected to run for the job when he steps down at some point after the March poll.
The treasurer, Mike Nahan, told reporters he expected Barnett to retain the premiership and for Nalder and others to respect the decision of the party room.
The Liberal-National coalition has trailed Labor in successive newspolls but Barnett has continually remained the most popular candidate for the Liberal leadership.
The health minister, John Day, described the spill as “foolhardy.” Backbench MP Liz Behjat went further, describing the dissenters as “cockroaches and rats”.
Time for a bit of spring cleaning! The rats and cockroaches need to go @ColinBarnett @PeterCollierMLC @josh_jerga https://t.co/baX272BlxC
— Liz Behjat (@LizBehjat) September 19, 2016
Simpson, who delivered a scathing critique of Barnett’s leadership on Saturday, said the spill motion needed to be held to “get this shit off our chest”.
A ReachTEL poll on Friday found 44.8% of Western Australians favoured Barnett out of five options, up more than three percentage points from March, followed by 30.6% who supported Harvey.
Only 5.5% of those polled for the West Australian supported Nalder, whose vote was even lower among Liberal voters, at 1.7%.
Veteran WA political journalist Geof Parry said Nalder’s popularity was “in the cellar”.
“I just think it’s extraordinary that people are looking at a man that is less popular than the man that’s in the job,” he told 6PR.
Nalder told reporters outside parliament that his aim was just to have a “good strong conversation” in the party room. It’s understood that did not occur, with the party moving straight to a ballot without debate.
Cowper earlier claimed Barnett’s office had tried to frustrate his bid to file a spill motion by not listing it on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting.
In a letter to Liberal MPs on Monday evening, which was leaked to the ABC, Cowper said he was told by Barnett’s advisor, John Hammond, that the notice of motion had been removed from the agenda “allegedly on the instruction of the premier”.
“One of the problems expressed by some members, levelled at the premier’s office is the intrusion upon the sovereign rights of an elected member,” Cowper said.
“I am alarmed and perplexed as to how ‘we’ are being collectively manipulated by unelected members of the Parliamentary Liberal party, and serves as a classic example of the interference and control asserted upon us all.”
ANOTHER LEAK... Murray Cowper claims "Intrusion upon sovereign rights of elected MPs" #Libpartyroomagendagate pic.twitter.com/4RhI2wLVNR
— Jessica Strutt (@JessicaStrutt) September 19, 2016
Barnett told reporters after the meeting that MPs had been able to air their concerns about the government, including criticism of his leadership style, and he accepted “some” of that criticism. He said the process was “therapeutic” and “overdue.”
“I’m a decisive leader,” he said. “Sometimes people might find that abrupt ... I think sometimes because I like to get on with the job and deal with issues quickly, maybe people think I don’t listen enough. I accept that criticism.”
He said it was a “convincing win” and “everyone has to lick their wounds and get on with it.”
“Dean and I and Tony Simpson and I shook hands,” he said. “We are moving on.”
The former prime minister Tony Abbott, who lost the leadership after a successful spill motion to Malcolm Turnbull a year ago last week, tweeted his support of Barnett.
Good to see sense and sanity prevail in the West Australian Liberal Party today.
— Tony Abbott (@TonyAbbottMHR) September 20, 2016
