The Western Australian government of Alan Carpenter got a thumping in the state election last night.
It looks like loosing about eight seats.
Neither the Labor party nor the Libs have enough seats to form government in their own right.
The Nationals look like they could hold the BOP (balance of power).
A while ago, due to some strange cosmic alignment, the Libs and the Nats split in the West.
Whilst in most other states the Liberal and National parties are in coalition, i.e, they vote with each other in parliament, in WA the Nationals are an independent party, and not in a coalition.
The leader of the Nats in WA, Brendan Grylls, is not saying which party his party will support in order to form government, but whichever one it is had better come to the table and meet his demands (totalling about $700 million). Grylls even suggested his party (of 4 in the lower house!) could side with the ALP to form government - which seems utterly ridiculous ... most National voters would rather eat glass than have their elected representatives vote with the Labor party.
I don't think Mr Grylls should get too cocky - or take his supporters for granted.
Interesting times in the West.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
1 comment:
Considering that the Labor Party tried to murder the Nationals in WA by adjusting a whole heap of electorate boundaries to skew the balance away from the traditional National Party seats as much as possible, I think Mr. Grylls is just grandstanding.
In all likelihood he will side with the Liberals for a fraction of his original request and a couple key cabinet positions, and give Colin Barnett the credit for beating him down to a more reasonable figure.
Post a Comment