Nedlands MP’s exit from Liberals resurrects WA opposition question

WA Nationals leader Shane Love has ruled out a challenge to be the new leader of the state opposition, despite his party now holding the same number of lower house seats as the Liberal party following the resignation of Nedlands MP Jonathan Huston.

Huston announced his resignation from the WA Liberals on Thursday, which was accepted by state leader Basil Zempilas.

However, on the matter of which party would remain as the state’s official opposition, Love said there was a fairly recent precedent, and he expected Zempilas to remain as opposition leader.

“In the last parliament there was a situation where the Liberal Party gained a seat through a defection of a member to that party from ours, and so then the numbers were at three-all,” he said.

“The speaker of the time gave a determination, because it’s really up to the speaker to determine who is recognised in that role, and the determination at that point was that as there was no vacancy for the position of leader of the opposition, if you like, that person still qualified to be the leader of the opposition.

“So, following that precedent, I would expect that the speaker would also still recognise Basil Zempilas as the leader of the opposition.”

Love was opposition leader when Nationals MP Merome Beard defected to the Liberals in 2023.

The move meant the parties had the same number of members in the lower house at three apiece – similar to the current balance of the two parties with six lower house MPs each in parliament.

Zempilas admitted the measure of any leader was to keep a team together, and said his job now was to keep that team functioning as well as possible.

“We’ve worked really well as a new opposition in the 42nd parliament of Western Australia,” Zempilas said.

“We have done a very, very good job of holding this government to account. One of our team members will no longer be part of the team, but every other member of our team is signed up to the course.”

Love said his ambition was to win the next election as part of a strong alliance with the Liberal party.

“To do that we need to do everything we can to work together as a united team, and it’s not a position where either party can govern without the other,” Love said.

“We are a partnership as we head to 2029 and we need to keep that partnership strong, and we need to be united in our opposition to Labor.”

Love added that his party had been shocked by the resignation of Huston but said he would be willing to work with the Nedlands MP as an independent.

“My members are actually very shocked at what’s happened here, and there is absolutely no desire from any of them to change their party,” he said.

“They understand that they were elected as Nationals, they’re not just elected in their own name, but they’re elected under our party banner, and it’s under that banner that they will run in 2029.

“Having one less (opposition) member in the house is not helpful, I can’t change that. All we can do is to continue to work hard through to 2029.

“We’ll work cooperatively with Mr Huston as an independent as well, because we need to ensure that there is as much pressure as possible being applied to the Cook Labor government to see it overthrown in 2029.”

Love added that he didn’t expect Huston’s resignation to mean a major shake-up of shadow portfolios for the National Party.

“My expectation is that the allocation of portfolios was based on a discussion and agreement by the parties prior to any of this happening,” he said.

“I don’t expect that we’ll see any change in the portfolios that Nationals hold.

“Obviously, the Liberals will have to rejig their portfolios to pick up those that Mr. Huston had held before.”