Colin Barnett rules out tilt for WA Liberal Party state president role while urging Libs to go for youth

Colin Barnett has ruled out nominating for WA Liberal Party state president, declaring it was time for the “older guard” of State and Federal MPs to “make way for younger people”. WA’s last Liberal Premier said he has disappointed by the shock departure of former president Richard Wilson after just 14 months but believed the role should go to “someone in their 30s or 40s” rather than a party elder. He also advocated for the Liberal Party to enact a policy of allowing just one branch per state seat, a move he said would make the system less susceptible to manipulation from factional warlords. In an email announcing his resignation on Sunday, Mr Wilson blasted the “toxic self-interest” plaguing the Liberals despite the party’s recent commitment to reforms designed to weaken the grasp of powerbrokers. He referenced “leaks from party meetings carried out for the sole purpose of undermining factional opponents” and “the use of the party’s constitution to disenfranchise members from exercising a vote in local branches for the sake of preserving the career of sitting MPs, regardless of the quality of the MP’s performance”. Mr Barnett said he was sorry to see Mr Wilson go and that he believed he “was genuinely trying to do the right thing”. “I hope someone as committed to the role and willing to put the time in can stand up to fill the vacancy,” he said. “And like Richard (a one-time adviser to Mr Barnett), I hope it is someone of a young age. There are too many that have been around for a long time — myself included — who fight old battles and the like. “Someone in their 30s or 40s should take over the leadership of the lay party which I believe will help bring in more young people.” After a poll conducted for The West Australian found Liberal leader David Honey had an approval rating of just 9 per cent, Mr Barnett declined to comment on whether he thought it was time for the man who replaced him in the blue-ribbon seat of Cottesloe to move on. He also refused to weigh in on whether the Liberals could rebuild while prominent powerbroker and Clan member Nick Goiran remained in Parliament’s Upper House. “I won’t speculate on what people should do individually,” he said. “Certainly the Liberal Party more broadly needs to attract more people into State and Federal seats. The older guard needs to make way for younger people.” While the WA Liberal Party has voted to enact plebiscite preselections for election candidates — which hand a vote to every rank-and-file member in the relevant seat — Mr Barnett said he believed the branch system itself required a major overhaul. “The reform I would like to see is one branch for every State seat, which would mean around three branches for a Federal seat,” Mr Barnett said. “Very small branches are easily manipulated and stacked. I think having a lesser number of branches but bigger branches is likely to produce a better result.” Mr Barnett said some concessions would have to be made for big country electorates where towns were “hundreds of kilometres apart” but that he was strongly in favour of cutting down on the overall number of branches. He added that fewer branches would also lessen the administrative burden on future party presidents. “It is a non-paid position in a volunteer organisation and it is difficult to find someone who can allocate the time required, especially when you have people playing games in branches to try and influence preselections and things,” Mr Barnett said.