Rockstar Premier Mark McGowan returned to power after WA election bloodbath

Mr Kirkup held his seat by a wafer-thin 0.7 per cent margin, but votes poured in for Labor challenger Lisa Munday with a two-party preferred swing of 15.2 per cent.

“There will obviously have to be an important rebuild to take place now, that’s what we need to do as all Liberals,” he told a deflated crowd at the Dudley Park Bowling and Recreation club.

“It is bigger than one election, the Liberal Party survives more than one person.”

Mr Kirkup said the next four years would be the most difficult for the Liberal Party.

“We must not shy away from the task ahead of us because the people of WA depend on us,” he said.

“They depend on us to make sure that we do all that we can to hold Labor to account in a very small team and that team needs you now more than ever.“

The 34-year-old said it was important to make way for a new generation in the party but he would not be a part of it.

“I will not continue in parliamentary politics, I will not continue to seek office, the reality is I think it’s important we rebuild the party as best as we can and from my perspective, that means that I will no longer seek office of the Liberal Party,” Mr Kirkup said.

“My message to all Liberals across our state, those who supported us and those who did not, is that please do all that you can to work with us now when we need you more than ever to make sure that our party is as strong as it can be for the future of our state.

“The future of our state depends on a strong Liberal Party in opposition or in government.”

One of Labor’s biggest wins of the night was in the affluent western suburbs seat of Nedlands, which is deep in Liberal heartland and has never elected a Labor member.

The Nationals experienced a more subdued swing against them and have saved the furniture with four seats, making them the new major opposition party and their leader Mia Davies the new opposition leader.

How did this happen?

Historically, the incumbent experiences a swing against them but this was an election like no other in unprecedented times as voters rewarded Mr McGowan’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Saturday’s election occurred exactly one year since ‘Black Friday’ when the pandemic’s effect first meaningfully hit the state and large gatherings and events were wiped off the calendar.

McGowan’s daily live-streamed press conferences throughout last year helped him cultivate a public profile politicians could previously only dream of.

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The returning Premier has run a presidential-style campaign, masterfully influencing the hundreds of thousands of eyeballs glued to his talking head as he defended his ultra-popular hard border policies time after time from the “naysayers and doomsayers” east of the Nullabor.

His popularity reached celebrity status by the end of the first lockdown in July 2020 and since then he has featured in countless memes and videos showering praise on the man the WA public has anointed their saviour.

While McGowan’s popularity has played a huge part in his party’s win, the Liberal Party has not done itself any favours.

One of the opposition’s biggest missteps was its green energy policy that included shutting down government-owned coal-fired power stations in the South West mining town of Collie by 2025.

The policy caused ructions between the state and federal branches with federal Canning MP Andrew Hastie describing it as a ‘lemon’.

Two days out from the election the party copped flak over its election promise costings which lacked credible independent analysis and was full of budget black holes for key commitments such as the Roe 8 and 9 extension despite a $1.2 billion federal pledge towards the project.

Federal Labor will look to gain ground, following the state election, on a weakened Liberal branch, missing key figures Mathias Cormann and Julie Bishop and only being held together by acting Attorney-General Michaelia Cash with Christian Porter and Defence Minister Linda Reynolds both on sick leave.