The WA Liberal party is staring down the possibility of remaining the second-tier opposition party for the next four years if it doesn’t overtake the Nationals in the Legislative Assembly. Both parties are sitting on six lower house seats after the Nationals declared victory in Albany and Warren-Blackwood.
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00:00Freshly elected and still finding his way.
00:06I'm on my way into parliament induction, so I think actually right here is where I'm supposed to be.
00:12But Basil Zemplis will almost certainly be the new WA Liberal Party leader come Tuesday next week.
00:19My sense is that I will be the only candidate. That's my sense.
00:25While the Liberal leadership might be clear, the question of who will be the official opposition leader is up in the air.
00:32The Liberals and Nationals have secured six lower house seats each.
00:36Counting continues in another two seats.
00:39The Liberals are ahead in Kalamunda, while the Nationals are hopeful of winning Kalgoorlie.
00:44Right now we're 6-6 with the Nats. If we win Kalamunda we go to 7-6 and that is outright opposition status.
00:51If the parties end up with an equal number of seats, they'll have to negotiate who gets official opposition status, which comes with extra resources.
01:00Pretty close to an equality of resources is what I think should be the case in an agreement between the two parties going forward as we go to the next election.
01:09Shane Love wants the two parties to decide early on how they'll campaign in unison.
01:16We need to be more explicit and make sure that that's laid out to the public early on.
01:21And this needs to be done in the early part of the arrangements and not left down the track for a discussion in two years' time.
01:30While the opposition parties await final numbers, the government is cracking on.
01:36Roger Cook's New Look cabinet meeting for the first time with four new faces and many new portfolios.
01:43We'll be backing our resources industry, diversifying our economy.
01:47Parliament is set to return in May.