Leaders poles apart and apart in polls

GREAT DIVIDE: WA Premier Colin Barnett shakes hands with Mark McGowan in a pre-election televised debate. Picture: Jordan Shields Source: News Limited

THERE could not be a clearer choice for West Australian voters when they stroll to the polls tomorrow.

On the Liberal side is Premier Colin Barnett - aged 62, resident of affluent, beachside Cottesloe, and friend of big industry, big-picture projects and the big future he says Asia will bring for Australia's biggest state.

For Labor it's opposition leader Mark McGowan - aged 45, MP for WA's "bogan capital" of Rockingham, and a left-leaning lover of public transport, public utilities and public displays of affection with his family.

Delivering their policy spiels during more than a month on the hustings, they have opened up gaps between the left and right of WA politics that have rarely been wider.

The Liberals say they will build a new stadium at Burswood, finish Perth's waterside development, impose more mandatory sentences on criminals and construct a tramline to battle Perth's congestion.

Labor says it will move the new AFL stadium back to Subiaco, renegotiate the Elizabeth Quay waterside project, create a new panel to judge WA's judges and build a multi-billion dollar Metronet train system to free Perth from rush-hour hell.

The map of Metronet, a multi-coloured spider web of new train lines from Yanchep in the north to Mandurah in the south, is the abiding image of WA's 2013 election campaign.

It set the agenda as WA Labor got off to a flying start, with the Metronet plans launched weeks before the Liberals even conceded the campaign was under way.

And the back-and-forth over how much the ambitious integrated rail system would cost, and who would cost it, quickly drowned out much of the rest of the campaign - including what was to be increasingly vitriolic sniping between the big two on social media.

Former WA Liberal leader Matt Birney said the high-speed media cycle meant very little time was spent on individual policy announcements - apart from Metronet.

"I am surprised the environment did not feature a bit larger, and a lot of the policy initiatives have not received successive media. They get their announcement that day ... and then they go away," Mr Birney said.

"We haven't seen that (successive media) except for Metronet and that died a natural death when the costings came out."

Those treasury costings caused much angst for Labor, which kept the gathered media waiting nearly two hours before admitting its $3.8 billion estimate had come up short by $1.4 billion in 2021 prices - or $535 million in 2012 dollars.

Fears were also raised about the safety and reliability of the plan.

Metronet was renamed "Metronot" by Treasurer Troy "The Boy" Buswell, who, along with the health and age of premier Colin Barnett, then became the focus of the final few days before polling.

Somewhat ironically, after spending most of the campaign talking up his vision of running trains around and across Perth, Mr McGowan spent the final days on a bus, talking to people in more than 20 regional and city electorates in just four days.

And in the final push, Mr McGowan claimed that Mr Buswell - famed for his previous bra-snapping, chair-sniffing, frat-boy antics - was being groomed to take over as premier post-election, with Mr Barnett also rumoured to be feeling his age and suffering ill health.

Strong denials from Mr Barnett and Mr Buswell - who said he would "never, ever" lead the Liberals again - did not convince all.

Former Labor attorney-general Jim McGinty commented: "I believe Colin Barnett will not serve out the next term for a simple reason. He is looking tired. He is looking jaded in my view.

"You always want to have some sort of succession plan in place, and the Liberal Party love Troy Buswell - they see him as a flawed genius, the rest of us just seem his as flawed."

The public polls and the bookmakers have said from the start they believe result will be clear, with punters being offered a paltry $1.01 for a Liberal win, and whopping $14 odds for a Labor upset.

Mr Barnett has always said the result will be much tighter, with the minority Liberal government needing to gain six seats to claim power in its own right, and Labor needing just three.

But with pundits predicting a swing to the Liberals of up to five per cent, expectations of who will win leading into Saturday are unquestionable - as are the differences between the men who want to lead Australia's boom state for the next four years.

What do you think? Are the bookies right?

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