(Image: The West Australian/Private Media)
(Image: The West Australian/Private Media)

Any eastern state viewers addicted enough to politics to tune in to the final leaders debate last night — implicitly pitched at WA, it didn’t start until after 9pm for the majority of the country — got a taste of life in a one-paper town.

The West Australian’s logo was all over the walls behind the two leaders as they spoke, and for the final third they were joined by the paper’s political editor Lanai Scarr for state-centric questions.

In 2016 The West took over its only print competitor, The Sunday Times. In 2019 it bought out News Corp’s stake in the Community News Group, putting almost every print publication in Western Australia under the control of Kerry Stokes, who also owns Channel Seven. Anyone wanting to win the west had better pay attention to The West.

Behind the wrap-around Harvey Norman ads, the front page of today’s West awarded victory in last night’s leaders face-off to Anthony Albanese following a “civil” debate.

The image features both leaders, rather than a triumphant solo shot of the Labor leader, but we suspect WA Labor will take it: elsewhere the paper has hammered it during the campaign.

Indeed, just yesterday the paper went after Labor candidate Zaneta Mascarenhas for the crucial seat of Swan — one of three WA seats identified as potential gains for the ALP — citing her pre-politics connection to an organisation that advocated for a carbon tax. Ironically, this “must-read election scoop” was written by Scarr, who, as part of that night’s grilling of Albanese and Morrison, cited the expert consensus that a carbon price is the most effective means of reducing emissions.

(IMage: The West Australian)

And WA’s most high-profile teal independent, Kate Chaney, challenging liberal incumbent Celia Hammond in Curtin, has also come under scrutiny for failing to align herself with either party, which would be, well, the opposite of being an independent?

One could argue any one of these stories is in the public interest. And of course the announcement of the WA-based campaign launch got Labor two relatively positive front pages.

But it’s not just what is covered, but what’s missing. During the campaign the only front pages concerning individual candidates have concerned Labor and independents. To pick one example, Ken Wyatt’s call for politicians to get a pay rise — during an election where cost of living and stagnating wages are huge issues — didn’t get a front page either before or after the prime minister called a $1-an-hour increase for minimum-wage earners “economic vandalism”. Wyatt is the Liberal incumbent for Hasluck, another crucial seat.

And surely the Liberal Party can’t have minded the front page on May 4, the day after the Reserve Bank of Australia had raised interest rates for the first time in more than a decade. Rather than focus on what the news would mean for everyday Australians, or what this would do to the Coalition’s economic credentials, the West found a boomer to tell everyone to stop whinging.

Its front page featured 85-year-old retiree (and president of the WA Self Funded Retirees group) Ron de Gruchy, facing the camera unsmiling and hand on hip, recalling the 17% interest rates he had to pay in 1990.

“Back then, people didn’t complain — they just adjusted,” he says, under the headline: “You call that a rate hike!”

(Image: The West Australian)

We can’t find, going back to February 5 at least, a single front page dedicated to making Scott Morrison look stupid (the closest would be the budget coverage, which asked if the “Quid Game” was Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s “last roll of the dice”). Unlike, say, the first week of the campaign, when the West (far from alone on this, to be fair) squeezed out several days of coverage from Albanese’s slip on the unemployment rate.

And compare the relative prominence of the “presidential and headed for WA” photoshoots for Morrison and Albanese:

(Image: The West Australian)
(Image: The West Australian)