Basil Zempilas: West Australians will fire up if Albanese mucks with State election date

1. This column was the recipient of a couple of solid shout-outs during question time in State Parliament this week — great confirmation of what we’ve always suspected, Friday circulation numbers are particularly strong among those on the Government benches. Always nice to know you have an audience. So let me use that knowledge to send a message I can be confident will hit the target; Health Minister, what about some humility?

2. During perfectly appropriate questioning from Libby Mettam, Amber-Jade Sanderson was asked if a lack of adequate resourcing at Perth Children’s Hospital was a factor in the sudden death of three-year-old Aliyah Yugovich. Instead of treating the question, and therefore the tragedy, with respect, the Minister defaulted to this Government’s preferred mode of defence whenever they’re under pressure: “this issue is being politicised.” No Minister, it wasn’t. It was a government being held to account, something one operating with humility would understand and expect.

3. It won’t matter how many times the Prime Minister has visited WA over the past three years, if his choice of Federal election date requires a shift in the State election next March, West Aussies will come down on him like a tonne of bricks. Nothing would say “I don’t really give a stuff about WA” more than picking a date which requires our locked-in-legislation election to change.

4. How long before Donald Trump and Elon Musk have a massive blue?

5. Oh, and have all those celebrities who said they were going to leave the United States if Trump won, left yet? As previously suggested on this page, they’re not worth a bumper those endorsements.

6. The two additional North Melbourne fixtures are a nice little bonus for WA footy fans, but they’re no consolation or comparison to the spectacle of SA’s Gather Round. Which leaves us in WA still chasing our own marquee round to make up for the boat we missed. I’ve got it. Let’s load up and go to the AFL and pitch for the final round to come here. Round 24 in Perth every year for five years. All the “live” top-eight deciding games at Optus, the dead-rubbers at Leederville and the like. It’s bold and it won’t come cheap, but can you imagine how big that would be.

7. By the way, this manufacturing of fixtures to help North Melbourne keep the lights on only serves to remind — the Kangaroos should have moved to the Gold Coast in 2011.

8. Common sense is continuing its comeback. This time it’s well done to the City of Wanneroo for voting to return its Australia Day ceremony to January 26.

9. The State War Memorial is magnificent and majestic, particularly at dawn, but on Monday I was reminded the nearby Flame of Remembrance is equally as stirring at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month.

10. Heads up — in tomorrow’s West, you can grab a copy of The Rio Tinto Christmas Lights Trail map and start planning your visit. As we say in the city, “Christmas lives here.”

Basil Zempilas is Lord Mayor of the City of Perth and the Liberal candidate for Churchlands