Former WA Nationals leader Mia Davies endorsed as party’s star candidate for new Federal seat of Bullwinkel

National Party leader David Littleproud has declared star candidate Mia Davies the best person to win the new seat of Bullwinkel for the Coalition, just days after Peter Dutton declared the Liberals want the seat. Mr Littleproud said internal polling by the Nationals showed Ms Davies, the former WA Nationals leader, was best placed to win the notionally Labor seat in what is looming as a must win contest for the Coalition as it seeks to throw Anthony Albanese out of office. “This is one seat the Federal National Party team will be focussing on,” Mr Littleproud said of the newly established seat. “You will see a lot of National Party members over here (in WA) showing the respect to the people of Western Australia and people of Bullwinkel. “We have polled the new seat of Bullwinkel and in our analysis of those numbers, it is very clear that the only opportunity for the Coalition to win this seat — a notionally Labor seat — is Mia Davies.” Ms Davies was endorsed as the National’s candidate for Bullwinkel on Saturday, the same day Liberals were also meeting to select their candidate for the same seat. Ms Davies is a current State National Party MP and will remain in that job until writs are issues for next year’s State Election, some time next February. A Federal Election is scheduled for next May, but Ms Davies said she would resign as a State MP if Mr Albanese called an early election. Ms Davies resigned as WA Nationals leader in January last year, saying she did not see herself as a career politician after 17 years in state politics. “I don’t have any fuel in the tank to go beyond that (2025 state Election),” she told the media at the time. But 20 months later, she is now in a spirited fight to enter Federal politics and represent WA. She said the creation of the new seat of Bullwinkel had fuelled a new desire to continue in politics. “It (running in Bullwinkel) was an opportunity that did not exist when I made the decision to step away from state politics,” she said. “The other part of it is the attack by this Labor Federal Government on our state. “We have seen (attacks on ) industrial relations, attacks on our live (sheep) export industry. This is a State that delivered the Labor Party the keys to the Lodge, and yet we are the state that has worn the brunt of so much of what this government has done. “You can’t sit idly by when you have got experience and capability — not to wade into the fight.” The new electoral division, encompassing Toodyay, York, Beverley, Northam and the Perth hills has been named after Lieutenant Colonel Vivian Bullwinkel. At the last Federal Election in 2022, the Federal Liberals lost Swan, Pearce, Hasluck, Tangney and Curtin. During a recent visit to Perth, Mr Dutton said the upcoming federal poll could well be decided in WA and nominated Bullwinkel as a seat the Liberals want to win. “We can win all of them back,” Mr Dutton said of the WA seats the federal Liberals lost in 2022. “And we can win Bullwinkel.” Now, Mr Dutton’s Liberals will need to fight it out with their Coalition partners for Bullwinkel. Labor has yet to pre-select a candidate for that seat. The last Federal National MP from WA was Tony Crook, who represented O’Connor from 2010-2013. Ms Davies, whose home town is Northam, said although she was well known in WA, there was still a lot of work to be done to win over Bullwinkel voters. “I am living in Northam and intend to continue living in Northam,” Ms Davies said. “I have lived in my electorate for the entire time I have been the member for Central Wheatbelt. “But there are new areas as well. “It’s not going to be a walk in the park. “In the seat of Bullwinkel we have the Perth hills — the shires of Mundaring and Kalamunda and you then go down the foothills. There are parts of Armadale and Kelmscott and Forrestfield. “They are areas the National Party has not traditionally held.”