I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley!

Surely you can't be serious…

The Australian Labor Party in Western Australia is becoming both a joke and on the nose.  It lost the unlosable election; a young, charismatic Premier at the height of his powers in the middle of a mining and industrial boom, with hand-picked high profile local celebrities verses a tired old conservative deposed leader with a team of conservative players that really didn't like their “captain” much.

Worse, the conservatives had a proven formula of losing elections; Colin Barnett had demonstrated this before.

But Carpenter, or “Carps” as the local rag like to call him, made two horrendous mistakes.  Firstly he allowed his “team” to talk to disgraced former Premier and criminal Brian Burke, and then after fixing that blunder called an early election.

If there is one thing people hate more than compulsory voting, it’s having to endure an election campaign before the government’s term is due.  And Labor lost, after a coalition of independents, Nationals and the Liberals formed.

But one could be forgiven if Labor learned any lessons.  For example, prior to the election, Labor wanted to reform shopping hours.  Instead of businesses being forced to close their doors at 5pm in most cases, Labor was committed to deregulation of shopping hours.

That was in the good ol’ days before the glitch in credit costs to banks.

Now in opposition, Labor have made themselves as popular as roast pork in a synagog by using the childish argument ‘you didn’t help us push reform through, so we’ll block yours ,nah, nah, nah, nah’ and using silly words like ‘mandate’ and ‘community standards.’  Um, Labor, you lost the election, and you say you have a mandate?

Even when the Premier offers a compromise, the leader of the opposition — and of Labor — the silly old school teacher Eric Ripper comes back with a haggling nightmare of “well, you can extend trading hours by one more hour, if you agree to our terms.”

Eric Ripper, excitement machine, dynamic powerhouse, completely un-gormless non-twit.

Now I don’t want to end on a sour note, so I admit I’m not a Hawthorn fan.  However, Jordan Lewis could make me turn — if only he kicked for the other “team!"