David Honey: Why the Liberal leader needs to soak up the punishment then come out swinging

David Honey has been leader of the WA Liberal Party for 250 days and there are already calls for him to be replaced. I earn a living by eviscerating politicians but even I reckon it’s a bit harsh calling for someone’s head because he hasn’t won back government eight months after the greatest electoral thrashing in history and more than three years before the next election. What do these agitators expect from him? He is one of only two Liberals in the Lower House. Every day of his life is like that last scene from the movie 300! The barbarians are everywhere. When there are only two of you, sometimes you are forced to play what boxers call rope-a-dope: you keep the gloves up, bite down on the mouthguard and let the other person punch themselves ragged. Professional boxer Floyd Mayweather showed how effective this tactic can be when he faced up to MMA champion Conor McGregor in 2017. The brash McGregor came out hard and fast, throwing punch after ineffective, energy-sapping punch. When Mayweather sensed his opponent was gassed, he switched from defence to brutal offence. And won the fight. The Libs need to be patient. They need to accept a beating, wait for the Government to expose itself, and then take a clinical shot. The Libs must also realise that no Opposition Leader looks like a real leader when they’re this new in the job. It’s only in their last year as Opposition Leader that politicians start looking like real leaders. Mark McGowan never looked the goods when he took over from Eric Ripper in 2012. “Sneakers” was still crawling so far up the arses of real leaders like Geoff Gallop and Kim Beazley that all you could see was his Dunlop Volleys hanging out. Colin Barnett was probably the strongest (read arrogant) leader since Charlie Court but he didn’t look like that in 2005 when he came up with “Colin’s Canal”. Little Johnny Howard was a national joke when he first became Liberal leader in 1985. The poindexter who was pulverised by Bob Hawke at the 1987 election went on to become one of the most respected prime ministers in Australia’s history. Backgrounding journos about leadership tensions in a party is a time-honoured tradition. Normally it’s difficult for the target to work out who’s agitating for change but there are only nine Liberals in the whole of State Parliament, so Nancy Drew could work out the source. If you had a bench seat in the front, you could hold a party room meeting in a Toyota Tarago. So who are the alternatives to Honey? Libby Mettam is the only option. She is the other Liberal in the Lower House. Who says the Libs don’t take gender equity seriously? Steve Thomas was a vet before becoming a politician. His 17 years experience at putting down sick animals will come in handy when the party inevitably deals with the incumbent leader. Peter Collier and Nick Goiran are the highest-profile Liberals, for all the wrong reasons. Donna Faragher is best known as being a woman in the sausage-fest that was Colin Barnett’s Cabinet. Tjorn Sibma’s name may ring a bell but only because it’s unpronounceable (and gets you out of a hole when you’ve got crap tiles in Scrabble). Like Tjorn, Neil Thomson spends his life telling people how to spell his name (not Neale and not Thompson). And finally, there’s Steve Martin. Unfortunately, he’s not that Steve Martin. I had no idea who he was, so I clicked on his biography on the Liberals’ website. It’s two lines. Apparently Steve Martin is so boring even Steve Martin isn’t interested in talking about him. No wonder McGowan looks smug. You didn’t ask me but... Christmas is around the corner and a lot of readers are about to buy a bike as a gift. If that’s the case, do the recipient a favour and make sure they register it with Bikelinc. That way, if it gets stolen (let’s be realistic, when it gets stolen) they have a chance of getting it back. Bikelinc is an initiative of Crime Stoppers WA. The program (go to Bikelinc.com.au for a better explanation than mine) allows cyclists to register their bikes by supplying pics, a description and serial number. Many stolen bikes are dumped by the thief. If bike is registered, the cops can look it up and contact the owner rather than put it in a storage shed and wait for it to rust away. Best of all, Bikelinc’s free. And it’s so effective the Australian Institute of Criminology just gave it a silver award. And that gong came hot on the heels of another award from Crime Stoppers International! And it’s overseen by a guy called Vince Hughes, who as well as being the boss of Crime Stoppers WA has just been made the chairman of Crime Stoppers Australia! But wait, there’s more. Actually there isn’t... Oh, and one more thing... Woodside Petroleum is about to learn that Extinction Rebellion is a persistent enemy. It’s easy to be persistent when you don’t have a job. The greenies are upset about Woodside’s Scarborough natural gas development. Woodside is going to build a 430km long pipe to get the Scarborough field’s seven trillion cubic feet of gas to the soon-to-be-expanded LNG processing facility, Pluto. Woodside says the $16 billion project will play an important role in the world’s move away from coal to less-filthy natural gas. Climate activists say Scarborough is a dog with fleas because it’s going to see 1.6 billion tonnes of CO2 released into the atmosphere. This week activists parked a car and caravan (both of which were not battery powered) across the road used to get to Woodside’s gas plants. They also locked their arms in barrels of concrete (which is one of the most carbon-intensive products on earth). Woodside’s been here before. In 2012 it was thinking about building a new LNG plant at James Price Point in the Kimberley. Activists sustained that protest, which was held on a dirt track 50km north of Broome, for months. Imagine what they’ll do when the protest site is on Karratha’s doorstep.