State Election 2021: Mark McGowan stalls tractor in hilarious campaign trail fail

Despite pre-polling surveys suggesting Mark McGowan will cruise to victory at March’s State Election, the Labor chief’s campaign has — a little embarrassingly — stalled for the first time.

The Premier visited a Waroona dairy farm earlier today to announce a new promise to boost the State’s primary industries.

When all the formalities were tidied up, Mr McGowan eyed a tractor he was keen to take for a spin.

But once in the driver’s seat it quickly became clear the campaign trail isn’t all smooth driving.

While enthusiastic, it was obvious Mr McGowan still has a bit to learn about operating farming equipment, with the Premier stalling the tractor as he attempted to ease it from a shed.

CHECK OUT THE CLIP IN THE PLAYER ABOVE

Undeterred, he fired it back up and — after another few moments of coaching from farm owner Luke Fitzpatrick — he was back on his way, this time more successfully.

Mr McGowan took to social media to say it’s probably best the farming is left “to the experts”.

“It's always a thrill to ride in the big tractor, but sometimes it also teaches you a valuable lesson,” he said.

“Probably best I leave the farming to the experts.”

The Labor campaign trail today moved to Perth’s Peel region where Mr McGowan promised a $72.7 million investment in agriculture and aquaculture.

Included in that is a new $15 million agriculture climate resilience fund to help farmers manage the threat of environmental changes and $22 million to upgrade priority agricultural freight rail projects.