Zempilas echoes 'The Road Not Taken' as WA Liberals face difficult choice

In many ways, the work of a politician is the work of a salesman.

And that sales pitch begins at party state conferences, where leaders sell their vision to their most faithful followers.

It's always filled with a necessary helping of optimism, which WA Liberal leader Basil Zempilas obligingly delivered yesterday.

"There is a pathway to victory in 2029," he said of the next state election.

"It may be a path which takes us down a political road less travelled."

It's a turn of phrase sometimes linked to 'The Road Not Taken' by American writer Robert Frost which recalls an indecisive traveller facing two diverging paths.

There could hardly be a more apt image of where the WA Liberals are, two and a half years from the next state election.

Tackling the One Nation threat

The party is facing a difficult choice.

Is their best chance of winning back government leveraging the growing levels of support for One Nation?

Or does the once-minor party present such an existential threat that it needs to be confronted head-on?

Having laid out everything you'd expect him to — how terrible Labor is doing, how well the Liberals have done at highlighting that, and announcing reforms to payroll tax — Zempilas reaffirmed his view.

"We are not working in partnership with One Nation," he told reporters.

"But there is some common ground, and that common ground centres around they want Labor out, and so do we."

In his view: "Any person in my position would be derelict in their duty if they are not considering everything that is before them."

It's a position in stark contrast with others in his party, including Queensland Premier David Crisafulli who yesterday ruled out future negotiations with One Nation.

Challenge laid bare

In times gone by, the current political landscape would have been fertile ground for an opposition to sow the seeds of discontent needed to turf Labor out.

Cost-of-living pressures continue to bite, despite the state's huge surpluses. The health system is struggling to cope with an aging population. A crisis in child protection has dominated headlines for months.

All wicked problems without quick fixes and, perhaps most importantly, contributed to by both major parties.

It was a sentiment reflected on by One Nation's first MP in WA's lower house, Luke Herdegen, as he gave his maiden speech last week.

"I do not feel lonely, because I know my friends are coming," he said.

"It is too late for you to stop it, but I can try to help you understand it.

"The fact is you got complacent. Some of you turned your back on the tides, and some of you simply never knew they were there."

And there was an even more explicit nod to the anti-establishment mentality which seems to be pushing support to One Nation.

"The people do not care about your titles, they do not care about Question Time, the standing orders [rules of parliament] or which of you have booked the members' dining room for 6pm," Herdegen said.

"They care about whether they can afford to put dinner on the table for their families at 6pm."

Liberals set out stall

Those clear concerns of voters are why federal Liberal leader Angus Taylor spent Saturday morning telling the state conference about his plans to "axe Labor's toxic taxes, waste and red tape".

"We'll make life easier for Australians and Australian businesses, and that means more businesses, more farms, more factories, more infrastructure," he said.

Meanwhile, federal firebrand Michaelia Cash promised a coalition government would, on its first day, legislate that "a man is a man, a woman is a woman".

Taylor said he was "always happy to stand in front of three flags, as long as they are all Australian flags".

It was not a matter of one taking priority over the other, Senator Dean Smith clarified the following day, but that a coalition government "will be doing a lot of things on its first day".

Prospect of triple coalition

If that day comes for Taylor, or Zempilas, though, the path they use to get there could drastically change what that first day, and those which follow, looks like.

But the more complicated path — which would result in a Liberal-National-One Nation government — isn't one which the WA leader said he had considered.

"Our ambition is to govern in our own right, together with our partners from the Nationals, and we will consider anything that needs to be considered at such time as it needs to be," he said.

Zempilas himself has acknowledged "there are lots of things that I have seen and heard from One Nation that I wouldn't say or be involved in".

Just imagine how vigorous that debate could get if a close working relationship brought the trio into power.

Don't look back in wonder

Frost's poem concludes: "I took the one [path] less travelled by, and that has made all the difference."

Many have offered their own interpretations of his writing in the century since, including that the traveller's choice never really mattered.

And yet the poem persists in the minds of some as a call to choose the harder, less popular route, in pursuit of success.

Perhaps that's why Zempilas told his party: "With so much at stake, this is not, friends, a time to be timid. It is a time to be bold."

Much like Frosts's writing, the meaning of that call changes in the eye of the beholder.

But by the next state election in 2029, a choice will have to be made.

The party will be hoping it isn't left looking back, wondering about 'The Road Not Taken'.