Unhappy WA Liberal MP quits frontbench

http://news.smh.com.au/unhappy-wa-liberal-mp-quits-frontbench/20080204-1q0g.html

Disaffected West Australian Liberal MP Sue Walker said she did not trust her party leader and lashed out at other members as she quit the opposition frontbench.

Ms Walker says she is being undermined by people within her own party and is being refused the resources she needs in her attorney-general's portfolio.

Following a one and a half hour-long meeting with new Opposition Leader Troy Buswell, Ms Walker said she had rejected his offer to keep her in the position.

She will move to the backbench and decide by Friday whether she will stay in the Liberal Party, which she has called a "boys' club".

The member for the blue-ribbon metropolitan seat of Nedlands said education spokesman Peter Collier, disgraced former Liberal powerbroker Noel Crichton-Brown and "pensioner parliamentarians", or retired MPs, were working against her.

Mr Buswell reappointed Ms Walker to the attorney-general portfolio after a controversial leadership spill two weeks ago.

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Walker reportedly decides to leave Libs

http://news.smh.com.au/walker-reportedly-decides-to-leave-libs/20080208-1qzn.html

Former Liberal opposition frontbencher Sue Walker has reportedly decided to leave the troubled party and represent her blue-ribbon seat as an independent.

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By-election shows govt on the nose: Libs

http://news.smh.com.au/byelection-shows-govt-on-the-nose-libs/20080224-1ucf.html

The West Australian opposition is playing down the departure of yet another MP from the Liberal Party and claiming its win in the Murdoch by-election is a sign the government is on the nose with the electorate.

Liberal candidate Christian Porter, a law lecturer at the University of Western Australia, on Saturday won the south metropolitan seat, which Labor did not contest, with 69.46 per cent of the two-party preferred vote.

The by-election followed the death of sitting member and party whip Trevor Sprigg on his way to a leadership spill in January.

But the result came a day after Liberal MP and former deputy leader Dan Sullivan announced his resignation from the party, saying he would continue in parliament as an independent.

Mr Sullivan said he did not agree with the direction leader Tony Buswell was taking the party, particularly his endorsement of the deregulation of shopping hours.

Mr Buswell on Sunday played down Mr Sullivan's departure.

"In politics, people come and people go," Mr Buswell told reporters.

But, he said, the strong swing to his party in the by-election showed people were sick and tired of the government's failure to deliver core services.