Perth’s Historic Rivalry Between Army Hunks And Failed AFL Players Spills Over Into Liberal Party

CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT

Perth’s locally-famous football stars have long taken issue with the fact that chicks preferred to hang out with jacked special forces soldiers, but this week it seems that the rivalry between these two Western Australian archetypes appears to have boiled over into the national news cycle.

After decades of pub brawls in a town that ain’t big enough for the two of them, it appears that the Western Australian Liberal Party isn’t either.

Two of the handful of men left standing at both a state and federal level, Federal Liberal MP Andrew Hastie and WA’s embattled Liberal leader Basil Zempilas, are now going at it on the national stage.

But this time, it’s not over who gets the most free drinks or reserved nightclub booths.

Hastie, a former SAS war hero has taken it upon himself to tell the 25-game WAFL legend, to shut the fuck up about Liberal Party policy.

This comes as Basil Zempilas began offering his opinions on the party’s net zero gridlock, as Hastie’s Federal Leader Sussan Ley comes under pressure to unite the party and move forward with a concrete carbon emmisions target.

Zempilas – despite the hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign resources and very generous media coverage from WA media tycoon and major donor, Kerry Stokes – was only elected to state parliament by a pubic hair margin earlier this year.

He then immediately became leader of the party – which now holds only 7 seats in the entire WA Parliament.

Aside from the fact that Zempilas is clearly unpopular with WA voters – as both a TV commentator and a politician – and now leads a party that is one more state election loss away from complete annihilation, it seems that Hastie has taken issue with a former WAFL also-ran offering his opinion on anything.

Hastie, who many view as a future leader of the Federal Opposition, has still remained quite restrained in his language when discussing the problems that Zempilas is causing the Liberal Party.

On the record he has been officially quoted as saying he was “disappointed” by the WA leader’s comments, sharing a graphic which included a smiling Mr Zempilas.

Off the record, he’s believed to have used far more emotive language, such as ‘who the fuck is the bloke?’ and ’25 games in the WAFL? Kevin Parker played 25 games in the WAFL’