Oz Politics Blog

Today’s papers are full of stories about Geoff Gallop’s surprise resignation as Premier following his diagnosis with depression.

The interesting political question is who will replace him. Deputy Premier Eric Ripper, who has been Acting Premier while Dr Gallop has been on leave, will continue until a new leader is selected. However, he is not favoured to win the post. The emerging consensus is that Alan Carpenter is the most likely to take up the Premier’s mantle.

According to Peter Van Onselen, a lecturer in politics at Perth’s Edith Cowan University, things should go Carpenter’s way, but may get messy because Carpenter is currently in London.

I suspect it will be smooth, but only because he does appear to have the numbers, he has been touted as the man most likely for a long time.

He’s a clean skin, a lot of the other senior ministers in Western Australia have a certain amount of baggage, whereas he doesn’t, and he’s also in the right faction… because again, a lot of the other senior ministers aren’t from the right faction to have the numbers.

Having said all of that, because it’s come at such a surprise time, Alan Carpenter’s numbers were really in preparation for, you know, three, four or more years from now when Dr Gallop chose to retire, not now.

So the shortness of time, the fact that he’s overseas - things could get muddy. If they do, it’ll literally be in the next 48 hours I suspect.