Not a bad article and most of its conclusions are accurate and valid. Two points, however.
First, the West Australian newspaper ran a strong anti-government war against the Richard Court govt in the lead-up to the 2001 election. It got stuck into Doug Shave, minister for Fair Trading, for his failure to act on the mortgage brokers scandal and it destroyed the Coalition on its forest policies as a result of the state govt's attempts to bring in a Regional Forest Agreement. The end result was a win to the ALP's Geoff Gallop. The West Australian's only bias is to sell newspapers and attack whoever is the govt of the day.
Second, don't get too hung up on the Nationals' so-called excellent result. Their lower house representation dropped from 5 to 4 seats, so it was the upper house where they actually did very well, rising from 1 to 5 seats. And normally it would be significant if the Greens increased their vote by 4.1% but, for the first time in 15 or 20 years, their preferences were pretty evenly split between the Libs and ALP, compared to an 80% or higher flow to Labor in past elections. I interpret this to mean that many non-ALP voters were voting Greens as a protest but they weren't true Greens supporters and won't be unlikely to vote the same way at the next election.

Bernie Masters very valid thoughtfull points. I appreciate the Nationals have dropped a Lower House seat but this was expected with the new electoral boundaries. They have made substantial gains in the Upper House. The Greens increased percentage vote probably disgruntled Labor voters protesting. Preferences always difficult to predict. The Nationals had the opportunity to make political history & fluffed it, they also had a one in a million chance to do some really serious practical value adding benefits to country living. Previous Liberal/National coalition governments have done exactly nothing for the ordinary country people, but have been a cynical Liberal exercise of trading upon traditional country conservatism, support them by word of mouth but do absolutely nothing of any practical benefit. The Nationals will come to rue this decision.

*Previous Liberal/National coalition governments have done exactly nothing for the ordinary country people,*

Err hang on Jack. I used to travel up and down the Brookton Hwy,
when it was so bad, that the speed limit had to be dropped. The
kitty was empty, Burky and friends had lost the lost on WA inc.

It was Monty House and Hendy Cowan who made the difference for us,
made sure that we had a road we could actually drive on and went
some way to reorganising the debacle that was called a meat industry,
when people like Laurie Connel were on the board of the WA meat
commission.

Monty got half way with doing something about the meat industry,
but never managed to complete it. Kim Chance did nothing
in 8 years, so its still a friggin disgrace today, compared to
every other state. It was made plain, there was nothing for
agriculture, money was going to Perth.

It looks like the only way that country people are going to get
noticed in any way, is to do exactly what Grylls is doing.
Democracy should not be about the tyranny of the majority, as
practised by labor. They clearly underestimated Grylls.

Don't forget, its still the regions that generate our wealth.
Treating them as a milking cow, is just not on. Labor ignored that
at their peril.

Yabby, I really have no wish to enter into an arguement about what previous Lib/Nats coalition have acomplished,( actually virtually nothing), but I do know a little bit about the meat industry. The Libs, mainly Dick Old( ex Country Party) closed down the Midland Abattoirs & kept the Robb Jetty Abattoir open. The reverse should have happened. Midland was a very modern service works & patronised by small business men, (both farmers & butchers), who bought/sold at the adjoining saleyards & walked the stock into the service works to be treated. Competition was keen & viable & its loss is still reverberating within the industry. Unfortunately the Brookton H'way is still only a country road,( single lane working). If Brendon Grylls had been a little more enterprising, joined forces with Alan Carpenter instead of choosing Colin Barnett then I am sure that services in the country, roads, railways, power, communications,water supply, hospitals, schools, would have been upgraded probably that much quicker & probably that much better than what is going to happen under the present arrangement,(judging by past performance). One has only to read what each party offered to Grylls to appreciate this.

*Unfortunately the Brookton H'way is still only a country road,( single lane working). *

That kind of attitude is exactly the problem Jack. The Brookton
Hwy is a busy highway, used by all sorts, from Japanese tourists
going to see Wave Rock, to Road Trains and stock trucks, taking
freight to the ports. Why on earth should it be a crappy single
lane, whilst you plan 1 billion $ football stadiums etc?

No way, sorry!

The meat industry never worked under the Govt and had to be
deregulated. Banning the export of lambs to private companies made
sure that no private company could invest in the industry. Look
at the difference in the East, where you have competition, compared
to WA.

Monty House finally deregulated the industry and held Roger Fletchers
hand to bring him to WA. Frankly without that major works, the
State would be stuffed. But he ran out of time to bring in
competition to Fletcher and most applications since have been
bogged down in Govt red tape and EPA problems. The net result is
pretty much a monopoly for Fletcher and Kim Chance never did a thing
about it. Go to those saleyards and tell me if there is not
corruption going on.

I actually quite like Colin Carpenter and think he is more talented
then Barnett. But given the arrogance and disdain with which
country people have been treated by labor for the last 8 years,
I understand why some of the Nationals simply refused point blank
to deal with them. Alot of country people carry these scars and
for very good reasons. Fact is that once the electoral boundaries
changed, Labor thought that they could crap on the bush with
impunity. They were wrong, as we now can see!

Conservatives did not win the election the Fairfax, Murdoch rags gave the most biased gutter press reporting that has ever been seen. There was nothing wrong with the Labor policies and their achievements unfortunately the media never printed any of it the conservative press only ridiculed the Labor party relentlessly while boosting a poor Liberal Party. The scandals were rife in the Liberal Party but this never got a mention. Well it is now back to the old type Court days with privatisation and uranium mining not forgetting the individual workplace agreements. and the selling of Alinta Gas.