Guess who rang One Nation’s Luke Herdegen to congratulate him on beating Labor at last weekend’s Secret Harbour by-election?

Basil Zempilas and Shane Love.

Herdegen mentioned in an interview I did with him that he had received congratulatory phone calls from the WA Liberal and National party leaders after the 39-year-old gym owner took a safe Labor seat and turned it Orange.

I’m not surprised. In fact, I expect Herdegen to be invited to the Zempilas family lunch on Christmas Day.

Basil was ever so willing to tell West Australians after Saturday’s by-election boilover that it was Liberal preferences that put Luke and One Nation into the Lower House of the WA Parliament.

Welcome to a new era in WA politics, where the old “how to win an election” playbook has been thrown out the window and new rules written.

An overconfident WA Labor arrived at the Secret Harbour poll with a $100 fuel voucher and a bit of cash for some schooling expenses, and expected to keep the seat.

Such was the overconfidence that Labor only announced a new train station at Karnup after Zempilas had promised the project — if he became premier.

It is no exaggeration to say Roger Cook and his Labor brains trust — headed by chief of staff Daniel Smith and State secretary Mark Reed — completely underestimated the sentiment of the electorate.

Labor admits it underestimated One Nation.

But it also underestimated Basil Zempilas.

Zempilas, reading the tea leaves, I suspect, knows full well that a traditional Labor versus Liberal/National contest at the 2029 State election will see him remain Opposition leader.

Labor holds a commanding lead heading into that poll — 45 seats in the Legislative Assembly versus 12 Liberal and National seats.

One Nation now holds one seat in the assembly.

Zempilas showed his hand this by-election. He called in the One Nation cavalry.

Under his leadership, the WA Liberals preferenced One Nation and in doing so ensured red turned orange.

Labor, of course, has tried to turn the spotlight on Zempilas’ decision to do all he could to make sure the Pauline Hanson spaceship well and truly landed in WA.

The reality is, of course, that Cook and Labor need to look in the mirror and do some serious soul-searching as the ALP tries for a fourth term of government in 2029.

And if I were Anthony Albanese and his Federal WA Labor team, I’d stop counting how many times Albo was visiting WA, and I’d be focusing on the fact that whatever Federal Labor is selling, Australians aren’t buying it.

Laborites were at pains to tell me this week that Cook is the right person to lead the WA ALP to the next election.

That may be true, but here’s the question for me: Will Cook have the mental and physical strength to lead Labor to that 2029 poll, given it’s a new dawn in WA politics and he now has to fight, not just Zempilas and Love, but Pauline Hanson?

Given the shellacking WA Labor got in Secret Harbour, is it time for a complete overhaul of a Government that by 2029 will have been in power for 12 years, with Cook having already been in politics for 18 years?

Is it time for new leadership and a fair dinkum cleanout of Cabinet?

That’s for Cook to decide — or his MPs.

Zempilas and the WA Liberals have their own decisions to make.

Will Zempilas take his newfound friendship with One Nation to a new level — something more solid than a commitment ring?

Will the WA Liberal and National parties join One Nation in some sort of new union and proceed as one to fight Labor in 2029?

What if One Nation scores more seats than the Libs in 2029?

If a government could be formed cobbling together Liberal/National and One Nation seats, who would be premier?

Basil would say it should be Basil.

But given the way One Nation WA leader Rod Caddies was dancing the night away last Saturday, I am not so sure.

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