Opposition Leader Shane Love intensely disappointed by Merome Beard’s defection from Nationals to Liberals

Blindsided Nationals WA leader Shane Love claims Merome Beard was “disengaged” from the party for a long time before she confirmed her shock defection to the Liberal Party on Tuesday night. Ms Beard’s swift exit from the Nationals has rocked WA politics this week, leaving her former colleagues disappointed and frustrated and questions in the air about who is actually WA’s official Opposition party and leader. Mr Love, the MP for Moore, told the Geraldton Guardian on Thursday he had been left in the dark about Ms Beard’s decision. “I had a journo contact me last week saying they had heard rumours she was leaving. I had been trying to contact Mem for a week and then I received a Whatsapp message at 7pm on Tuesday,” he said. Mr Love said although he did not see the decision coming, he had noticed the North West Central MP had been “disengaged from the party for a long time” and the change in her involvement over a matter of weeks. Ms Beard’s defection means the Liberals and Nationals have three Lower House MPs apiece. Negotiations about handing the Opposition leader mantle to Liberal leader Libby Mettam have stalled, with the Nationals wanting a guarantee of winnable Upper House seats. While the 2025 State election is 18 months away, it remains unclear if Ms Beard swapping allegiances will cause lasting damage to the traditional coalition partners. Under proposed boundary changes, Ms Beard’s electorate would be scrapped and combined with Mr Love’s seat to create a new mega-electorate called Mid West. Mr Love and Ms Beard now loom as campaign rivals for the Mid West seat. “It’s not great because we really need to be harnessing our resources in order to win back 53 Lower House seats. It’s a waste of both parties’ resources to be fighting over a Mid West seat,” Mr Love said. Though he admitted to “intense disappointment”, Mr Love was confident the two parties would remain professional and keep working towards the shared goal of dismantling the Cook Government. He did concede he had not spoken to Ms Beard since she had resigned via text message. Mr Love said the two had not had discussions about the boundary changes but remained hopeful the changes would not be brought in. Ms Beard clearly does not share that hope, saying she made the decision to abandon the Nationals after constituents expressed concern “about the level of representation they would have”. Ms Beard said she had found the decision difficult, but it was not unprecedented, denying she was either a “traitor” or a “rat deserting a sinking ship”. “I have reached a view that the Liberal Party will be at the forefront of shaping a government that will deliver the change that WA needs. I want the local communities across my regional electorate to be at the heart of driving that change,” she said Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Nationals Agricultural Region MLC Colin de Grussa, said he had had no idea Ms Beard was willing and able to make the decision to leave so quickly. “It was a shock to me and incredibly disappointing that decision was made, largely out of self-interest too,” he said. As well as the loss of a key player for their team, it’s also a loss for the Nationals of the resources invested in getting Ms Beard elected in the first place. Ms Beard has been an MP for one year. Mr Love said former Nationals leader Mia Davies had injected an extraordinary amount of time into getting Ms Beard elected at the 2022 by-election, which was now in vain. MPs swapping parties in WA politics is not rare, with Ms Beard’s predecessor in the North West Central seat, Vince Catania, defecting from Labor to the Nationals in 2009. Former member for Geraldton Ian Blayney defected from the Liberals to the Nationals in 2019. “To be brutally honest, it’s horrible however you do it,” Mr Blayney told the Geraldton Guardian on Thursday, in regards to Ms Beard’s decision to dump her party via text. He said there was room for the situation to become messy. “Only 20-30 per cent of her existing seat carries into her new one so people aren’t going to recognise her, and it’s a damned hard seat to look after,” he said. The shake-up comes after growing demand for change with regards to who will hold the title of leader of the Opposition. Ms Beard would not be drawn on whether she believed Ms Mettam should immediately replace Mr Love as Opposition leader, saying it was “a negotiation for the parties”. “What I do believe is that it’s incumbent upon everyone in both the Liberals and the Nationals to work collaboratively and actually do whatever it takes to form a strong and united Opposition that can present as a real alternative to the Labor Government,” she said. Mr Love said he would continue to use his position to prosecute the case on behalf of regional WA as leader of the Opposition. Ms Mettam on Wednesday said she had “reached out” to Mr Love and while she accepted he was “currently” the Opposition leader, she was ready to take on the role. “I have every confidence that we will have discussions about the way forward,” she said.