Colin Barnett was Premier of Western Australia from 2008 to 2017. Credit:Philip Gostelow "I find now - and I'm guilty of this, I'm not absolving myself - but I think now there's too much throwing rhetorical punches across the chamber and I think we can do better than that." Asked what his biggest disappointment while in office was, Mr Barnett spoke of his party's crushing defeat to Labor in the 2017 state election and his failures to solve WA's "shark issue" and overhaul the local government sector. "I suppose in the end we were thrashed in the election and just as the Liberal party thrashed Labor in 2013, they turned the tables on us... I would have liked to have gone out in a tougher contest than that," he said. "In the last term there was some frustrating issues, local government, the shark issues, and there was no easy solution to those.

"One thing I've always enjoyed in my career is solving problems and they were two I would have loved to have come up with a better solution." Mr Barnett was Premier of Western Australia from 2008 to 2017. During his time at the helm, 11 people were killed by sharks off the WA coast, leading to the state government's controversial baited drum line trial in 2014, and a catch-and-kill policy for sharks posing a serious threat to public safety. The policies were widely opposed with hundreds attending community rallies calling for an end to the shark cull. The program was eventually abandoned when the Environmental Protection Authority said it was having an adverse impact on the shark population.

Meanwhile, Mr Barnett's bold reform to slash the number of Perth councils from 30 to 16 in 2015 failed after the WA Local Government Association and ratepayers opposed the change. WA Premier Colin Barnett posing with a hook used to catch sharks of drum lines. Credit:Aleisha Orr Asked about WA's share of the GST, Mr Barnett said it was "grossly unfair" and that the GST should be allocated according to the population of each state, as he has long advocated. He said if the federal government continued to short-change the state, the community could turn against continuing to grow WA's mining sector. "What [GST] effectively does is penalise successful states, particularly Western Australia, to reward the less efficient, less entrepreneurial states and that includes South Australia and Tasmania," he said.

"People are going to start to ask the question... why are we just letting the industry grow and grow, and use our resources owned by the people of Western Australia when the money goes to other states? "Even though I vehemently disagreed with it, the push from the National party to impose a $5 tax on iron ore actually go a lot of public support... unless WA gets treated with some respect and fairness out of the GST as it was intended to do, I think you will see a public backlash." Mr Barnett said state governments needed to reassert themselves to ensure the Commonwealth did not "smother" them on key issues such as mining, education and health. "From my observations particularly in the last few years, I think the Commonwealth government, the federal parliament and federal parliamentarians are basically smothering the states," he said. "In my time as Premier I've seen the Commonwealth attempt to take over the mining industry, take over state government public hospitals, to take over education and the one they did succeed in I suppose is to take over responsibly of disability and that seems to me to be relentless."

Mr Barnett, while speaking of his 20 years in parliament, said he believed he had had more highs than lows in public life, and was proud of the "big resource projects" he oversaw to transform Perth including Elizabeth Quay and Optus Stadium, as well as his work around disability funding and protecting the Kimberley. "I do pride myself, and listeners may not agree, but I've always been honest, I've always behaved with integrity," he said. "I hope I play some role [in public life], but I am of the view that once you leave politics, you need to leave and move on and not hang around." A by-election for Mr Barnett's former seat of Cottesloe will be held next month.