It's not just that the WA Liberals will probably be left with only a dozen seats at most in the 59-seat Parliament and the federal government has lost yet another Coalition ally among the states, it's that federal Liberals will fear this result will be an alarming precursor of what awaits them at their next election.

Coalition alarm bells

Although that date is officially more than two years away, the sense of alarm roiling the federal government means the mood in Canberra is particularly febrile.

Such a bad result in Western Australia will also undermine any argument that the government is regaining its momentum and can fight against Labor on traditional territory such as claims to superior economic management and warnings against excessive union influence on the Labor Party.

Instead, the WA Labor Party was out-campaigning them on claims to its own more responsible economic management and its determination to protect local jobs and apprenticeships. Not too many details of just how this is to be achieved in practice are necessary if the voters are sufficiently disillusioned and Labor avoids making obvious mistakes.

Pauline Hanson, new Premier, Mark McGowan and Colin Barnett Tony McDonough

Certainly, the swing was magnified by the West Australian Liberals coming off a particularly high base after their resounding win in the 2013 election. That was when the state was still enjoying a surging economy and the revenue and jobs flowing from the resources boom.

That economic environment has totally changed with the state now having the highest unemployment rate in the country and vacant office space all over the CBD. Add in a record high for state government spending that left voters less grateful at the services received and more incredulous at state debt levels heading towards $40 billion.


Carrots without appeal

Even the business community had lost its limited enthusiasm for the Barnett government and will now just be hoping that Labor can control the worst of the union movement.

Nor was the public impressed by the key solution to this dilemma proposed by the Barnett government – the $11 billion sale of 51 per cent of Western Power to fund $8 billion worth of debt reduction and $3 billion worth of infrastructure investment.

That sort of choice never became real to voters in the way the Baird government in NSW used the prospect of greater infrastructure investment to defeat a union scare campaign about higher prices coming from the privatisation of electricity assets.

The Barnett government just couldn't get its case together. And the Turnbull factor clearly didn't help one bit and now the tarnish will be mutual, while federal Labor and state Labor will reinforce each others' messages.

It demonstrates how hard policy choices must be consistently put and passionately argued for if there is to be any chance of persuading voters. Yet it's just that sort of clarity that so eludes the federal Coalition as well, giving Labor and Shorten the ability to constantly seize a tactical advantage.

So Shorten immediately declared that in the wake of the result Turnbull must drop his support for cuts to penalty rates and rule out any more deals with One Nation.


One Nation on the nose

After all, it's painfully obvious the federal Coalition is still trying to figure out its position on penalty rates after the decision of the Fair Work Commission. It's an approach proving toxic with the public.

But Shorten's second demand is unlikely to meet with objections from either the Liberals or One Nation. Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, who helped orchestrate the deal to give preferences to One Nation in the Upper House, was still defending it.

It certainly didn't help that One Nation was not even running candidates in six of what were considered key seats at risk. But for most voters it seemed a confusing distraction and seemed to turn off both potential supporters of the Liberals and One Nation and benefit Labor. The shift to Labor was so decisive, winning seats the opposition hadn't even contemplated at the start of the campaign, it just compounded the problem for the others.

That's clearly now Pauline Hanson's view as she attempts to blame that deal for the much worse showing than expected for her party. It will also immediately temper the view in the Liberals that the "maths" of supposedly surging One Nation support are worth the price.

National leader Barnaby Joyce had condemned the deal from the beginning given it put One Nation above the National Party in the Upper House. He will be expressing loud "I told you so's" to his Coalition partners.

But the real risk to Malcolm Turnbull will not come from the Nationals or Labor or One Nation but from his own dismayed, frustrated, scared Liberal colleagues.