Labor pledges to work with all parties in Upper House as One Nation reveals hand for State election

A third-term Labor State Government would “work with anyone” elected in the Upper House, Roger Cook says, as it emerged One Nation was preparing to run a suite of candidates at the next election. With a flood of minor parties expected to benefit from a lower vote requirement to be elected to the Legislative Council after the next election, Mr Cook said It comes as The West revealed One Nation had dropped its sole State MP — former Labor candidate Ben Dawkins — for lacking the expected professionalism of a party candidate. “I’ll be the one responsible for who is on the ticket and who represents us in WA, I just don’t think he lived up to the professionalism of what I would expect,” party leader Rod Caddies said. Mr Cook said it was an “extraordinary exercise” to have been kicked off of One Nation’s ticket. “If you’re not meeting the professional standards of One Nation, whatever you’ve done is must be a pretty low piece of work,” he said. “Ben Dawkins is a member of the parliament. I respect his role as a parliamentarian, but we all have to make sure we uphold community standards, both in our language and our conduct. “Often we see from One Nation candidates that they fall and fail to meet that standard — Ben Dawkins is just another.” Mr Caddies said the party was looking to run candidates across the lower house, and would seek the balance of power in the Upper House, where, despite electoral reform, Labor is likely to lose its majority. Such a result would force the Government to deal with an inflated crossbench and the Greens to pass legislation, potentially threatening Labor’s political stability. Mr Cook dismissed concerns the lower vote threshold would see a circus of minor parties elected. “Labor has never, except for the last three and a half years, governed with a majority in the upper house,” he said. “We’ve always made sure we work with all parties to make sure we get legislation through in the interests of the Western Australian people and that won’t change with the next term.” Despite the preselection snub, Mr Dawkins told The West he still believed in One Nation. “I’m staying with the party, and convinced that One Nation is the right party to win votes off the major parties and sit on the conservative side and address some of the lunatic things that are happening with the state and federal Labor governments,” he said. Mr Dawkins pleaded guilty last year over emails to his estranged wife described by police as belittling and abusive — and was convicted of 35 breaches, fined and given a 10-month community-based order.