Colin Barnett

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Colin James Barnett (born 15 July 1950), Australian politician, was Leader of the Liberal Party and Leader of the Opposition in Western Australia from 2001 until his resignation in February 2005.

Barnett was born in Perth, Western Australia and was educated at Nedlands Primary School and Hollywood Senior High School - the same school attended by federal Labor Leader Kim Beazley. He graduated from the University of Western Australia with an honours degree in economics and later a masters degree. He worked as an economist at the Australian Bureau of Statistics in Canberra before becoming a lecturer in economics at Curtin University.

Barnett worked for the Confederation of Western Australian Industry as its chief economist, and then as executive director of the Western Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. In 1990 he was elected to the Western Australian Legislative Assembly for the seat of Cottesloe, and was immediately promoted to the Opposition front bench. In 1992 he was elected Deputy Leader of the Opposition.

After the 1993 state election which saw the Liberals take power under Richard Court, Barnett became Minister for Resources Development and Energy, and later Minister for Education and Minister for Tourism. He was also the Leader of the House in the Legislative Assembly. He was generally regarded as a competent and successful minister, and was associated with a number of important resource development projects.

When the Coalition lost government to Labor under Dr Geoff Gallop in February 2001, Court resigned and Barnett became Leader of the Liberal Party. He was regarded as a relatively moderate Liberal in a very conservative state branch of the party, and was systematically opposed by the right-wing faction associated with the Court family and with former Senator Noel Crichton-Brown.

At the 26 February 2005 state elections, the Liberals under Barnett were well ahead of the Gallop Labor Government in the opinion polls at the start of the campaign, and were widely expected to win. But Barnett, with little consultation with his colleagues, decided to fight the election on his proposal to build a canal from the rivers of the Kimberley Ranges in northern Western Australia to Perth, to meet Perth's growing water supply problem.

This proposal was costed by Barnett at A$2 billion, but it soon emerged that no feasibility study or detailed costings had been done, and some experts put the cost as high as A$5 billion. The Prime Minister, John Howard, refused to commit federal funds to the project. This issue damaged Barnett's credibility, and diverted attention from his other policies, as well as from the weaknesses of the Gallop government.

Barnett compounded his problems by delaying the release of his policy costings until a few days before the election, and then by making a A$200 million error in the costings document, which was exposed by journalists at a televised media conference. This caused Barnett acute embarrassment. As a result of this damage to Barnett's standing, the Gallop government was returned with its majority intact. Barnett accepted responsibility for the defeat and resigned the Liberal leadership. On 9 March 2005 Liberal MPs elected Matt Birney, the member for Kalgoorlie, as Barnett's successor.