Labor launch campaigns for Simone McGurk for Freo and Lisa O’Malley for Bicton

Well, the Shipping News was quite on the edge of our seat heading off to the launch of Simone McGurk’s 2025 pitch for reelection as MLA for Fremantle in the State Parliament.

Reason was the invite we received to the launch hinted at very special launch guest, and stated an embargoed place and time for the launch. It was all very hush, hush. Lips were sealed, until now!

As I got closer to Gage Roads on Victoria Quay at just before 2.15 pm today, Saturday 1 February 2025, I kept an eye out for helicopters, thinking perhaps it might be the Pope, thinking he might not so much be parachuted in, as helicoptered directly into Gage Roads. Then I realised that was rather silly of me. He’s not been at all well lately and his travels have been limited. He won’t be the special guest.

So who else could the special guest be? Not sure Rebel Wilson would qualify as something told me she’d probably not stick to the script or the time limits imposed on these occasions and may also object to wearing mainly red. But then again, maybe she wouldn’t.

That’s when I knew for sure. It’ll be one of the Hemsworth boys. Real Hollywood star power.

Couldn’t possibly be Roger. Far too predictable. Nup. Suddenly I knew. It’ll be the PM, won’t it? Obvious. Yes, Albo. No risk.

Convinced in that thought headed towards the all-red uniformed gate where I discovered my invite also included one to the launch of Bicton ALP MLA Lisa O’Malley’s re-election pitch too. Two launches for the price of one. Good strategy, I thought.

First thing after confirming my media credentials I met Emma, a long time electorate officer for Simone. I asked if she could spill the beans. ‘It’s Roger’, she said, totally deadpan. There you go, I thought. Complete anticlimax. What about the Pope, or the Hemsworth boys? I asked Emma. (I chose not to mention Rebel.) She looked at me blankly and quickly changed the conversation.

Soon after that, the Premier of Western Australia, old house mate of Simone McGurk from decades ago as it turns out, Roger Cook, arrived, resplendent in crisp white shirt and dark strides, the epitome of a man who wished someone had told him the Saturday afternoon Gage Roads Freo dress code is shorts, thongs, and whatever else looks out of place. In other words, Freo clobber. But he wasn’t bothered, told the gathered faithful he once lived in Cliff Street, and proceeded to deliver a rousing speech on why Labor is the answer and why Simone McGurk should be returned in Freo and Lisa O’Malley in Bicton.

All this happened before a veritable lineup of old Labor heroes, including former Labor Premier Peter Dowding, who arrived on his bike, former Freo MLA and leading Gallop Government Minister Jim McGinty, who one assumes arrived in a Tesla, local Federal Freo MP, Josh Wilson, and a bevy of current Labor luminaries too many to name, except for David Scaife the Labor MLA for Cockburn, who Shipping News wouldn’t be surprised to find named as Attorney General in the next Cook Government Cabinet.

Now, no one is expecting the Cook Government not to be returned at the 8 March State election, but the question is whether Labor will be tested in Fremantle with a Voices4Freo candidate, Kate Hulett, making an early strong start to her campaign, and Greens candidate for Freo Felicity Townsend also running a vigorous campaign backed by a strong group of Green candidates seeking the balance of power in the upper house. Apparently the Libs have just announced a candidate for Freo. We were beginning to think they might run dead.

Plainly Simone McGurk knows she has a contest on her hands. She spoke after the Premier finished his introduction of the candidates and spoke with passion. That was the word I noted on my notepad, well, iPhone – passion. She emphasised her decades long connections with Freo. She said she wasn’t in politics just to talk about issues, but actually to get things done. And rattled off an impressive list of policy achievements. She plainly is a woman on a mission and not taking lightly the electoral threats facing her this time round. We would suggest she hasn’t faced a contest like 2025 in the 12 years since she was first elected in 2013.

Lisa O’Malley spoke with confidence about the campaign she is running in Bicton, and emphasised how, until she won the seat for Labor, it had been a Blue seat.

We will hear much more from these and all the candidates over the next few weeks as election fever rises in the State, and especially in Freo, and we hear the Party leaders spruiking their credentials, including in the Port City. Labor will be working hard at convincing voters Freo is always on their mind.

Keep an eye and ear out for our podcast interviews with the candidates, including Simone McGurk, here on Fremantle Shipping News in the days and weeks ahead.

In the meantime here’s another sunny pic from the sunny Labor launch for Freo and Bicton at Gage Roads – two Premiers.