Outgoing West Australian Treasurer Eric Ripper has been unanimously elected Opposition Leader by the state’s Labor Party caucus. Incoming Kwinana MP Roger Cook has been elected deputy leader, party spokesman Kim Chance said. The legislative council will be led by former minister Sue Ellery and her deputy will be Kate Doust.

Labor’s hold on every government in Australia ended when state Nationals leader Brendon Grylls told a packed media conference that his party would form an alliance with the Liberals, their traditional political partners, to form a minority government. Until last week’s election, no Liberal leader had won a state poll since 1997.

The surreal is everywhere. Witness Alan Carpenter, failed Premier from the rivers of gold state Western Australian telling the ABC’s The 7.30 Report on Monday that he wants to start “a completely new era in Western Australian governance” by teaming up with the Nationals. No, it wasn’t Clarke and Dawe. Don’t check your sets, this is supposed to be serious.

With the outcome of the Western Australian election in doubt and upheavals in New South Wales, the aftershocks of the weekend’s ruptures in the Labor Party will be felt in Canberra. But other parties also have their problems. From coast-to-coast Labor governments to coast-to-coast confusion has taken a mere 10 months.

Resurgent Liberal leader Colin Barnett, who put aside plans of retirement to contest the election, will meet Brendon Grylls today, in order to try to lock in the four seats the Nationals are expected to win. Mr Grylls has promised to support the party most willing to back his “royalties for regions” plan.

Nationals leader Brendon Grylls says he will form government with whichever party endorses his plan to earmark a quarter of the state’s mining and petroleum royalties for regional Western Australia. Earlier, Mr Grylls stated that he is not interested in the lure of the deputy premier’s job or a frontbench position in the new cabinet.

This week saw big problems emerge for the Labor Party in New South Wales and Western Australia, while federally the Nationals shrank even further with the loss of Lyne. In the Senate, Steve Fielding voted down the luxury car tax increase, while in the United States, Sarah Palin has garnered an immediate and positive reaction.

Needing to win nine seats to form a conservative government with the help of the Nationals, the Liberals were almost certain to win ten after yesterday’s state election. Huge swings of more than six per cent against the government in many seats exceeded poll predictions of a four per cent swing to the opposition.

Labor called the state election one day after Colin Barnett was elected Liberal leader, making this year’s election the earliest in 100 years. The first half of the campaign was timed to overlap the Olympic Games, to drown out the Opposition. That tactic backfired and Barnett got a two-week honeymoon.

The Newspoll indicates Labor could lose at least nine seats - and office - if a 4 per cent swing in marginal seats becomes uniform across the state. The results are seriously bad news for Labor, which earlier this week said it would have lost an election held last weekend.