Mark McGowan can't repeat often enough that he and his wife and three children live in Rockingham, a low income area in the coastal sprawl south of Perth. It's an implicit reminder that he's not a Colin Barnett from well-established, well-heeled Cottesloe but rather an ordinary modern bloke who understands the struggles of outer suburban families today.
In a state that's gone from being the nation's jet propeller economy to dawdling along in the slow lane, that's a useful image. It's also a message to the growing number of One Nation voters in Western Australia. Vote for Pauline Hanson if you must but at least preference Labor over the Liberals and Nationals for an effective protest against the failings of a long-term Government and a long-term Premier.
"The time factor is there," he says, although insisting that he doesn't think "the public should adopt a view that you just simply change governments for the sake of it."
The catch is that, for many voters in marginal seats, a change at this election is hardly for the sake of it. Western Australian voters may have never particularly liked Colin Barnett but they did respect him as a "strong" if often stubborn and arrogant leader. That reputation is far more effective when leadership is seen to be delivering results.
After years of having the country's lowest unemployment rate and becoming a magnet for refugees from the "Eastern States", however, Western Australia now has the second highest unemployment rate in the country. That's despite the mass exodus of many of those no longer attracted to the West by prospects of well paying jobs and boundless opportunities.
The price of houses continues to fall – which might be regarded as good news for first home buyers in Sydney or Melbourne but represents a general decline in the economy and worries about job security.
That has a lot more to do with the price of resources than the actions of the Barnett government but there's also no doubt it spent money as if the the good times would never end, leaving little leeway now.
The Premier always rejected the use of the term "boom" because he said it implied a bust. But if the economy is not exactly busted, there's been a profound shift away from the sense of confidence about the future that dominated at the last election in 2013. Then, Barnett was able to comfortably increase his majority and ensure Labor would need an overall ten per cent swing to win the necessary additional 10 seats this time.
This electoral logic also didn't factor in the resurgence of One Nation which is now hopeful of pulling 20 per cent of the vote and is already at 13 per cent according to the latest Newspoll. That could assist reduce supposedly comfortable cushions for the Liberal and National parties in conservative seats.
During the earlier heyday of Hansonism, then Liberal Premier Richard Court refused to preference her candidates at the 2001 election. One Nation directed preferences against sitting MPs meaning the Liberals and Nationals, with more seats, lost government.
This time, One Nation is deciding on a seat-by-seat basis and the Government is reduced to fighting a tough seat-by-seat campaign to have any chance of resisting the swing away.
Labor is also campaigning against the government's pledge to finally joining the modern world by partially selling off Western Power in order to pay down debt and invest in new (much needed) infrastructure. McGowan says that's only necessary because of budget mismanagement by the Government, leading to inexcusably high government debt levels.
That leaves Labor and One Nation and, naturally, the Greens united in opposing the privatisation of electricity assets on the populist basis that prices will go up and services will go down. In a state where even toll roads are regarded as political poison, this logic apparently works.
Equally naturally, Labor doesn't say how it could lower the deficit beyond the usual assurances on reducing government waste. Still, it's not as if the Barnett Government can promote its superior economic management skills and discipline.
To the contrary, Barnett has to also deal with the fact that his Coalition partner Brendon Grylls, as leader of the Nationals, has a radical tax plan that effectively involves taxing BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto an additional $5 a tonne in state royalties on iron ore production.
The miners are funding a massive campaign against this policy, and in particular against Grylls in his state seat of the Pilbara. Labor and One Nation are also opposed to it because of the harm to investment and jobs in a struggling industry. (Oh, the ironies of this rare interest in business investment )
An exasperated Barnett is complaining about the miners' campaign even though he too opposes Grylls' plan. It's another example of the divisions between the Nationals and Liberals in Western Australia. The Nationals even flirted with helping Labor form Government in 2008 before reluctantly backing Barnett and the liberals instead.
The price was billions of dollars in spending on "Royalties for Regions" outside metropolitan Perth. Much of that money was misspent on inefficient, white elephant projects that not only cost the budget dearly but were clearly not effective in holding One Nation at bay in the bush.
A loss by Colin Barnett would leave the Turnbull Government even more isolated in attempts to negotiate meaningful reforms with the states. Count on plenty of regular visits by Bill Shorten to talk about jobs and families. But as this week shows, WA is proving to be just one of Malcolm Turnbull's many problems in 2017.
