TRIBAL POLITICS AS USUAL IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Professor Simon Adams accounts for disgraced premier Brian Burke's puppet-masterly control of the West Australian Labor Party:

He's a Catholic of course, and there's a sort of, you wouldn't want to exaggerate it, but there is a tribal element to all of that.

Jews, Catholics, what's the difference?

Update: WA Labor does have a few minor problems:

Premier Alan Carpenter has sacked Local Government Minister John Bowler after hearing two days of damaging evidence at a corruption inquiry.

Mr Bowler is the third West Australian cabinet minister to be sacked over his links to powerful lobbyists Brian Burke and Julian Grill.

Earlier today a corruption hearing in Perth heard Mr Bowler leaked a confidential committee report to Mr Grill, then made changes to it based on feedback from Mr Grill's mining company client - Precious Metals Australia (PMA).

The CCC was told the altered report helped PMA win a $20 million lawsuit against Swiss-based company Xstrata.

Outside parliament, Mr Bowler told journalists he would remain in parliament as an independent backbencher and continue to work in the interests of his electorate.

"As a minister every decision I made, I made without personal gain, and in the best interests of the state on every occasion,'' Mr Bowler said.

Well, someone was making some personal gain somewhere.

Editing note: There was a typo in the title as originally posted -- "TRIBAL POLITICS AS USUAL IN WESTERN AUTRALIA". Corrected. Posting when tired is to be avoided.