Labor leader turns to MacTiernan

Mark McGowan meets up with Alannah MacTiernan for a morning coffee in Mt Lawley. Picture: John Mokrzycki

Opposition Leader Mark McGowan will take on City of Vincent mayor Alannah MacTiernan as an adviser on planning matters as he seeks to bring the outspoken former Labor minister inside the party tent.

Mr McGowan said yesterday no one had a better grasp of WA's planning and approvals system than Ms MacTiernan and he, in consultation with newly appointed shadow planning minister Peter Tinley, would seek to tap into that expertise as he developed policy ahead of the March 2013 State election.

Ms MacTiernan's repeated public criticism of Mr McGowan's predecessor Eric Ripper and Labor's factional powerbrokers had alienated many of her former parliamentary colleagues.

A raft of polls since Labor's surprise election defeat in 2008 have shown the WA public consistently preferred Ms MacTiernan as opposition leader to any of the alternatives - even after she left State politics in July 2010.

Mr McGowan would not be drawn yesterday when asked whether he would try to secure the public endorsement of a woman seemingly more popular than any other person in the current parliamentary party.

"I wanted to seek her advice on a range of issues," he said of a meeting with Ms MacTiernan at a Mt Lawley cafe yesterday.

"No one can deny Alannah is someone who gets things done and her advice and assistance in that regard will be invaluable.

"It's not formal, it's not paid, but no one has better knowledge of how the planning system works than her and no one has had more success in getting projects, private and public, under way than her."

Ms MacTiernan declined to divulge the specifics of her conversation with Mr McGowan yesterday, but said they talked about policy and preselections - although not her own.

"No, my name didn't come up. I'm not a candidate," she said about a possible return to Parliament.

"Now, I think Mark's ascension has been a positive thing for the party.