Saturday, June 11, 2022

Nationals MP Vince Catania, who represents North West Central, will resign from Western Australia’s Parliament in August, reports indicated Friday.

Catania has served as an MP in both the lower and upper house in Western Australia’s state parliament since 2005. Initially serving as a Labor MP, he joined the Nationals in 2009.

Catania said on his resignation that “this decision comes after much soul-searching and consideration and with mixed emotions after a long career spanning more than seventeen years in the Western Australian state parliament”.

He noted the size, diversity and remoteness of his electorate, stating “having spent 17 years of working in the largest electorate in Western Australia to the best of my ability, that means being away from home for half a year and it’s not fair to the family who’s suffered over that period of time”, adding “it’s well and truly time for me to put my family first”.

Catania is married with five teenage children. In 2011, Catania lost his driver’s licence for speeding, which he blamed on the exceptional breadth of North West Central.

Catania is one of only six opposition MPs in Western Australia’s 59-seat lower house, and his resignation will result in a by-election in North West Central. He narrowly won the seat at the last election in March 2021, with a 8.4% swing to Labor cutting the two-party-preferred margin between the two major parties to 1.7%.

He led an ultimately abortive 2019 bid to remove Jacqui Boydell from the role of Nationals deputy leader, which failed after state Nationals leader Mia Davies threatened to resign if the spill motion was proposed.