Colin James Barnett AC (born 15 July 1950) is an Australian former politician who was the 29th Premier of Western Australia.

He concurrently served as the state's Treasurer at several points during his tenure and had previously held various other portfolios in Western Australia's Court–Cowan Ministry.

Barnett served as a minister in the Court–Cowan Ministry from 1993 until its defeat at the 2001 election, after which he was made leader of the Liberal Party, replacing the outgoing premier, Richard Court.

He was later appointed their chief economist, and served with them until 1985, when he became the executive director of the Western Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

[3] After former state Liberal leader Bill Hassell retired from politics in 1990, Barnett won the ensuing by-election in his old seat of Cottesloe.

[5] Despite this, Barnett was appointed to the shadow cabinet of Barry MacKinnon shortly after entering parliament, with responsibility for housing and works.

[12] When the Gallop government was returned with its majority intact, Barnett accepted responsibility for the defeat and resigned the Liberal leadership.

[14] On 4 August 2008, Troy Buswell resigned as Opposition Leader and two days later Barnett was re-elected unopposed to the Liberal leadership despite the fact that he had previously announced his retirement and Deidre Willmott (who would subsequently be appointed as his Chief of Staff)[15] had been endorsed in his electorate.

Barnett was the sole state premier opposed to Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's key Health reform policy deal at the April 2010 COAG meeting.

The reasoning for Barnett's strong opposition towards the reform was because it would require the State Governments to forfeit a proportion of their GST revenue.

Barnett had already been angered that Western Australia was given a decreased 7.1 percent amount of the GST revenue (lower than last year's revenue amount of 8.1 percent)[17] while Western Australia is a state that will be heavily relied upon for the nation's economic growth due to its booming resource sector.

The reaction of Barnett towards the health reform has been considered by political writer Peter van Onselen as a preservation of the states' rights.

Porter's resignation saw Barnett serve as an interim Treasurer until he was officially replaced by Troy Buswell the following month on 7 July.

[24] In October 2009, Barnett announced a series of new policies relating to drug legislation including a repeal of the Cannabis Control Act 2003.

[25] The previous laws were formulated by Geoff Gallop's drug summit, taking input from experts such as academics, police, social workers, lawyers, medical professionals and members of the public.

[28] To help with the enforcement of this new policy, Barnett also supported legislation to give police the power to search and seize property without any suspicion or belief that a crime has been committed.

[29] A Liberal parliamentarian, Peter Abetz, voiced support for these laws in parliament by drawing reference to the work Adolf Hitler did to bring security to Nazi Germany.

[32] In June 2013, Barnett said that Western Australia would not sign up to the Gillard government Gonski School Funding Reforms.

[33] In December 2013, Barnett announced a controversial plan for great white sharks to be shot and disposed of at sea if they come within one kilometre of the coast of Western Australia, while acknowledging broad dissent in the community.

In December 2007 when former Liberal leader Barnett was once again a backbencher and contemplating political retirement, he claimed: "I'm disappointed that the Liberal Party has been taken over by hardline right-wingers" and "The party has become inflexible and has held a hard line on social issues, and that has not worked with 30-year-old voters" and "We should be more moderate on social issues.

[40][41][42][43] On 11 March 2017, Barnett was swept from power in the largest defeat of a sitting government in Western Australia's history.

[44][45][46][47][48] Accepting responsibility for one of the worst defeats of a sitting state or territory government since Federation, Barnett resigned as Liberal leader and returned to the backbench.