Canberra

WESTERN Australia elected a new government in a landslide victory for the Labor party, as voters swept aside a Liberal-National coalition blamed for squandering the state's once-in-a-century resources boom and racking up record debt.

Labor leader Mark McGowan, 49, replaces 66-year-old Premier Colin Barnett, inheriting a state economy weighed down by the nation's highest jobless rate and stuttering growth.