West Australian Premier Mark McGowan has promised not to engage in "dodgy deals" to court the support of crossbenchers, as One Nation leader Pauline Hanson visited Perth for the swearing in of state upper house MPs.
Labor achieved an historically dominant victory in this year's election but it was not as strong in the upper house and will require the votes of at least five non-Labor MPs to pass legislation.
In the lower house, it won 41 of the 59 seats, which is the largest majority in WA history.
Mr McGowan has outlined the so-called "no body, no parole" legislation for murderers and laws that could see meth traffickers jailed for life as top priorities and says other parties should respect the mandate voters gave Labor.
"Dodgy deals, backroom dealings, backroom activity is not what we're about. We're actually going to argue the merits of the legislation we take in," Mr McGowan told reporters on Monday.
"Methamphetamine is a crisis in Western Australia. Please support our legislation and in relation to families whose loved ones are missing having been murdered, they deserve to find out the location of their remains and I'd urge them to vote for it."
The sizeable majority of the vote that Labor received at the March election was not reflected in the upper house, which has prompted calls for reforms similar to those introduced in the Senate about how MPs are elected.
One Nation WA leader and new MLC Colin Tincknell has asked Mr McGowan for a return to four staff members, rather than two, because crossbenchers need resources for research to make informed decisions about legislation.
"He hasn't said no, so that's important," Mr Tincknell told reporters.
"We don't want any dodgy deals, we want to vote on each piece of legislation on its merit, but five backbenchers do come from the conservative side of politics ... we've been represented for a reason from our own people and we need to make sure we represent them properly.
"We're not keen on making decisions that are uninformed. We really want to research every bit of legislation, vote on its merits and make the right call."
Mr Tincknell says the three One Nation MLCs had formed a pact with Shooters, Fishers and Farmers MP Rick Mazza and Liberal Democrat Aaron Stonehouse.
"There are some differences (between us) but they're mainly more on social and possibly conscience votes issues so we think that that won't be a problem," he said.
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