‘I will not tolerate this behaviour’: Spackman forced to resign after media interview

A WA Liberal candidate has been forced to resign after a media interview in which he expressed views leader Libby Mettam deemed intolerable.

Darren Spackman made headlines on Wednesday after WAtoday revealed the candidate running for a seat with one of the highest populations of Indigenous Australians in the state once described a break-in at his Kununurra pub as a “welcome to country”.

WA Liberal candidate for the seat of Kimberley Darren Spackman and a Facebook post he made in 2022. Pictures: FacebookCredit: Facebook

Welcome to country ceremonies are conducted by traditional owner groups before formal events or gatherings.

At the time, the Kimberley candidate and Gulliver’s Tavern publican said he did not believe the post was racist, and said the incident highlighted the crime issues his town faced.

But the WA Liberals confirmed Spackman had resigned shortly after 6pm following an interview with Seven West Media’s Broome Advertiser newspaper.

In a statement to WAtoday, WA Liberal leader Libby Mettam said she had asked the state director to obtain Spackman’s resignation after he exhibited behaviour she would “not tolerate”.

“These are not the values of the Liberal Party and more particularly they are not my values,” she said.

“I intend to put this behind me because the WA Liberals are exclusively focused on health, crime, cost of living, and restoring regional services, after a decade of Labor failures.”

According to the 2021 Census, more than 41 per cent of people in WA’s Kimberley region were Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander.

Spackman’s opponent in the seat is Labor incumbent Divina D’Anna, a Broome-born and raised Yawuru, Nimanburr and Bardi woman.

Spackman, a former Shire of Wyndham-East Kimberley councillor, has long railed against crime in Kununurra and his tavern is frequently the target of thieves.

In 2023, he told The Kimberley Echo he’d nearly been stabbed by a shoplifter the year earlier.

Kimberley is Labor’s safest regional seat after Collie-Preston, with D’Anna holding it on a two-party margin of 21.4 per cent.

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