As it happened: WA news on Monday, May 20

And isn’t this the beauty of a live blog? We know we signed off a couple of hours ago, but we just got word from WA Police that Brett Maston, who they had been searching for since he allegedly removed his electronic monitoring device, has been apprehended.

The 57-year-old – who last year publicly claimed he was turning his life around and putting his criminal career behind him – was last seen in Mount Lawley at 5.50am this morning.

A police spokeswoman this evening confirmed Matson was found by detectives from the rapid apprehension squad a short time ago.

Police don’t have any more information to provide tonight, so we’ll sign off again, and bring you more on this story tomorrow.

Thanks again for tuning in.

And that’s where we’re going to leave it today, folks. Thanks for staying with us as we brought you the news you need to know today.

Making headlines late today was the news that star Liberals candidate Mark Wales had pulled out of the race for the federal WA seat of Tangney, citing a family member’s medical episode as a reason.

Wales, an ex-SAS commando turned Survivor contestant, had been critical to the Liberals’ hopes of winning back the seat, which went to Labor’s Sam Lim on the back of an 11.9 per cent swing at the last election. Wales has vowed to stay involved with the campaign.

Meanwhile, the Nicolas Cage film The Surfer, which was shot in Yallingup, has had a midnight debut at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was hailed as “deliciously bonkers”.

And a jury has found a WA woman not guilty of attempting to murder her severely disabled daughter with an overdose of insulin, but found her guilty of the lesser charge of doing an act that intended to harm a person’s life, health and safety.

The mother faces a maximum term of 20 years imprisonment and will be sentenced at a later date.

If you’re about to take off to drive home, a breakdown just before the Narrows Bridge on the Mitchell Freeway southbound has just been cleared, but Main Roads WA warns traffic remains slow on approach.

Thanks again for joining us, and we’ll see you bright and early tomorrow.

Briefly to sport, and the wash-up from the weekend’s AFL games continues.

Happy with the four points despite their inaccuracy in front of the goals, Fremantle forward Josh Treacy is confident the team’s goalkicking woes are a quick fix.

The Dockers have been one of the most inaccurate sides this season, but their past two games have been particularly bad.

Freo have been strong this season, but inaccuracy in front of the goals has cost them.Credit: AFL Photos

Fremantle kicked 4.15 in a 48-point loss to Sydney a fortnight ago, then were a wobbly 9.18 in last week’s 17-point win over St Kilda.

Forward Patrick Voss has kicked 1.6 over the past fortnight.

The normally reliable Jye Amiss returned 2.5 against St Kilda, while Nat Fyfe has been inaccurate all year with 2.4 and some other shots that haven’t made the distance.

Treacy, who has bucked the trend with a remarkable 20.4 this year, is backing his teammates to regain their goalkicking mojo.

“It’s just that little thing that we can tinker away at in the background,” Treacy told reporters on Monday.

“A couple of off weeks and everyone was pretty quick to jump on it, but I think over the next few weeks there will certainly be a big bounce-back for us.”

Amiss kicked 41.17 last year, helping strengthen his nickname of “Nev” (never-miss).

But he has been strangely out of touch this year with 14.14.

“He’s only human, he’s going to have a hiccup every now and then,” Treacy said.

“We’ll certainly wrap our arms around everyone who’s missed a couple along the way.

“We’ll get back to work again tomorrow and really home in on that.”

Fyfe has lacked confidence in front of goal, and Treacy is more than happy to help out the two-time Brownlow medallist if he needs it.

“If he’s open to me trying to help him out, definitely,” Treacy said.

“But the calibre of player he is, he knows how to figure those sorts of things out himself.”

AAP

Staying with politics – albeit of the state variety. Earlier, Premier Roger Cook held a press conference with Environment Minister Reece Whitby, where they hailed the start of work on a new gibbon habitat at Perth Zoo.

That announcement was interesting enough – $11.7 million for a space that will triple the gibbons’ habitat at the zoo, while also including rope pathways which will allow the apes to swing over visitors as they enter the zoo – but it was the questions from reporters at the end of the press conference that caught your blogger’s ear.

Covering some of the news of the day, questions then turned to federal Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce’s comments during a panel with Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek on Sunrise this morning, where he said Labor had a “cult-like desire” for Australia to run on windmills.

Cook, who many readers would know presides over a state rich not only in minerals but also natural gas, was having none of it:

Australia’s future is in renewable energy. And only the Nationals could consider the world is flat, that the earth is flat and that we should somehow turn back time. Maybe Barnaby Joyce thinks we should turn our coal-fired power sessions back on as well.

We have to deal with the challenges of renewable energy future, making sure we resolve the issues associated with climate change by reducing emissions.

I think it’s extraordinary that people are now actually starting to push back against important sources of renewable power, wind being obviously one of those key ones.

And isn’t Barnaby Joyce just a great double act with Peter Dutton? Peter Dutton, who is himself as a great climate change denialist for many years, is pushing back against the government’s work in relation to trying to support critical minerals.

Don’t forget, the Coalition were also the ones that that stood against all the laws or the proposed laws that would see modernisation of our gas industry, which would see carbon sequestration and storage take place inside Australia.

Cook was then asked how long WA’s power grid would need on gas for, given all state-owned coal-fired stations were due to close by 2030. He predicted it would be part of WA’s energy mix for “at least the next decade” to make sure the state could continue to roll out renewable energy.

It’s going to play an important role for our South-East Asian trading partners as they look to retire coal-fired power stations, and turn to gas and other forms of lower emissions energy as part of their energy transition.

The WA Liberals have been dealt an electoral blow after one of its star candidates, ex-SAS and former Survivor contestant Mark Wales, will not contest the 2025 federal election.

Wales was endorsed as the party’s candidate for Tangney in April but in a statement released Monday afternoon he said he had stood aside after a family member suffered a medical episode last week.

Former SAS commander and Liberal candidate Mark Wales.Credit: Instagram

Read Wales’ statement here:

This is a difficult personal decision that has been reached after much thought and consultation with my family during the past several days.

When I spoke to Liberal Party members in Tangney during my preselection in April, I assured them that I share their fundamental values. Specifically, I said I was ‘all in’ for family.

Late last week, a close family member suffered a serious medical episode and will remain in intensive care in Melbourne.

This moment has tested my stated principle. My family means everything to me – so my first priority is to be with them and provide all the support they need during this incredibly difficult time.

This means I am not able to devote all my time and energy to being on the ground and campaigning locally in Tangney.

Tangney is a must-win seat for the Liberal Party and the campaign will require a candidate who can work with the local community to deliver the change we need.

By stepping aside now, I can give the Liberal Party its best opportunity to select a new candidate and go on to win Tangney in the next Federal Election.

I would like to thank all those members of the WA Liberal Party who have supported me in recent months. Their energy and enthusiasm has been outstanding, and I know it will be an asset to the campaign to take back Tangney.

Although it will be in a different capacity, I look forward to continuing to support Peter Dutton and the Liberal team in their efforts to win Tangney at the next election.

I ask that the media respect my family’s privacy during this difficult time.

An Australian film starring Nicolas Cage as a surfer whose life unravels after he returns to his beachside home town has been warmly received at a midnight debut at the Cannes Film Festival.

Nicolas Cage in The Surfer.Credit: Stan

Irish director Lorcan Finnegan’s The Surfer, which was shot near Margaret River in Western Australia, reportedly had Cage fans screaming and bellowing as he entered the cinema at his first appearance at the festival since Wild At Heart won the Palme d’Or in 1990.

Vulture called the film “a deliciously bonkers, sunburnt psychological-thriller-slash-dark comedy about a man who just wants to surf, and will risk everything he has to do it”.

Read more here. 

Keeping with that same press conference this morning Sanderson responded to the opposition’s criticisms over the Your Health in Our Hands in Hospital report that we reported on this morning.

The report found the worst of the worst clinical incidents had climbed from 27 to 30 last year.

Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson. Credit: Getty Images

Opposition health spokeswoman Libby Mettam said these figures should not be growing in a world-class health system.

She said it was an indicator of a health system under resourced and under strain.

Sanderson said the increased figures were also representative of a good reporting culture in WA hospitals and that the hospital nursing workforce had increased by 4000 full-time roles since 2017.

She also blasted Mettam.

“Of course we would like it to be at zero but that is completely unrealistic and the leader of the Liberal Party, she has no idea how the health system runs, she needs to go out and talk to some more health workers, she needs to go out and visit some more hospitals,” she said.

It’s been a dual government health blitz in Perth today with federal Assistant Minister for Health Ged Kearney fronting two press conferences for separate health announcements.

The first was in Armadale this morning where Kearney announced a new urgent care clinic would be built to divert people away from the busy Armadale hospital emergency department.

Midwives will have more powers under the recent changes. Credit: Louise Kennerley

Hours later Kearney joined WA Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson to spruik recent changes that would empower endorsed midwives to take a more active healthcare role for expecting mothers.

These include expanding indemnity insurance for private practice midwives and giving them greater access to the Medicare Benefits Schedule.

“This is particularly wonderful for independent practicing midwives, which means their mums will be able to access the MBS and the [pharmaceutical benefits scheme] for longer consultations both before the birth and after the birth and for complex pregnancies,” Kearney said.

Kearney also said the government’s paid clinical placement policy would see student midwives not have to forego income to complete their work placement.

A West Australian woman has just been found not guilty of trying to kill her own daughter, who is profoundly disabled.

After an emotional two-week Supreme Court trial that has been attended daily by a large contingent of the mother’s friends and family, a jury concluded the 42-year-old did not attempt to murder the girl, but found her guilty of the lesser charge of doing an act that intended to harm a person’s life, health and safety.

The woman, who cannot be named to protect the identity of her daughter, denied she was trying to kill the then six-year-old girl in 2022 when she injected her with insulin.

Instead, she told the court she gave her a “tiny bit” of the potentially lethal drug to incite a medical episode to get her admitted to hospital, so she could receive the help she needed.

But her GP, who prescribed her the medication and was also charged with attempted murder of the girl, previously told the court he thought the woman wanted the girl to die “humanely” because she was struggling to survive.

The mother faces a maximum term of 20 years imprisonment and will be sentenced at a later date.

Back to the story we brought you earlier this morning about a Perth doctor being accused of indecently assaulting a woman during a medical procedure.

Gynaecologist Angamuthu Shenbagavalli Arunkalaivanan, 58, has just appeared in Rockingham Magistrates Court and pleaded not guilty to the one charge against him.

Angamuthu Shenbagavalli Arunkalaivanan outside Rockingham Magistrates Court on Monday.Credit: 9 News Perth

WA Police alleged the incident took place in Waikiki in February 2022.

Prosecutors flagged as many as 12 witnesses would give evidence during trial, while the defence indicated they would call at least two.

The police charge follows an investigation by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA).