WA Nationals leader frustrated by lack of answers over state election debacle

Shadow Electoral Affairs Minister and Nationals Leader Shane Love has called on the WA government to immediately release the report into the state election debacle, after clashing with Electoral Affairs Minister David Michael in budget estimates on Wednesday night.

“The lack of any concrete answers during Budget Estimates has only reinforced the urgent need for the premier to immediately release the final report of the Special Inquiry into the 2025 State Election,” Love said.

Shane Love has been probing the WA election.Credit: Colin Murty

Love took particular interest in the $86 million contract the WA Electoral Commission struck with recruitment agency PersolKelly without the knowledge of cabinet ministers.

“Despite an hour of questioning the minister for electoral affairs, we are still no closer to knowing who authorised this $86 million contract or how it was allowed to proceed in the shadows,” Love said.

Love has previously ascribed some of the blame for the WA election debacle to the outsourcing of election functions to PersolKelly, and the contract was probed during the inquiry undertaken by former WA Governor Malcolm McCusker.

The inquiry report is currently with WA Premier Roger Cook, who told estimates on Thursday it would be tabled in parliament when it returns from the winter break in early August.

In the WAEC estimates meeting on Tuesday, Michael said the commission had paid PersolKelly between $19 million and $20 million.

He revealed PersolKelly will remain engaged by the electoral commission to help run the local government elections due in October.

Michael also revealed the cabinet was not made aware of the WAEC’s decision to enter into the $86 million contract with PersolKelly.

Love probed whether the former Electoral Affairs Minister John Quigley should have been aware of the PersolKelly contract, which Michael replied: “I do not believe so”.

Michael then rebuffed a question from Love on why the mention of the contract was not included in the WAEC’s annual reports.

“Obviously, I will not give the member my opinion on these things. It is not my opinion time; it is budget estimates. Electoral commissions use contract labour all the time,” he said.

Love and Michael then clashed over whether PersolKelly was a foreign company, with Love arguing the Australian-registered company that won the contract was wholly owned by overseas interests.

Michael said it was an Australian company.

“There are many companies like this. If the member thinks about the big accounting firms that are used across government to do audits, a lot of them have overseas ownership and these kinds of things,” he said.

“Obviously, Arc Infrastructure, which runs our rail network, is headquartered overseas.”

Michael later revealed WAEC Commissioner Robert Kennedy, who took leave after the election, was still being paid.

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