As it happened: WA news on Thursday, May 1

We’re bringing our blog to a close for the day, thank you for joining us.

Here are some of the headlines we covered today:

• A 32-year-old man has been charged over an incident yesterday where a Jeep plunged into the river off Claremont Jetty.

• Perhaps unsurprisingly, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is back in Perth today, looking to shore up votes in the west as the election campaign draws to a close.

• WA Premier Roger Cook has goaded Peter Dutton, saying the federal opposition leader would have seen the headway being made on clean energy if he had visited Collie, where the Coalition has proposed establishing a nuclear power plant.

• The Greens have reintroduced the Cook government’s own climate change legislation in the upper house – with a few alterations.

• A High Wycombe man faced court today on sexual assault charges after he allegedly targeted a “vulnerable” teenager earlier this week.

• West Coast coach Andrew McQualter has revealed everything was put on the table during the recent meeting between the club’s hierarchy and senior players, but says it’s factually incorrect to label it an intervention.
• And Premier Roger Cook has held a brief press conference, during which he waded into the debate around the 120-year-old Outram Street home set to be demolished to make way for Gina Rinehart’s new Hancock Prospecting headquarters.

Thank you for tuning in today. We’ll see you back here tomorrow for more news you need to know.

Back to Harvest Terrace now, where Premier Roger Cook has held a brief press conference, during which he waded into the debate around the 120-year-old Outram Street home set to be demolished to make way for Gina Rinehart’s new Hancock Prospecting headquarters.

As reported by this masthead today, former lord mayor-now-state Opposition Leader Basil Zempilas’ casting vote prevented the home from being placed on the City of Perth’s heritage register back at a council meeting in March 2023.

WA Premier Roger Cook and Opposition Leader Basil Zempilas.

Since then, Zempilas has had a strong public relationship with Rinehart, including MCing her 70th birthday.

Cook said it would appear to him Zempilas “has some questions to answer”.

“Western Australia is a place where you have industries sitting alongside government and the community, and that’s why as members of parliament or as a government or as an opposition, it’s important that we are completely upfront with all our relationships to make sure that any perceptions of a conflict of interest are resolved,” he said.

Zempilas did not directly address questions regarding the nature of his relationship with Rinehart at the time of the vote and whether it was necessary for him to declare an impartiality interest, but said his broadcast career had led him to interact with people “of all walks of life”.

“For 31 years, I was employed by Channel 7 and was asked to attend and MC many hundreds, probably thousands of events,” he told this masthead.

“Meeting and interacting with people from all walks of life was part of my job.”

West Coast coach Andrew McQualter has revealed everything was put on the table during the recent meeting between the club’s hierarchy and senior players, but says it’s factually incorrect to label it an intervention.

The Eagles’ football department met with a core of the club’s senior players last month following West Coast’s disastrous 0-5 start to the season.

The West Coast Eagles have had a grim start to the season, with the club now 0-7 after last week’s loss to Hawthorn. Credit: Getty Images

Players were free to air their thoughts and grievances at the meeting, and it led to a much-improved performance in their two-point loss to Essendon just days later.

Last-placed West Coast are now 0-7 following last week’s 50-point defeat to Hawthorn, but McQualter hopes the meeting has provided a path forward for the club to fix any problems.

The meeting had been labelled an intervention in the press, but McQualter says that wasn’t the case.

“Look, I just knew it was factually wrong,” McQualter said on Thursday.

“That was my reaction.

“I mentioned it two or three weeks ago. We haven’t kept this as a secret.

“I think any organisation that’s underperforming that doesn’t get their most influential people in a room to figure it out is being negligent.

“We don’t shy away from it. We want to improve as quickly as we can.

“We’re not happy with where we are. It was a super productive meeting. Everything was on the table.”

West Coast have stumbled from one bad headline to the next all season.

Captain Oscar Allen, who is a free agent, issued a public apology to fans earlier this season after it was revealed he had met up with Hawks coach Sam Mitchell.

West Coast’s training standards have been brought into question, with even forward Jake Waterman suggesting the club’s younger players need to lift their act.

In more bad news, Elliot Yeo’s return may be further delayed, with the star midfielder having met a surgeon this week.

Yeo injured his ankle and knee during the pre-season and is yet to play this year.

He was initially expected to return in the first third of the season, but is now listed as TBC on the club’s injury update.

In another development, there’s reports premiership forward Liam Ryan, who is contracted until the end of 2026, is open to leaving the club at the end of the year.

AAP

Police have laid charges over a fatal hit-and-run crash in Golden Bay almost five years ago.

Officers were called to reports of a man lying on the road on Mandurah Road, just north of the Dampier Drive intersection, about 2.45am on Sunday, November 2020.

The 37-year-old was declared dead at the scene.

Now, in the wake of widespread media coverage and subsequent reports from members of the public, police have charged a 22–year-old Secret Harbour man over the crash.

As the man was just 17 years old at the time of the crash, he will appear in Perth Children’s Court on Thursday charged with driver failing to stop and ensure assistance received after incident occasioning death, and driver failing to report an incident occasioning death or grievous bodily harm.

Major crash Detective Senior Sergeant thanked the community for their help in tracking down the alleged driver.

“The WA community play a vital part in assisting WA Police on a daily basis. We thank you and continue to encourage anyone with any information regarding any incident to come forward and contact police,” he said.

Anthony Albanese received a rock-star welcome in a Perth school before getting testy with reporters at times during his press conference. See the pictures below.

The prime minister was a big hit with Winthrop Primary School students, in the marginal WA electorate of Tangney.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Asked about his vision for the nation, the PM said all Australians should have the same opportunities.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

WA Premier Roger Cook accompanied the PM at the campaign stop in the key electorate.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Albanese snapped at a reporter when quizzed about a Labor MP dad’s homophobic outburst at a pre-polling booth.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

A High Wycombe man will face court today on sexual assault charges after he allegedly targeted a “vulnerable” teenager earlier this week.

Police allege the incident took place about 5.40pm on Tuesday, April 29 in Morley.

The 48-year-old man allegedly forced a “vulnerable female teenager” into his parked car and sexually assaulted her, a police spokeswoman said.

He was arrested in the early hours of Wednesday and charged with two counts of aggravated sexual penetration without consent and one count of deprivation of liberty.

The man is due to appear in Perth Magistrates Court on Thursday.

To state parliament now, where the Greens have reintroduced the Cook government’s own climate change legislation in the upper house – with a few alterations.

The Cook government failed to pass its Climate Change Bill in the last parliament despite its control of both houses.

That bill established a net zero emissions target by 2050 for the state while the Greens’ version – introduced by upper house MP Brad Pettitt – includes a 2030 target.

Greens leader Brad Pettitt.Credit: Hamish Hastie

The stunt comes as WA’s north-west coast experiences its worst-ever marine heatwave, leading to bleaching of the Ningaloo Reef.

New Environment Minister Matthew Swinbourn spoke to the scale of the heatwave and bleaching in his first ministerial statement to parliament on Tuesday.

“The scale and intensity of coral bleaching has never before been witnessed in WA waters,” he said.

“Furthermore, bleaching has not been restricted to shallow water lagoons and reef flats, but has occurred in deeper water on the outside of reefs, where bleaching is typically much less likely to occur.

“Notably, widespread bleaching has been observed for the first time on reefs throughout the Kimberley, which are considered to be among the most heat tolerant in the world.

“The scale and duration of this marine heatwave exceeds any previously recorded conditions on the Western Australian coast.”

Sophie McNeill, incoming Greens upper house MP and the party’s fossil fuel, climate change and healthy oceans spokeswoman, said Swinbourn’s update was devastating.

“This is exactly what climate scientists have warned of for decades if governments did not start to phase out fossil fuels. But instead, WA Labor has been adding fuel to the underwater fire raging off our coasts by approving massive new gas projects,” she said.

Federal Labor “has a mountain to climb”, says Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as he is asked if minority government would be a failure.

During his press conference at Winthrop Primary School, a journalist asks: “If you lose your majority, and you have to go in minority ... is that a loss to you? What right would you have to stay as leader if you do lose the government its majority?”

Albanese answers: “What I’m about is maximising our position on Saturday. We take nothing for granted.”

“No prime minister has been re-elected in this country having served a full term since 2004, we have a mountain to climb.”

WA Premier Roger Cook has goaded Peter Dutton, saying the federal opposition leader would have seen the headway being made on clean energy if he had visited Collie, where the Coalition has proposed establishing a nuclear power plant.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and WA Premier Roger Cook during a visit to Winthrop Primary School, in the electorate of Tangney, on Thursday morning.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Speaking alongside Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Labor’s Tangney MP Sam Lim at Winthrop Primary School on Thursday morning, Cook claimed WA would go backwards under a Dutton government.

“The Liberals and Nationals have already announced large cuts to the WA public sector,” he said.

“They’ll rip $17 billion of support for our critical minerals jobs across Western Australia.

“The fact that they could not back the production tax credit scheme is an important indication that the Liberals and Nationals simply are opposed to WA jobs and opposed to prosperity in the Western Australian community.”

Cook then took aim at Dutton’s nuclear power “fantasy”:

If he was down there with the prime minister and I last week, he would have seen that Collie has already begun the clean energy transition: banks upon banks of batteries, taking this state forward.

But of course, he doesn’t go to Collie. And he will never be the beneficiary of seeing the evidence that the clean energy transition has well and truly begun in Western Australia.

The prime minister and WA Premier Roger Cook are holding a press conference at Winthrop Primary School this morning. You can watch it below: