Follow our live coverage here.
Follow our live coverage here.
Electoral Commissioner Robert Kennedy will not return to the role until at least 2026 with an acting commissioner installed in his stead.
Kennedy took unplanned leave at the end of March following the state’s problem-plagued March 8 election, which is now the subject of an inquiry chaired by former WA Governor Malcolm McCusker.
He has not returned to the role and this afternoon Electoral Affairs Minister David Michael announced the appointment of Department of Water and Environmental Regulation bureaucrat Dennis O’Reilly as acting commissioner.
His appointment is effective from May 21 to December 31.
“Mr O’Reilly will oversee the upcoming local government elections being held in October this year,” he said.
“He will also be responsible for implementing any recommendations from the special inquiry into the planning and delivery of the 2025 WA state election.
O’Reilly replaces deputy commissioner Courtney Baron who was acting in the role since Kennedy’s leave.
Kennedy has not fronted the public since the week after the election where he answered six questions before exiting the press conference.
The election was marred by huge lines at booths, complaints of poorly trained staff and some booths running out of ballot papers forcing them to draw up ballot papers on A4 sheets of paper.
The McCusker inquiry is set to hand its report to the premier by June 30.
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:
Thank you for joining us. We’ll see you back here tomorrow for more news you need to know.
News of the federal Coalition split came right as the WA Nationals and WA Liberals were about to have their first joint party room meeting, Opposition Leader Basil Zempilas has revealed.
“The news broke during the meeting or maybe just before, and it didn’t affect in any way, shape or form the mood amongst our colleagues,” he said.
Zempilas said the federal Nationals’ shock decision to split from the Liberals did not impact the alliance his party had with the country party in WA.
“How they operate in Canberra is totally at their prerogative, and what they do over there is their business, but we are working in a very effective alliance with the National party here in Western Australia, and our commitment is to that alliance,” he said.
“We’re working very well together. I think you’ve all seen how effective we’ve been in question time together in the parliament.”
Electoral Commissioner Robert Kennedy will not return to the role until at least 2026 with an acting commissioner installed in his stead.
Kennedy took unplanned leave at the end of March following the state’s problem-plagued March 8 election, which is now the subject of an inquiry chaired by former WA Governor Malcolm McCusker.
He has not returned to the role and this afternoon Electoral Affairs Minister David Michael announced the appointment of Department of Water and Environmental Regulation bureaucrat Dennis O’Reilly as acting commissioner.
His appointment is effective from May 21 to December 31.
“Mr O’Reilly will oversee the upcoming local government elections being held in October this year,” he said.
“He will also be responsible for implementing any recommendations from the special inquiry into the planning and delivery of the 2025 WA state election.
O’Reilly replaces deputy commissioner Courtney Baron who was acting in the role since Kennedy’s leave.
Kennedy has not fronted the public since the week after the election where he answered six questions before exiting the press conference.
The election was marred by huge lines at booths, complaints of poorly trained staff and some booths running out of ballot papers forcing them to draw up ballot papers on A4 sheets of paper.
The McCusker inquiry is set to hand its report to the premier by June 30.
Sticking with question time and the Burswood street circuit remains the number one topic this afternoon, devolving into several shouting matches.
Cottesloe MP Sandra Brewer found herself in the sights of Treasurer Rita Saffioti after she asked whether the V8 Supercars informed the government of the need for the racetrack.
Saffioti lashed Brewer for asking the question and accused her of “begging for relevance” by calling up Landsdale MP and former premier chief of staff Daniel Pastorelli to join government press conferences when she was the boss of the WA Property Council.
“That’s why the member for Cottesloe is obsessed with the member for Landsdale because she used to call up all the time, saying, please can I come to the press conference,” Saffioti said.
“Mark McGowan would hold a press conference. The member for Cottesloe would say ‘start the car.’
“It was like an Ikea ad.”
Saffioti has rolled these lines out several times since Brewer was elected, often avoiding the actual question being asked of her.
When Carine Liberal MP Liam Staltari interjected today to claim Saffioti’s latest jab was not relevant to the question, the speaker disagreed and allowed her to continue.
Parliament has resumed after a two-week break and question time remains a lively event with Basil Zempilas questioning why the government has released a tender for works on the Burswood street circuit and amphitheatre before consultation has ended.
Premier Roger Cook said the government had a mandate to build the track given his emphatic election result and Labor’s winds in surrounding seats like Victoria Park, Perth and Mount Lawley.
The debate descended into a shouting match between Zempilas, Cook and Sport Minister Rita Saffioti.
“They don’t want it, Premier,” Zempilas yelled.
“The vast majority do support it,” Cook replied.
“No they don’t Premier,” Zempilas said.
Later, the speaker warned both Zempilas and Saffioti that they were at risk of being kicked out of the chamber if they continued to bicker between themselves while others were responding to questions.
The WA Greens are calling for the Cook government to immediately release the Murujuga rock art monitoring report as the party rallies for new Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt (whose in Perth today), to reject Woodside’s North West Shelf proposal.
The party claims the report is critical to understanding the impact the proposal would have on the ancient First Nations rock carvings, located near Karratha.
The area is believed to be the world’s largest collection of ancient rock art and is being considered for a UNESCO World Heritage listing.
Its rock monitoring report, finalised last year, has been seen by state and federal governments assessing the Woodside project, but is yet to be publicly released.
“If the Cook government has nothing to hide, why are they refusing to release this report?,” Greens MLC elect Sophie McNeill said.
“It is absolutely critical that this report is in the public domain before federal environment minister Murray Watt makes his decision on Woodside’s North West Shelf extension.”
Premier Roger Cook said the information will be released soon.
“We are keen for that report to be released, and I’ve spoken to [WA Environment] Minister [Matthew] Swinbourn about that, and we’ll be releasing that report shortly … we want to make sure the timing is appropriate,” he said.
The federal government is expected to make its decision on whether to green-light the North West Shelf project, which has been in approvals for six years, by the end of this month. The proposal has already been approved at a state level.
The WA Greens claim approving the proposal would lock in close to 50 more years’ worth of acidic pollution that would eat away at ancient Murujuga rock art.
A former WA Police officer and army veteran who later worked for the Australian Federal Police gang crime squad has been prosecuted after it was revealed he had been giving his ex-partner ‘highly sensitive’ police information.
Thomas Henry O’Connor, 53, a police officer with 30 years of service, appeared in Perth Magistrate’s Court today via video link from Brisbane.
He was fined $25,000 after he was found guilty on 15 counts of divulging prescribed information.
The charges date back to the end of 2020 and the start of 2021 when O’Connor was working for the national gang squad.
The court heard O’Connor sought help from his then partner to assist him in an investigation when she was not authorised to do so.
What information he shared with her was not revealed in court.
The court was told the infringement did not come to light until last year.
O’Connor pleaded guilty to the charges last month and told the court he did it to advance himself professionally and there were also benefits to him personally within his then relationship.
But the investigation was compromised, and it wasn’t done for any commercial benefit, Magistrate Tanya Watt said.
The court was told that O’Connor left WA Police after he was medically discharged following a shoulder injury and was stood down from the AFP in the last 12 months.
A Nyamal woman from the Pilbara has won at the NSW Literary Awards for her memoir on working at the coalface of Aboriginal mental health and suicide prevention.
Last night in Sydney, Dr Tracy Westerman’s 2024 memoir Jilya: How one Indigenous woman from the remote Pilbara transformed psychology won the $10,000 UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing.
Westerman, who undertook most of her tertiary entrance subjects by distance education, in 2003 became the first Aboriginal person to complete a combined Masters & PhD in clinical psychology.
The judges said Jilya had a “sense of imperative, direction and a drive to heal”.
They said it did what few first books achieve, speaking with authority, urgency and deep knowledge, representing a necessary intervention that challenged entrenched systems while offering real-world solutions:
“With clarity, rigour and care, Jilya reshapes the conversation around mental health in Australia, making it an outstanding and necessary contribution to contemporary literature. The judges chose Jilya because of its undeniable importance in addressing the ongoing mental health crisis in Australia, particularly in relation to First Nations peoples. Westerman’s honesty and vulnerability is striking, so too the way she weaves twenty years of case studies and complex psychological theory in a highly accessible way. This book will save lives.”
Westerman will deliver an author talk at Success Library on May 23 as part of a range of 2025 National Reconciliation Week events.
The Westerman Jilya Institute for Indigenous Mental Health will also tomorrow release a short film called Change Direction, directed by Warwick Thornton, whose Samson and Delilah won the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Western Australia has emerged as one of the most sought-after destinations for Australian families seeking a fresh start, with new data revealing that both Perth and the state’s regional areas are attracting more families than almost anywhere else in the country.
According to Muval’s Family Relocation Report, regional WA is gaining families at more than twice the rate it’s losing them, while Greater Perth ranks among the top three capital cities for net family migration—outpacing major east coast cities like Sydney, which is seeing families leave in droves.
WA families are moving too — but they’re largely staying local. Nearly 60 per cent of family moves to regional WA come from Greater Perth, as locals swap city life for quieter towns without giving up on access to jobs or services.
Meanwhile, new residents are flooding into Perth from across the country: 28.5 per cent of family movers came from Melbourne and 24.7 per cent from Sydney, showing growing interstate interest in WA’s capital.
Muval chief executive James Morrell said nationally, the data reveals a broader shift of families are walking away from big-city stress and soaring living costs in favour of liveable regional areas and affordable capitals.
“Remote work has opened the door for families to rethink where they live,” he said.
“In WA, we’re seeing families seize the opportunity to get more for their money, enjoy more space, and simplify daily life — without sacrificing quality or connection.”
New federal environment minister Murray Watt is making his first visit to Perth today since taking on the role earlier this month.
He will meet with Premier Roger Cook where it’s expected the looming decision on Woodside’s North West Shelf project will be discussed, with the WA Environmental Protection Authority already granting approval, and the Commonwealth decision on whether to give the project the final green light due by the end of the month.
It’s also expected the pair will discuss Watt considering handing future federal approvals for major resources projects to a separate environmental agency.
The move would put the minister at odds with WA’s mining industry and the Cook government, who was instrumental in blocking the Albanese government’s first attempt to overhaul the nation’s environmental laws, the Nature Positive reforms.
WA Treasurer Rita Saffioti said she also hoped to meet with Watt during his visit.
“I’m glad to see him in WA so early, I hope to catch up with him,” she said.
“In relation to [the proposed environmental approval changes], I’m happy to again put WA’s position forward, which is that WA has been very much a pro-development state.
“We’ve been able to balance a very strong economic picture with a very strong environmental story as well – whether you look at what we’ve done in relation to sanctuary zones off our shores, whether it’s in relation to national parks, we have really managed to have that balance, and I think it’s something we should be proud of.”