All non-government parties have joined Shane Love’s call for a Parliamentary inquiry into the operations of the State election, as counting continued in six close seats on Monday.
As Labor retained South Perth by upholding a 400 plus vote lead, the Government also narrowed the margin in Kalamunda, where Liberal Adam Hort leads Karen Beale by just 80 votes.
Geoff Baker’s re-election in South Perth brings Labor’s total in the Parliament to 44, with sitting MPs Kevin Michel and Ali Kent still leading in Pilbara and Kalgoorlie ahead of a full preference count on Wednesday.
The Liberals remain on six seats, and the Nationals on four.
It is on Wednesday where close regional three-cornered contests are set to be cleared up in Warren-Blackwood and Albany, with the Liberals and Nationals both vying to pick up the south coast seats.
But pressure continued to mount on the Electoral Commission during the glacial count, with the Opposition Leader releasing a letter signed by all non-government parties calling on an parliamentary inquiry into the WAEC’s operations.
Signed by Liberal leader Libby Mettam, Greens MP Brad Pettitt, and crossbenchers set to be elected in the next term in the Upper House from Legalise Cannabis, One Nation and Australian Christians, the letter to Roger Cook urged an independent inquiry to protect the integrity of the electoral system.
Among the concerns raised in the letter include ballot shortages, voter redirection, incorrect instructions on filling out a ballot paper as well as the outsourcing of recruitment to PersolKelly.
In a statement, a spokesman for PersolKelly said the group’s focus was on completing the count and finalising payments for staff.
“When the project is completed, PersolKelly Australia will willingly participate in any proposed review of the project,” he said.
“PersolKelly Australia is actively consolidating employee hours of more than 7000 temporary staff who worked at polling locations, plus the many others who worked in additional support roles to ensure accurate and timely payment.
“Payments are being processed and released on a regular, ongoing basis.”
Asked about the letter on Monday, Mr Cook said there clear frustrations from voters and political parties about the operation of the election.
“We’ll certainly make sure that there’s an appropriate inquiry into the conduct of the election, and I’ll work with the opposition parties to make sure that that is a collaborative approach to ensure that we can get the answers that we need,” he said.
“The important thing to do at the moment is just to get the ballots counted.
“Let’s get the election result known, and then there’ll be an opportunity to review the outcome and the conduct of that election.”
Mr Cook described the decision of the Electoral Commission to outsource recruitment as “counter-intuitive”.
“Obviously the Electoral Commissioner made that decision on the basis of of good advice,” Mr Cook said.
“But that’s one of the issues that’s been identified as perhaps one of the shortcomings of this particular election. We’ll look into all the issues that were that were raised in the conduct of this particular election campaign.”
Electoral Commissioner Robert Kennedy was contacted for comment.
https://thewest.com.au/politics/wa-election-2025/wa-election-2025-non-labor-parties-join-calls-for-parliament-inquiry-into-polling-as-govt-holds-south-perth-c-18064400
