WA Nationals leader Shane Love refers election staff outsourcing to Corruption and Crime Commission

ABC NEWS (Australia)

WA's Nationals leader Shane Love is urging the Corruption and Crime Commission to investigate the outsourcing of election staffing to labour hire company PersolKelly. He's also asked the CCC to investigate donations made by PersolKelly's parent company to WA Labor. It comes amid significant logistical issues facing voters on election day, with one Labor MP saying she did not think the Electoral Commissioner would remain in his role for long.

Transcript

00:00Four days on from the election and the Nationals leader is fed up.

00:06This is an absolute shit show.

00:08This actually is terrible and it is a threat to our democracy.

00:12With the Electoral Commission focused on counting votes, he's called on the state's corruption

00:16watchdog to look into the Commission's decision to outsource election staffing to a private

00:21company.

00:22We've seen staff who have been under-resourced or under-trained and polling booths where

00:27people are being turned away because there simply wasn't enough ballot papers at the

00:30polling booth.

00:32The company, Purcell Kelly, referred all questions to the Electoral Commission, but all the WAEC

00:37would say is the company was chosen after a competitive and transparent tender process.

00:42But Mr Love says it's still ultimately responsible for problems faced on the day, including by

00:47Upper House Labor MP Kate Dowst, who says staff couldn't find her on the electoral roll.

00:52I actually pointed to the ballot paper and said, that's me, I'm on the ballot paper,

00:57therefore I must be enrolled, otherwise I couldn't be a candidate.

01:00Director at the Centre for Public Integrity Geoffrey Watson says outsourcing staffing

01:05was a bad idea.

01:06I mean there are some things which are sacrosanct, and the purity, the clear honesty and integrity

01:12of our elections, that's the cornerstone of our system.

01:16The Nationals leader also wants the CCC to look into donations made by Programmed, the

01:21parent company of Purcell Kelly, to WA Labor, totalling $67,000.

01:27He says it should ring alarm bells because the parent company of both Purcell Kelly and

01:31Programmed is based overseas.

01:33The law is not very effective if you have a completely owned subsidiary based in Australia

01:38which can donate on your behalf.

01:40It's a perennial problem with elections in Australia.

01:43The donors are giving money to governments from whom they can get financial benefits.

01:48We need to clamp down on that and stop it.

01:50WA Labor says it complies with the state's electoral laws and doesn't accept foreign

01:55donations.

01:57You ready to go?

01:59Excellent.

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