Western Australia was once a byword for a particular kind of corruption: a free-wheeling culture in which spivs and crooks like Alan Bond and Laurie Connell forged close relationships with the WA Labor Party under Brian Burke and Peter Dowding, and in turn received substantial support for their financial ventures.
The eventual cost to WA taxpayers, of what was dubbed “WA Inc.”, is estimated to be at least $600 million — in 1990s money — with a trail of spectacular corporate failures. It also threatened to ensnare the Hawke government, with allegations resource taxation policy was dictated by WA interests and political donations.
WA Inc. is now back — but it’s not your grandmother’s kind, the venal corruption and systematic misuse of taxpayer money that characterised 1983-89. It’s on an altogether larger scale.
The corporate players involved are now huge fossil fuel corporations and their executives — particularly Woodside, as well as foreign players like Shell and Chevron. Like Bond, Connell and other cast members from WA Inc., Woodside is a generous donor to WA Labor — it has given the state party more than $220,000 over the past decade (Chevron has given more than $170,000 to WA Labor in the same period).
But the favours extracted from WA Labor go far beyond the kind of dodgy investments of taxpayers’ money and bailouts of spivs’ financial ventures that characterised WA Inc. Mark 1. What has resulted is full-scale state capture of the governing apparatus by fossil fuel companies, in which the regulatory, policing and lobbying powers of a state government are effectively at the disposal of fossil fuel companies.
Earlier this year, Crikey outlined the extent to which the WA government, along with federal Labor and Liberal politicians, had engaged in demonising climate protesters, in addition to the WA Police acting as Woodside’s security arm and enforcers.
Meanwhile, WA Premier Roger Cook decided, at the behest of WA’s extractive industries, to jettison new Indigenous heritage laws put in place in the wake of Rio Tinto’s shameful destruction of Juukan Gorge in 2020, mere weeks after their bipartisan passage through WA Parliament. Cook earlier this week announced new laws to expedite fossil fuel and mining project applications, arguing environmental groups were exploiting minority factions in Indigenous land community groups to pursue legal challenges to fossil fuel projects.
The independence of the WA Environmental Protection Authority, which has embarrassed WA Labor by calling for more ambitious carbon emissions targets and pointing out the spectacular failure of Chevron’s Gorgon carbon capture and storage project, will also be curbed by Cook, and it will be forced to expedite approvals for resources projects.
It might be cheaper for WA taxpayers if Cook and his cabinet simply took up jobs with Woodside, making the state run its offices rather than pretending there is any difference between fossil fuel interests and their political arm in Parliament.
In another echo of WA Inc., federal Labor is involved as well. There aren’t merely allegations that WA interests shaped federal resources tax policy — we know they did: Cook’s predecessor Mark McGowan lobbied for fossil fuel companies against federal Labor plans to fix the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax regime, which was allowing offshore gas producers to pay virtually no tax.
WA MP and Federal Resources Minister Madeleine King has been a stalwart backer of Cook as well, and has now supported his conspiracy theory that Indigenous groups are being infiltrated by environmentalists.
Via Alan Bond and his media company, WA Inc. had significant ramifications for Australia’s media landscape. And there are plenty of parallels there too. Mining services billionaire Kerry Stokes is a hundred times the businessman Bond was — an authentic titan of Australian business, not the fraud that Bond was eventually revealed to be. But his media company Seven West Media — current share price, 24 cents — is a malignant force in Australian media.
The West Australian has cheered on Cook at every stage in delivering for fossil fuel interests. Seven Network is continuing to spend vast sums funding accused rapist Bruce Lehrmann (which he denies), and has a long history of giving a platform to far-right extremists. Stokes himself has funded the so-far unsuccessful defamation case of accused war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith against the forensic journalism of the Nine Network.
It’s hard to avoid the editorial conclusion of The Sydney Morning Herald this week that “Stokes’ Seven West Media has fallen into a dark hollow, with part of its news division recently turned into a platform for proven and alleged wrongdoers and egotists, where the priorities of late seem to outweigh a sense of news or professionalism”.
It’s not the old WA Inc. It’s far bigger, more systemic, more normalised, and its impacts beyond the borders of WA are far greater. But it’s the same story of a government that is far too close to corporate interests that exert a damaging influence across the country.
Who’s really running WA — the state government or the corporate powers? And could the balance of power be shifted? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
I am not disagreeing with the premise of the article, but I find the donation amounts being quoted as paltry relative to the large scale corruption and influence which is being reported on. Surely there is more to it than that?
I couldn’t agree more, $220,000 over ten years?
$220k is Gina’s weekly Lunch Money budget
Thanks for the xmas cheer. Had a good laugh at that one!
Gina Rinehart bought a majority stake last month in the successful Bunbury Farmers Market in South West WA as Hancock Prospecting continues to invest in the agribusiness sector. So this ‘Market’ will not be a ‘grass roots’ community run market with local farmers coming together to sell their produce directly to the consumer.
Corporate interests will be in control.
All reporting over many years of political corruption almost everywhere shows it is entirely normal for the inducements to be trivial compared to the benfits being sold.
One might wonder if, instead of a system where such inducements are disguised as donations or hidden in other ways, the nation would be better served by a completely open system of sale of favours, for example where ministers and parties sold themselves and their policies at public auctions so the prices would, one hopes, reflect the market value of the product being offered.
It might be helpful to compare the donations and other contribution handed out by these corporations to ministers and parties with the common practice of wealthy patrons in posh hotels of giving small quantities of cash as tips to the flunkies who attend to their needs and ensure their comfort. There is no equivalence between the service provided and the tip, which is merely a polite gesture of gratitude; and an indication of the relative status between giver and receiver.
It’s the things they sneak under cover that gets them what they want, or are WA pollies sold that cheap?
Donations to the parties are only the tip of the iceberg. There is also the expectation, tacit or otherwise, of lucrative jobs or directorships in industry after politics. Follow the revolving doors.
Poor old Mark McGowan was so exhausted by his stint as WA premier that since then to top up his pollies’ pension he’s only been able to take up four new jobs simultaneously with the mining industry and various consultancies, including Joe Hockey’s gang. Hard times indeed.
What a lying creep!!! He is the modern definition of a ‘labor rat’, and he is not alone.
The better question is what do they get in return?
The answer is an awful lot.
Yes, that’s the smart part for corruption, the favours are more beneficial than the bride, so how can it been seen as a problem
You missed the fact that our (dis) Honourable Lord Mayor is wholly owned by Kerry Stokes, who used his newspaper monopoly to enable his election. It’s compounded by the fact that the LM doesn’t even have a clue how compromised he is.
Or alternatively, the LM simply doesn’t care how compromised he is.
LM ‘Baz’ is a fool who has so pleased his master that he has been rewarded beyond both his dreams and his competence. He’ll make the most of it until he no longer amuses his master.
Promoting a talentless doofus is a tried and proven method of securing a very loyal underling. So long as the favoured one has at least sufficient basic self-awareness of their lack of merit to know they could never hope for such rewards anywhere else, they will, typically, sell themselves body and soul to their benefactor without a second thought. Rupert built News Corp on this simple principle.
Thanks Bernard, for shining a light on what is an increasingly disturbing and for WA residents an all too familiar scenario. Add to that both the previous Premier and Treasurer quickly picked up corporate gigs with Woodside, Rio, BHP, the WA state capture by fossil fuel is now complete.
Unfortunately, this satirical ad by Juice media is no joke. Honest Government Ad | Visit Western Australia! – The Juice Media
Rio Tinto, Chevron, and Woodside are getting serious bang for the buck. The lack of talent (or principles) in the ALP is mind-boggling. State capture is a sign of gross incompetence/corruption—another reason not to vote for Labor.
State capture is a sign of gross incompetence/corruption – yes it certainly is!
another reason not to vote for Labor – not that the others are any less incompetent, corrupt, venal or more worthy of my vote.
Yeah maybe but if you don’t vote labour you’ll get a liberal run government which is even more incompetent and more nakedly pro fossil fuels than WA labour is. Labour should be a much better party in WA but both parties are not the same. If enough people voted green and we ended up with a labour minority Gov that depends on Greens support that might be okay but they would just as likely just work with the liberals to pass bills when it suited them both. Still better off with labour majority on balance. Hold your nose and vote labour.
Its Labor NOT Labour!!!!!
It’s LINO anyway
How much are they paying you? Gives big 2012 QLD Labor campaign vibes.
The widespread worthy throughout the populace, accompanied by a woeful degree of political illiteracy, makes this sort of crap all but guaranteed.
I just can’t get over how many people are stupid enough to have even a shred of faith (and often way more) in our overlords. The toxic filth need exterminating, not worshipping.
Still missing that edit button. worthy = apathy, stupid swiping autocorrect
Yes, you wonder what was involved in their “IT upgrade” if it wasn’t to do something about the inability to edit posts. The Crikey mob certainly don’t seem interested in giving readers what they want.
I sent an email during the no comment period, asking about an edit button, and some markup buttons.
Some commenters know the trick to doing bold, italic, strikeout and even even quote boxes IIRC, but I haven’t been able to figure it out.
This ‘website upgrade’ is invisible – not even a visual refresh. Dark mode would be appreciated.
There should be a list on a ribbon across the bottom when you add a comment: Bold, Italics, Underlined, strikethrough, dot points, numbered points and quotes.
You’re certainly correct re ‘apathy’…and I think they’re even more apathetic in WA than Eastern States. I don’t think they even expect better….they’re disengaged. Don’t forget our daily is the West Australian….FFS!