Premier Mark McGowan is not concerned about the prospect of a Corruption and Crime Commission inquiry into claims his government gave Labor donors preferential treatment when considering border exemption requests.
At her unfair dismissal hearing on July 7, Deputy Premier Roger Cook’s former staffer Sanja Spasojevic claimed Cook tasked her with “fast-tracking” border exemptions for Labor donors to the party’s business roundtable from April to June 2020.
WA Premier Mark McGowan.Credit:Rhett Wyman
McGowan said the claims were “totally and utterly incorrect” and he was not concerned about an inquiry.
He said at the time MPs received many requests for border exemptions, known at the time as G2G passes, but they were always referred to the police, who were the ultimate decision-makers.
“We all got inquiries … every MP, all parties received inquiries on these things, they were referred to police,” he said.
When asked whether a G2G pass forwarded by an MP or minister’s office gave the application more weight McGowan said members weren’t going to ignore applications just because there was media attention on the issue.
“You get an email, what are you supposed to do? Ignore it? You refer it off,” he said.
“[The media] would come and say, ‘why did you ignore that person?’ So we just refer these things to the police as appropriate.”
In March and April 2020, most exemption applications in WA were made using a standardised form forwarded to a generic police email.
Spasojevic claimed she had a contact in former police minister Michelle Roberts’ office to help fast-track applications to allow members of the cash-for-access roundtable forum to move around the state freely.
Opposition leader Mia Davies wrote to the CCC on Friday requesting they investigate Spasojevic’s claims and said, if proven true, it would demonstrate a breach of trust with the public who were subject to strict movement and quarantine rules at the time.
On Monday, a CCC spokeswoman said Davies’ request was being assessed.
McGowan’s own office was involved in guiding billionaire Kerry Stokes’ quarantine exemption application upon his return to Perth from the USA in April 2020.
Freedom of Information documents obtained by WAtoday in July 2020 revealed McGowan, his chief of staff at the time Guy Houston, WA’s Chief Health Officer Andrew Robertson, and WA Health director-general David Russell-Weisz all personally discussed the application, which was eventually granted.
The documents also revealed that WA Police Commissioner Chris Dawson provided personalised advice to Stokes’ secretary after they inquired about his return to WA following a trip to Sydney in May.
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