The Corruption and Crime Commission of Western Australia reported on Monday that Labor Party Members of Parliament  for Western Australia risked serious misconduct by having publicly funded electorate officers engaging in political campaigning activities.

The report, “Significant Misconduct Risks to Good Government,” was released following an investigation by the Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC), a watchdog that investigates misconduct within the public sector in the state of Western Australia (WA).

The CCC investigation found that although “electorate officers were routinely undertaking political campaigning during work hours and being trained to do so during those hours,” there was no evidence that Labor MPs or other public officers had perpetuated corruption or misconduct concerning misuse of electorate officers. Electorate officers explained that this time was made up by performing electorate officer work outside of standard hours. The commission noted the “absence of formal systems for recording time” makes these claims difficult to substantiate.

Tabled in State Parliament, the report was released following a 2022 investigation conducted based on evidence provided by Sanja Spasojevic, a former electorate officer for Roger Cook, elected as premier of WA in 2023. Spasojevic, in an unfair dismissal hearing to the Public Service Appeal Board, revealed that “electorate office staff provided to Members of Parliament (MPs) often performed party-political work during the hours they were publicly paid as electorate officers.”

CCC Commissioner John McKechnie stated, “The community should be able to have faith that any of its elected members will not misuse public resources for party-political purposes,” elaborating, “Members of Parliament have a responsibility to manage their electorate offices so they can demonstrate that.” Premier Cook acknowledged the CCC’s report, expressing the importance of ensuring members of parliament and their staff “act with integrity.” The CCC expressed, “improper use of electorate officers for political campaigning is a risk to fair elections,” noting it provides sitting candidates with an unfair advantage over candidates without access to electorate officers.

The commission made a series of recommendations to mitigate the risk of misconduct, including ensuring the Department of the Premier and Cabinet (DPC) makes it “unmistakably clear that it does not permit party political work, including campaigning and training to campaign” during electorate office hours through an update to the Parliamentary Electorate Office Handbook. The CCC further suggests the DPC implement a time recording system to monitor electorate officers’ use of time and to provide electorate offices with a data management system for constituent matters.

The report also found “no evidence that serious misconduct on the part of any public officer has occurred” concerning Spasojevic’s claim that Cook had explicitly tasked her with fast-tracking the Good to Go (G2G) pass applications of Labor Business Roundtable members and their families to travel into and out of WA during the COVID 19 pandemic.