Findings of Royal Commission report on Easton affair

14/11/95

The Report of the Royal Commission into Use of Executive Power has found that both John Halden, the Leader of the Upper House and Dr Carmen Lawrence, the former Premier of Western Australia acted improperly in their conduct surrounding the tabling of a petition to State Parliament in 1992.

The report has also found that Mr Halden and Dr Lawrence told untruths about these events.

It has also found that Dr Lawrence had fabricated a version of events.

The Royal Commission has found that the conduct of Dr Lawrence in the use of her office as Premier was improper:

a)     in supporting the use of Easton's grievances and allegations for her own personal interests at the expense of the interests of the parties to the Easton matrimonial dispute and members of their families;

b)     in falsely denying to the public her knowledge of, and participation in, the events and circumstances preceding the presentation of the petition; and -

c)     in depriving the public of its right and freedom to discuss and judge her participation in the relevant events by untruthfully denying the existence of that participation.

The Royal Commission has found the conduct of Mr Halden as a Member of Parliament was improper:

a)     in using Easton's grievances and allegations for his own personal interests at the expense of the interests of the parties to the Easton matrimonial dispute and members of their families;

b)     in adopting the allegations outside Parliament and making untrue/and or misleading statements about them;

c)     in falsely denying outside Parliament the participation of Dr Lawrence, Love, Kovacs, Willoughby and Russell in relevant events before the petition was tabled;

d)     in depriving the public of its freedom to discuss and judge the participation of  Dr Lawrence and/or those members of her staff by falsely denying that it occurred;

e)     in lending the weight of his public office outside Parliament to allegations that criminal offences had been committed by persons named in the petition without having taken any reasonable steps to verify the existence of any proper foundation for those allegations; and -

f)      in keeping information from the public about his own involvement in the circumstances and events preceding the presentation of the petition, namely, his discussions with the staff of Dr Lawrence, his briefing of Dr Lawrence, his provision of information to the media and his failure to make proper checks of the foundations of the allegations.

The Royal Commissioner found that Dr Lawrence and Mr Halden had acted improperly when assessed against the five principles of representative government, which are:

1)     The source of sovereign power is the people.

2)     The people have the right to know and the freedom to discuss, criticise and judge the conduct of their elected representatives.

3)     The right and freedom to discuss, criticise and judge the conduct of elected representatives (Members of Parliament) can only be exercised if that conduct is known or made known.

4)     Untrue denial of involvement in conduct is a denial of the right to know and of the freedom to discuss, criticise and judge that conduct.

5)     Members of Parliament as elected representatives have an obligation to the people not to act in their personal interests at the expense of interests of the public.