As it happened: WA news on Wednesday, April 16 (2025)

To state politics now where the upper house has finally been confirmed and there are a few surprises in the final few seats that had not been decided.

One Nation’s Rod Caddies will have a mate in parliament now after its second-placed candidate Phil Scott scored a second seat following the final distribution of preferences decided at the WA Electoral Commission headquarters today.

The Animal Justice Party’s Amanda Dorn secured the 37th seat.

The Australian Christians’ Maryka Groenewald election was confirmed in the count and Labor’s Klasey Hirst was confirmed as their 16th upper house MP.

Coupled with the Greens’ four seats, the new upper house will be much tougher to navigate for Labor as it attempts to pass its legislative agenda.

One Nation WA on its Facebook page said: “Let’s keep building momentum. The best is yet to come!”

Western Australia is behind its National Housing Accord target by 1,465 homes, according to Property Council analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics data released this morning.

The data shows 5,769 homes were built across the state in the 2024 December quarter.

To build its fair share of the National Housing Accord’s target of 1.2 million new homes, WA would need to construct about 130,000 homes by the end of June 2029.

That equates to about 6,500 homes each quarter or 26,000 a year. Last financial year, 17,700 homes were built across the state.

Property Council WA executive director Nicola Brischetto said the statistics were not what WA was hoping for.

“We’ve seen some movement in the right direction, and that’s a good indicator that the measures taken to date are working, but it’s still not enough,” she said.

“High demand for housing is unlikely to slow in the near future.

“If we don’t continue to lift the rate of home completions, we risk seeing another sharp increase in prices, making homeownership even further out of reach.”

A powerful tropical cyclone has formed in waters off the Kimberley coast and meteorologists predict it will turn towards the mainland within days.

Tropical Cyclone Errol was upgraded to a category-two system earlier today, the Bureau of Meteorology said.

Category two systems have destructive winds with an average maximum average wind speed of 89–117 km/h. Category three cyclones bring very destructive winds up to a maximum average of 159km/h.

“By the time we get to tomorrow morning, possibly looking at an intensity category three,” BOM meteorologist Helen Reid said.

“It is moving further west at the moment, but that intensification will also come with a bit of a switch of a direction down towards the southeast and then heading back towards the mainland.”

Errol is not expected to impact the WA coast in the next 48 hours, but wind warnings could be issued as early as Thursday morning for parts of the WA coast and inland areas, Ms Reid said.

Severe weather warnings for heavy rainfall may also be issued.

WA’s Road Safety Commissioner Adrian Warner has issued a warning to road users ahead of the Easter long weekend and double demerit points period.

It comes after more than 60,000 drivers have been caught doing the wrong thing on the state’s new traffic cameras in the past three months. The cameras can detect speeding, as well as whether someone is on their mobile phone, distracted or not wearing a seatbelt.

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“When you think about it, the scale of the problem that’s facing our community, the level of risk taking in our community, is much, much larger,” Warner said.

“We’ve caught 60,000 people using just a few cameras in a few months. So if we were monitoring every road, those numbers would be, frankly staggering.”

Warner said the cameras had caught people using their laptops while driving on the freeway, and clicking the passenger’s seatbelt into the driver’s seat to drive without a seatbelt on while avoiding any car alerts.

“I’m talking to the one per cent of people who take those risks, who think it doesn’t happen to me, they end up being 20 per cent of the fatalities in motor vehicle crashes, you’re 27 times more likely to be killed or seriously injured in a crash if you’re not wearing a seat belt or wearing it incorrectly,” he said.

A group of residents concerned about works beginning at Burswood Park for a future racetrack have gathered this morning to peacefully protest the development.

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Save Burswood Park Alliance Co-Chair Sue Quinn spoke with Radio 6PR before the protest, explaining residents had received a letter stating the WA government would carry out initial testing at the site over the next month.

“We are fully supportive of the park being utilised and evolving into this big entertainment and sporting precinct, our only concern is V8 supercars racing around, there are hundreds of people that live in this area that are going to be affected,” he said.

It comes after Labor pledged $217 million to the entertainment precinct and motorsports street circuit in February, in a move that “blindsided” the Victoria Park council, which also opposes the development.

Listen to Quinn’s full interview with Radio 6PR below:

A Bertram man is doing what sounds frankly hellish to fundraise for Perth‘s sickest children.

Henry Watkins has been preparing for years to go 1000 three-minute bare-knuckle rounds on a punching bag in a Kwinana gym, with 30 seconds’ rest between each – a 60-hour feat.

His new fundraiser has already raised $11,300 for Perth Children’s Hospital Foundation with his employer chipping in the lion’s share.

Watkins had been working towards a world-record punching bag marathon when he lost heart after his mother’s death a few years ago.

“It’s always felt like a loose end. It’s about proving to myself and doing it for my Mum,” says Watkins.

“I chose PCH because we had to go up there when my daughter was a newborn and they were so amazing.

“I’ve never had to deal with a really sick child, but I have lost family members to cancer and if I am in a position to help somebody why wouldn’t I do it?

“I want to show my kids that if people say you can’t do something you can always make a point of trying.”

Watkins’ daughter is seven months old and he has another baby on the way, and says his wife is the real hero of this situation because she will be parenting solo for 60 hours.

The longest such attempt he has made yet is spending 33 hours doing 500 rounds for a dog rescue charity.

He is planning a 24-hour practice run this Good Friday and has been training his hands continuously for months to harden the skin.

“I don’t know if I’ve bitten off more than I can chew but I’m going to give it a good go.”The attempt will begin on May 30 with friends and family in attendance to provide support.

Two Mineral Resources directors tasked with supervising a governance overhaul in the wake of an offshore tax scandal involving its founder Chris Ellison have resigned with immediate effect.

The iron ore miner declared the departure of Jacqueline McGill AO and Susie Corlett in a statement to the market this morning, an announcement which coincides with a plummeting share price that has wiped more than $3 billion from the business in the past six months.

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Corlett, who also serves as a non-executive director at Iluka Resources and Aurelia Metals Ltd, leaves after more than four years on the board of the company, while McGill departs after just 15 months.

The pair were appointed to the governance committee the Osborne Park-headquartered miner established in late 2024 after the Australian Financial Review exposed an alleged offshore tax scheme Ellison and four other executives had profited from that ran for a decade.

The committee had been tasked with strengthening governance practices by introducing new protocols for related party transactions, exiting legacy agreements between MinRes and its senior directors and eliminating the use of company resources by key managers.

The departures come as the corporate watchdog continues its probe into the scheme, which is set to cost Ellison his managing director role at the company he founded in 2006.

MinRes chair James McClements, who also intends to depart the company after more than 10 years, thanked the pair for their “enormous” contributions and wished them well.

“Both Susie and Jacqui have dedicated substantial time and effort over recent months in our efforts to improve governance and procedures across the business, whilst navigating their significant other professional commitments,” he said.

Shares in the miner were down 3.5 per cent this morning to trade at $17.62.

Perth has recorded the highest quarterly increase in rent making it the second most expensive city in Australia for renters, behind Sydney.

CoreLogic’s latest Quarterly Rental Review shows house rents rose 2 per cent in Perth to reach a new median high of $720 per week.

The most expensive postcode to rent a house in Perth is Dalkeith at $1445 per week with the most affordable Mandurah at $533 per week.

However economist Kaytlin Ezzy said the underlying trend remains one of moderation.

“Rental growth is still tracking above the pre-COVID-19 decade annual average of 2 per cent, but the rate of change has slowed considerably,” she said.

“The further increase in the average household size due to worsening affordability, along with the slowing in population growth, continues to put downward pressure on rental demand and, subsequently, on rental value growth.”

On an annual basis, Perth continues to lead with rents up 6.3 per cent, followed by Adelaide (5.5 per cent) and Hobart (4.6 per cent). Canberra recorded the smallest increase at 1.6 per cent or an additional $10 per week.

Hobart remains the most affordable rental capital, with a median weekly rent of $590. Sydney remains the most expensive, with a median weekly rental value of $816.