Source : BUSINESS NEWS
Four days after the March 8 state election won by Labor under Premier Roger Cook, the private company being paid $86 million to provide recruitment and training services to the WA Electoral Commission emailed the temporary workforce to say thanks.
“We truly appreciate your time, effort, and dedication,” the email read.
“Your role was vital in ensuring a smooth voting process and keeping the polling locations across Western Australia open and operational.”
Smooth? Hardly.
A shortage of staff, ballot papers, expertise and other operational essentials fuelled calls for an independent inquiry into what went wrong on voting day.
Veteran political journalist and columnist for The West Australian, Paul Murray, has argued that only a royal commission will get answers to so many questions. He may well be right.
An example of the post-election head scratching is the lack of transparency around the generous contract awarded to recruiter PersolKelly.
The $86 million was signed off at the end of 2023, but there is no itemised record of the money in any of the WAEC budget papers, which are tabled in parliament and should make clear the commission’s “total appropriations provided to deliver services”.
To give that apparent omission some context, the WAEC’s entire budget for 2024-25 was $50 million.
Under the heading “significant issues” in the most recent state budget, the WAEC acknowledged “increased pressures” in terms of finding staff to manage the election.
There is no information about the process that led to the PersolKelly appointment and no mention of the huge contract in recent WAEC annual reports.
For its part, the company hit back at suggestions it was responsible for some of the shambolic election day operations.
“On polling day, PersolKelly Australia was asked to provide support staff for 682 polling stations,” a statement read.
“One-hundred per cent of these sites were staffed and operational. The total number of staff required, and roles is determined by the WAEC.”
That response might turn out to be very judgmental of the commission’s planning, because there is a huge gap between the 7,000 people recruited by PersolKelly and the 10,000 required, according to the contract tender.
“PersolKelly Australia has successfully recruited and deployed the personnel requested by the WAEC in line with the project’s requirements,” the company said.
The intimation is that the WAEC came up short on the actual number of people needed to run the election despite saying “approximately 10,000 temporary election workers” would have to be recruited in the tender document.
Available evidence suggests the WAEC only realised very late on that some polling booths would be shortstaffed, which contributed to unusually long and frustratingly slow queues.
When ballot papers ran out at some polling places, voters gave up and went home.
PersolKelly pointed out in its media statement that it “received nearly three times the number of applicants for the roles required by the WAEC.”
Interestingly, all of the staff engaged for the election – both WAEC and temporary workers hired by PersolKelly – must complete a survey as part of the commission’s customer satisfaction accountability.
The responses, if made public or available to an inquiry, will be crucial in determining how bad things were on voting day.
One of the other questions being asked is why counting was so slow after the booths closed, which certainly puts another dent in the WAEC’s cherished reputation.
“The commission’s reputation as an organisation that delivers accurate, timely and cost-effective election outcomes is very much dependent on the thoroughness of our planning, the quality and training of our staff, the efficacy of our systems and processes, and the application of the highest standards of impartiality, fairness and probity,” reads the 2023 annual report.
All of the above requires some serious scrutiny.
• Gary Adshead presents the Drive Program on ABC Radio
