Randall made his first run for office in 1993, when he ran in the safe state Labor seat of Belmont and was defeated by future opposition leader Eric Ripper.

However, the instability on the Labor side crippled its chances, and Randall was reelected with a swing of 9.2 percent in his favour, technically making Canning a safe Liberal seat.

Simpkins stated that such a motion would give Liberal members of parliament and senators the opportunity to either endorse the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott or "seek a new direction.

The others were fellow West Australian MPs Wilson Tuckey, Dennis Jensen and Luke Simpkins (as well as Sophie Mirabella and Alby Schultz) who chose to leave the house in protest to the apology to the Stolen Generations.

[12] West Australian state Liberal MP, Rob Johnson, called on Prime Minister Tony Abbott to "dump" Randall over the trip.

[14] However, when quizzed by The Australian Financial Review, Entsch refused to divulge the content of those discussions and admitted he did not know if they constituted "electorate business" as Randall had claimed.