WA Inc

The state government, which was led for much of the period by premier Brian Burke, engaged in business dealings with several prominent businessmen, including Alan Bond, Laurie Connell, Dallas Dempster, John Roberts, and Warren Anderson.

These included: A proposed petrochemical plant was to be built as a joint venture between Laurie Connell and Dallas Dempster, both being businessmen with close government connections.

The figures are summarised as follows: On 19 November 1990, Carmen Lawrence, the then Labor premier, announced her government's intention to hold a royal commission to "inquire into certain matters".

This decision followed more than a year of strong public advocacy by the activist group, People for Fair and Open Government[6] headed by the premier's brother, barrister Bevan Lawrence, Professor Emeritus Martyn Webb and prominent political scientist Paddy O'Brien.

O'Brien edited The Burke Ambush, subtitled Corporatism and Society in Western Australia, which was the first substantial exposé of Burke's pro-corporate government—a collection of articles by himself and other Western Australian writers, including Hal Colebatch, Robert Bennett, Joseph Poprzeczny, John Hyde, Paul Nichols, Michael McKinley, Anthony Dale and Tom Herzfeld.

Unfortunately, some of that conduct and some of those practices were peculiar to Western Australia; but there is no reason to believe that many of the fundamental questions raised by our inquiry were unique to this period or to this State.

They derived in part from his well-established relationship with Mr Connell, the chairman and major shareholder of Rothwells, and from his desire to preserve the standing of the Australian Labor Party in the eyes of those sections of the business community from which it had secured much financial support.

[10]: p.22 In an earlier finding, the commission had summarised:[The Government was not entitled] to risk the public resources of the State without its actions being subjected to critical scrutiny and review.

Burke and his predecessor, the Liberal premier Ray O'Connor ultimately served prison sentences as a result of convictions which arose from findings of the commission.