ON Saturday, March 1, Premier Colin Barnett’s office received an email fromThe Sunday Times asking why Treasurer Troy Buswell had not been at State Parliament all week.
Mr Buswell, who normally sits right next to the Premier, had been conspicuously absent. Conspicuous to the extent that tongues were wagging on both sides of the political fence, and in the media.
The timing of his absence was unusual. He had not long before got back from a holiday in the United States, where he’d been skiing with his two sons. And preparations for the State Budget in May were advanced.
The Opposition had been informed on Monday, February 24, that Mr Buswell would be away from Parliament for one day.
According to one Liberal MP, Mr Barnett told a party room meeting the next day: “Troy is off sick, but he should be back tomorrow.”
But Mr Buswell was a no-show all week, prompting our email.
Several hours later, one of Mr Barnett’s media advisers replied: “The Treasurer is on personal leave. We have no further comment.”
The next day, The Sunday Times learned Mr Buswell was on “indefinite leave”, which we then revealed on social media. We also tweeted: “Why the secrecy?”
Other media soon joined the hunt for answers and by Tuesday, March 4, Mr Barnett was forced into releasing a media statement.
“Treasurer Troy Buswell will be on personal leave for the next two weeks,” it said. “The reasons for his leave are health related.”
But the public wasn’t to learn certain key facts until later. These included that Mr Buswell had attended the wedding of wine retailer Vince Salpietro at Mt Eliza House in Kings Park on Saturday, February 22, and had crashed his ministerial car on the way home in the early hours, precipitating a mental breakdown.
Guests at the wedding included some of Perth’s business and sporting elite. Among them were property tycoon Nigel Satterley, former cricketer Adam Gilchrist and football legend John Worsfold. Mr Buswell’s chief of staff Rachael Turnseck was also there.
A Liberal insider told The Sunday Times Ms Turnseck had left the wedding at about 11pm, but before doing so had urged her boss to leave as well.
“She said to him: ‘You should go home’. But Troy said ‘no’,’’ the source said. “Troy was having too much fun to leave.”
Despite offers of lifts, it’s understood Mr Buswell chose to drive home to his unit in Roberts Road, Subiaco. He could easily have walked.
It is alleged he crashed his ministerial car into the front gate of the property and possibly sideswiped a number of other vehicles en route. The Holden Caprice had been seen travelling erratically by an eyewitness who had called the police at the time.
But Mr Barnett mentioned none of this in his March 4 statement.
Troy Buswell’s chief of staff Rachel Turnseck. Picture: Nine News. Source: Supplied
Details of the crash did not surface until March 9, after news outlets were tipped off about the damage to the car and gate and began asking questions.
The next day, on March 10, Mr Barnett called a press conference where he said Mr Buswell had suffered a “breakdown” and that he had resigned as the state’s Treasurer and Transport Minister. He also confirmed Mr Buswell had crashed his government car after the wedding.
Since then, he has doggedly insisted that he only became aware of the crash on March 9, following phone calls from the media and police.
Mr Barnett said it was at a meeting with Ms Turnseck on March 9 that she “confirmed” Mr Buswell had crashed his car in the early hours of February 23.
At about 4pm that day, Mr Buswell also rang the Premier to resign, while also confessing to crashing the car.
Mr Barnett told Parliament he first learnt of Mr Buswell’s breakdown on February 24, when he had a face-to-face meeting with Ms Turnseck.
Premier Colin Barnett announces Troy Buswell's resignation from cabinet. Source: News Corp Australia
But he maintains she did not tell him about the crash during that meeting.
Grilled by the Opposition this week on why he did not dig deeper for information during his February 24 meeting with Ms Turnseck, Mr Barnett replied: “It is not a reasonable thing when you are told a colleague and friend has just broken down, and you have his chief of staff in tears in your office, to start quizzing her. That is not what Australians do.”
Mr Barnett also told Parliament that Ms Turnseck had a meeting with his chief-of-staff, Brian Pontifex and his principal adviser, Narelle Cant, on February 25 to further discuss Mr Buswell’s breakdown. That meeting lasted 45 minutes. Mr Barnett said he and his staff were told that Mr Buswell had spent 10 days in hospital — initially in Perth and then in Sydney. But he denied Ms Turnseck had told either him or his staff anything about the car incident during the February 24 and 25 meetings.
Asked again on Friday whether the Premier or any of his staff had knowledge of the crash prior to March 9, a spokeswoman for Mr Barnett said: “The Premier has made it categorically clear that neither he nor members of his office were aware of a traffic incident having occurred on the morning of 23 February until Sunday, March 9. This includes the director of Government media, Dixie Marshall.”
Channel Nine (9) newsreader Dixie Marshall in Perth.Source: Supplied
Asked whether Ms Marshall had also met with Ms Turnseck in the past three weeks, the spokeswoman said in an email: “Well they had a quick drink after work last night — do you count that as a meeting?”
Some Liberals have vented their dismay at the handling of the situation by the Premier and his team.
“When you have a crisis, the first thing you always do is get every single piece of information immediately, so that you know how to react,” a Liberal Party strategist toldThe Sunday Times. “Why didn’t Barnett ask more questions when he sat with Turnseck?”
A former Government adviser said Mr Barnett always had “an antenna for trouble” and suggested it could well have been a strategy of the Premier not to ask too many questions so that he would not be comprised “once the truth came out”.
Simon Millman, a senior lawyer with Slater and Gordon, believes Ms Turnseck was duty bound to give up details of the car crash when she met Mr Barnett, and later, Mr Pontifex and Ms Cant.
“Section 76 of the Public Sector Management Act makes it clear that ministerial officers are subject to the breach of discipline procedures that are contained in Part 5 of the Act,” Mr Millman said.
“That would impose an obligation to report things like damage to government property to her employer.
“It could be that her (Ms Turnseck’s) employer is Troy Buswell, but her ultimate employer is the Government of Western Australia.”
Labor leader Mark McGowan said yesterday Mr Barnett should have asked more questions on learning that the Vasse MLA had suffered a mental breakdown.
“The Premier’s obligation to inquire into Mr Buswell’s circumstances were warranted not just because Mr Barnett is his parliamentary leader, but also because — as Mr Barnett has repeatedly stated — he is a friend,” Mr McGowan said.
“Mr Barnett also had an obligation as Premier to the Government and the community to ensure he was aware of pertinent information that may have had wider consequences.”
Ms Turnseck is known to be extremely loyal to Mr Buswell and a trusted confidante.
“They are joined at the hip,” was how one insider explained their working relationship.
Another Liberal source said she was “his primary carer”.
“She would pick him up from his home, and they would go jogging and boxing together,” the source said.
No one yet knows precisely what happened in the hours after Mr Buswell left the wedding reception. Police are investigating damage done to several parked cars around the same time in streets near Mr Buswell’s home.
Mr Buswell’s resignation from Cabinet is a massive blow to an ailing government, with many Liberals identifying him as their next leader.
The fallout from this latest scandal isn’t over. Mr Buswell could still be charged with drink driving. Meanwhile Labor is demanding an independent inquiry to ensure no criminality has been covered up.
For a long time Mr Buswell has been wresting with personal demons.
His father died when Mr Buswell was a young boy, and the Treasurer has confided to journalists about the devastating effect this had on him. He once told The Sunday Times how he would walk off the footy field when he was eight, still searching for his father in the crowd.
People close to Mr Buswell, talk of a sensitive man, who behind the facade of a confident and cheery political figure, was an emotionally fragile individual.
It’s understood that he was still coming to terms with the end of his marriage, following his affair with former Greens MP Adele Carles.
Mr Barnett seemed to allude to these problems on ABC radio on March 6, when he said: “I’ve been aware of Troy’s condition for some time.”
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