Comments attributed to State President Steve Blyth:
The Nationals WA take claims of bullying and harassment extremely seriously.
The State Executive immediately engaged a Human Resources Consultant to meet with the Party leadership and the Hon Jacqui Boydell MLC after she raised claims of bullying and harassment within the party late last year.
At the same time, the State Executive instructed the HR Consultant to review our policies and procedures and make recommendations to strengthen these processes where necessary.
Following these discussions, it is clear that better processes are required when dealing with complaints of this matter and The Nationals WA apologises that the shortcomings of these processes has caused Ms Boydell distress.
The Nationals WA are committed to improving our policies and procedures. This process has started and will continue with the advice of independent experts.
We are confident this will lead to robust, best practice processes to meet the expectations of our members and the community.
Comments attributed to Hon Jacqui Boydell MLC:
I raised these issues publicly because I believe in the National Party and I wanted the party to implement better ways of dealing with complaints.
I don’t think that the behaviour that I was experiencing from some people reflected the standards of a modern and professional organisation and that better processes were required for dealing with these matters.
I welcome and support the commitment of the State Executive of the National Party to work with an HR Consultant to immediately act to review and improve their processes.
I believe that the Leadership of the Party can be exemplary in their strong stance on these issues and that we can demonstrate we have a party we can be proud of which reflects the core values of the people we represent.
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No further comment will be supplied by The Nationals WA.
