Smiths Beach: What's in it for me? Part 2. Adele Farina

Adele Farina. What were the motives in her dealings with the Smiths Beach development?

The Desert Rat has applied his limited forensic psychology skills to plumb the depths of the working of Adele Farina's mind, to elucidate her schizophrenic position on the Smiths Beach development and what explains her friendship with Bill Mitchell and her strange behaviour towards Brian Burke.

Publicly she was seen to oppose Smiths Beach but she privately attended at least 2 meetings with the developers, that the Desert Rat is aware of, to further the project.

Why her unusual interest in the Smiths Beach development, when she has shown only minimal interest in environmental causes, let alone actively prosecuted them?

An opposition to the Smiths Beach development is all Adele Farina and multi-millionaire developer friend Bill Mitchell seem to have in common. This article examines the possible motives behind Adele Farina's public opposition.

Like Mitchell, neither could reasonably claim they were driven by environmental concerns as neither had any history of environmental activism before Smiths Beach. Mitchell appears to have been more interested in pursuing his own extensive development projects, rather than community benefit and has had several green groups up-in-arms and critical of his various development activities.

Farina has no record of interest in environmental matters, except lamenting the plight of 'misunderstood' timber workers in her maiden speech.

2001 Elections - Burke to the rescue

In Parliament during the Committee debates on Planning and Infrastructure and the WA Planning Commission in October 2001, when Hon Barry House MLC raised the matter of Smiths Beach, Adele Farina, despite being present, made no comment. If she had deep seated environmental concerns about the project, why didn't she voice them?

In fact, a search of Hansard shows she has never raised the Smiths Beach development in Parliament since she was elected in May 2001. Strange?

Environmental concerns therefore would appear to have little to do with Farina's motives in respect of the Smith's Beach development.

The Desert Rat thinks her pre-selection tribulations are the real key to her behaviour and actions.

It seemed strange to the Desert Rat that Farina, who is a member from the Centre Faction of the ALP, got a winnable position on the South West ticket in 2001 when the Centre could not muster the numbers for a seat. A deal had to be made or a favour granted or conceded; so this is where the investigation starts.

The clue is in her maiden speech, when she thanked her supporters. She gratefully said:

"I have been fortunate to have the support of a number of those unions, and I take this opportunity to thank the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Workers Union of Australia, the Transport Workers Union, the Australian Workers Union and the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association of WA."

That, for the uninitiated, is a Centre and Right Faction union grouping. There is no Left Faction support there. The success has the fingerprints of Julian Grill and Brian Burke written all over it. Grill often did the negotiations for the Centre Faction and Brian Burke would have had to agree to bring Right Faction support behind Farina. In fact, that is what people in the know, tell the me what happened.

Effectively Brian Burke had secured her a winnable position and seat in 2001, so Farina can thank Burke.

The reason why she did not thank Burke in her speech, is that would have alienated her from Jim McGinty and Geoff Gallop whose support she may need to advance her in the parliamentary ranks. Burke was treated like a pariah by the Left who took every public opportunity to put the boot into Burke to limit his effectiveness within the ALP, which threatened the Left's power base.

Adele Farina, the Desert Rat is told, originally wanted the lower house seat of Perth, vacated by the retiring Centre Faction's Diana Warnock. But Farina was foiled when Centre Faction member John Hyde defected to the Left and got the numbers for the pre-selection. Cold war politics and no loyalty - but all quite legal.

Julian Grill tried to find Adele Farina a seat in the 2001 election - I presume to keep the fragile Centre group together or there would be more defections. He must have somehow secured Burke's support - why he would have bothered, is beyond the Desert Rat - Burke must be a soft touch.

There is no doubt that Farina owed her pre-selection to a safe seat in 2001, to Brian Burke's help and support.

After the 2001 election Farina realised she would have to impress the Left Faction if her political career was not to wither on the vine. The Desert Rat suspects she saw that, by supporting the Smiths Beach Action Group and opposing the Smiths Beach development she would have the potential to endear herself to the Left. This she did not do publicly or in Parliament but, behind the scenes. Farina, the Desert Rat thinks, was cultivating the Left with her opposition to the Smiths Beach development to prop up her future prospect for pre-selection.

By demonstrating her Green credentials she sought to garner enough Left support to guarantee a winnable, even safe, position. Hence the marriage of convenience with Bill Mitchell and the developers who controlled the Smiths Beach Action Group. The environment may not have been a priority at all.

Secretly, however, at the request of Brian Burke, she was also meeting with the developer of Smiths Beach and their consultants. Farina was playing two ends against the middle.

2005 Election - Burke again to the rescue

In the run up to the 2005 election, Farina was again in a difficult situation. There were only two safe Labor seats - one Left and one for the Right and one marginal. The ALP's National Executive intervened into WA and with Burke's Right Faction support, Adele Farina was given a winnable position on the ticket. Matt Benson-Lidholm was elected for the Right and the Left Faction's Sally Talbot scraped in to the marginal position.

Again Farina had fortuitously survived with the help of Burke but needed to shore up her position with the Left for the future.

2008 Election

The looming 2008 election presented a different problem for Farina, as one-vote, one-value meant there were now only two possible ALP positions on the South West ticket for the Legislative Council. Notionally one for the Right and one for the Left. Farina, from the Centre Faction appeared to be stranded on the third unwinnable position on the ALP ticket.

This is where the Desert Rat thinks she devised a strategy to ingratiate herself once again with the Left and make it impossible for the Party (ALP) not to preselect her.

The strategy involved publicly dumping on Burke when giving evidence at the Corruption and Crime Commission's Smiths Beach public hearings. That was done after Burke had got an orchestrated public pillorying by the CCC, which played selected phone conversations, many of which were out of context. Adele Farina was the last witness to give evidence.

Farina seized the day. She gave headline grabbing evidence in the Smiths Beach public hearing of the CCC, condemning Brian Burke and accusing Burke of bullying, blackmail and intimidation. Her 'testimony' would have really impressed the Left leadership!

The Desert Rat has been told, that in the weeks following her evidence to the CCC ,of the alleged offensive behaviour by Brian Burke, Farina wrote to Burke thanking him for his help, support and guidance and invited him to a function in her office.

The strategy was successful. Giving evidence against Burke ingratiated her with the left and also made it impossible for the ALP not to select her in a winning position on the South West Region ticket -because if it did it would be seen as disciplining her for giving evidence against Burke.

The Premier Alan Carpenter said publicly that she had to be put in a winnable position. Even though the Left adopted her, they refused to give up their safe position now held by Sally Talbot who was placed in the No 1 position. Poor Matt Benson-Lidholm was shunted out of his home area of Albany in the South West Region and forced to run in the Agricultural Region

Interestingly, Farina's testament indicting Burke never resulted in any charges. Nor was it even mentioned in the CCC report on Smiths Beach. It appears to have been dropped from the CCC's Smiths Beach report, like a hot potato!

Farina, having created the anti Burke headline that the CCC thrived on - saw Mike Silverstone and the CCC subsequently decide her evidence was not relevant and jettisoned it from further consideration.

The Desert Rat has come to the view that most of Farina's actions can be attributed to her own self-interest in advancement in the ALP, rather than to any higher 'noble' motives.

Coming soon: How Farina used the Iron Ore Industry Committee proposal and the CCC to destroy Brian Burke.