Perth Voice Interactive

KINGS PARK authorities have removed the tree where Barbara Campbell, 87, buried the ashes of her daughter Penny Easton in 1992.

Easton was the Perth lawyer who killed herself after becoming embroiled in a political scandal that was to consume Carmen Lawrence’s Labor government and become known as the Easton Affair.

Having scattered her late husband Alec’s ashes at the same tree overlooking the Swan River in 1997, Ms Campbell, a North Perth grandmother of eight and great-grandmother of four, says she was shocked to find the gum gone when she visited recently with a grand-daughter.

“I have to change my will because I wanted my ashes scattered with my husband and Penny,” she told the Voice.

“I couldn’t find it, a lot of roads have been put in. After I called Kings Park, they wrote to me and said they had moved the tree, giving me reasons why I was not allowed to do it.

“They are supposed to have feelings about people.”

Kings Park business and visitor services Marcelle Broderick wrote to Ms Campbell on June 6 stating, “the scattering of ashes is not permitted in Kings Park”. She says some trees are removed for health and safety reasons. New trees are usually planted when a tree is removed, “although sometimes the new trees cannot be placed in exactly the same location for a variety of reasons”.

Ms Campbell says it’s not uncommon for people to scatter the ashes of loved ones in Kings Park, particularly those who’d served (her late husband had been an RAF Lancaster bomber pilot who later moved his family to WA). His death in 1997 was five years to the day of his daughter’s.

Ms Campbell says her daughter was a lovable person with a great sense of humour, betrayed by those around her.

“We didn’t want to bury her in a cemetery,” she says. “We just wanted to have a place with connections, but now it’s gone.” One of four siblings, Penny’s younger sister Margaret McCauley is a lawyer who in 1992 acted on behalf of women defrauded by Robin Greenburg in the Western Women swindle.

A petition tabled in parliament on November 5 of that year by then Labor backbencher John Halden accused the sisters of giving false evidence in court. The claim was found to be false.

Ms Easton took her own life four days later, aged 41.

Premier Carmen Lawrence told parliament the next day she’d had no prior knowledge of Mr Halden’s petition, an account later disputed by cabinet ministers Pam Beggs and Keith Wilson.

Dr Lawrence and Mr Halden were charged with perjury but acquitted. Ms Easton’s estranged husband Brian Mahon Easton—who’d told Mr Halden Penny had lied about him in the Family Court—was imprisoned for seven days for refusing to apologise to parliament.

After Dr Lawrence’s move to federal parliament the Easton Affair surfaced again. Liberal premier Richard Court launched a Royal Commission that derailed the former premier’s promising career.

by CARMELO AMALFI