Perth Voice Interactive

NEWLY minted Bibra Lake MLA Sook Yee Lai says concerns raised about donations her father’s company gave Labor are “unfounded” and she’s just ready to get stuck into local issues.

Ms Lai replaces retiring Labor MLA Peter Tinley, who represented Bibra Lake under its former name Willagee from 2009, with the current count showing her swamping Liberal candidate Atul Garg with 71.2 per cent of the vote after preferences. 

Ms Lai said another candidate raised the donations at pre-polling booths to “unnerve” her.

Her father is Lai Ha Hong, managing director of Phosphate Resources Ltd and something of a union legend on Christmas Island.

He founded the company in 1990 after convincing the federal government to allow islanders to re-open the phosphate mine after the state-owned enterprise had been closed three years earlier, devastating local employment opportunities.

He’d been a labourer at the mine and became involved with the local union in their fight for a fair wage, as well as representing the island’s migrant workers against systemic racism.

According to the Australian Electoral Commission, Phosphate Resources Ltd donated $62,717 to the Labor party in the 2021-2022 financial year. 

It included $44,317 for the WA branch, $15,000 to the Northern Territory branch and $3,400 to the federal branch. 

A further $7,000 went to the federal Liberal Party.

Six months after the final donation, Ms Lai landed her first job in the Labor party as office manager of federal Tangney MP Sam Lim. 

Ms Lai said the role was advertised, but Mr Lim personally asked her to apply. 

While saying she couldn’t comment on why Phosphate Resources had donated to the party, Ms Lai said voters had their say.

“I did work very hard to earn the people’s trust, and it was validated at the election,” Ms Lai said.

But it was obviously a touchy point, as she warned the Herald about the potential for defaming the Labor Party.

Ms Lai said she intends to deliver on her commitments to the Bibra Lake community but is also concerned with other issues such as the environment and cost of living.

She said her approach to environmental issues would be to look at how she could make an impact in “the immediate local vicinity”.

“I am really focussed on that, supporting WA Wildlife, supporting the Wetlands Centre at Cockburn because [these] two institutions educate the community on conservation and the immediate impact of climate change on the electorate.” 

Ms Lai said climate and environment actions required collaboration between the three levels of government. 

“If everyone thinks locally first, it all links up to a more global way in which we deal with environment and interact in that space, Ms Lai said.”

Ms Lai graduated from Murdoch University in 2003 with a double degree in Asian studies and education and worked at Churchlands Senior High School, where she founded a Mandarin language program. 

After taking time off to raise a family, Ms Lai worked in the mining industry at “a really small, small mining company.”

by ELOISE BUDIMLICH