By Hamish Hastie and Louise Rennie
Former upper house Liberal MP Phil Edman will fight charges alleging he informed colleagues about a Corruption and Crime Commission investigation into his parliamentary expenses.
Edman appeared in the Perth Magistrates Court on Wednesday morning to plead not guilty to five charges including willfully delaying or hindering the CCC in April 2019.
Former WA MP Phil Edman.Credit:Radio 6PR
He also faces four charges of disclosing a restricted matter in October 2019 to associates Pamela Palmer, Alison Gibbs, Louisa Barnes, and former Shooters and Fishers party upper house member Nigel Hallett.
His lawyer Finola Barr said Edman had entered firm not guilty pleas and would defend all the charges. A trial date will be selected on June 28.
Edman has been the subject of two CCC reports. The first, released in December 2019, claimed he had engaged in serious misconduct by using his electoral allowance to visit strip clubs and pay for “sugar babies”.
The watchdog then released a second report in November 2020, where it claimed Edman had alerted associates about the investigation and warned them about the contents of his laptop that had been seized by investigators.
In an intercepted communication to an associate, the report alleged Edman told him: “there’s enough stuff on that f---ing computer to bury f---ing a lot of people and ruin their political careers forever … there’s videos and pictures and lots of lovely little collections that I’ve got on there.”
The CCC alleged at the time the investigation had been impeded by a “particular witness”.
“Evidence has been withheld from the commission, with the result that the commission has had to utilise intrusive powers such as search warrants to obtain relevant material,” the report said.
Edman’s laptop caused an enormous legal row between the CCC, the Department of Premier and Cabinet and former upper house president Kate Doust over what arm of government was allowed to determine what material on the laptop was subject to parliamentary privilege.
Doust won the challenge, with the court ruling the parliament was the only body able to determine parliamentary privilege, but it cost her job as upper house president.
A digital forensic copy of the non-privileged files from the laptop was handed over to the CCC in December last year but the commission is yet to announce any further updates on its investigation.
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