Environment

ON THE JOB: WA Treasurer Troy Buswell sniffing around for love in the office

WA Treasurer Troy Buswell was given his marching orders earlier in the year by his ex-lover former Greens party MP Adele Carles because she suspected him of cheating on her. Gasp! With someone on his staff Don Draper style. Gasp again! We explore these issues with sensitivity for all and somehow tie it back to the Melbourne by-election that the Greens say is as good as won.

Our explorations into the darkened private spaces of newly re-appointed WA Treasurer Troy Buswell have been impactful before, with our 2010 revelations described in WA as the “hottest political story of 2010” so we crawl into this dangerous zone carefully.

It has been widely reported in the WA media that WA ex-Greens MP Adele Carles and the former Liberal leader’s unlikely coupling had concluded.

As background, Carles was elected as the member for Fremantle in a by-election, perhaps not unlike Melbourne’s, where the Greens party spent a fortune winning a seat they’ll struggle to hold onto in a general election, and won only because the Liberals weren’t contesting it, a fact she now concedes. If elected, we can only hope the Greens candidate in Melbourne Cathy Oke can keep her mitts off Victorian Treasurer and very unlikely pants-man Kim Wells. It’d give Wells and Buswell something to talk about at COAG, we suppose.

When the Greens party discovered that VEXNEWS reporting was correct – this is becoming quite a pattern for them – the party hierarchy led by a scary looking comrade called Giz – today slammed for being “extreme-left anti-sex feminists” by the Sex Party – moved to expel Carles with Stalinist efficiency. Labor is expected to pick up the seat at the next election, with Carles not likely to run. She’ll have been there for a good time not a long time, critics will probably then say.

All that is well-known.

Less well-known is the reason why the power couple who went through so much for the state’s most unlikely love broke up in the first place.

Sources close to Carles have told VEXNEWS that she was dumped the Liberal – and ordered him to depart their recently acquired love-shack – after discovering a close personal relationship between Buswell and a member of his staff, whom we have decided not to name as it’s clearly not her fault given the irresistible nature of Treasurer Buswell’s charms.

VEXNEWS understands that Buswell’s delightful chief of staff Rachael Turnseck, responsible for managing his ministerial staff and keeping them on the straight and narrow, is keeping abreast of the situation.

There have been other suggestions around town of other indecent liaisons too, although he is single so some will question that harsh characterisation of the politician who first achieved national prominence after revelations he had – in the presence of witnesses – bent down to sniff the chair of a staffer he fancied.

We have not had a kind word for Comrade Carles til now, but it does seem she’s made the right call.

Notwithstanding that, she is full of it, sources say.

The former love shack now as gloomy as Miss Havisham’s drawing room – a luxury apartment – that she and the Buzzer had purchased to accommodate their love was in an area Carles had previously claimed was set to be made “uninhabitable” by reason of something to do with lead in proximity to the Fremantle port.

It’s now just uninhabitable for Troy Buswell.

The minister – now Treasurer – will want to be careful to avoid situations where he could open to suggestions he’s using taxpayer-funded accommodation for inappropriate private use, claims he had to fend off in relation to Carles originally. No doubt he’s being careful.

© 2012 VEXNEWS © 2013.