December 20, 2025 — 2:00am
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A now-retired Public Transport Authority employee responsible for managing and training Transperth guards allegedly worked for and helped a private training organisation gain an edge over its competitors over two years, according to WA’s corruption watchdog.
The Corruption and Crime Commission formed an opinion of serious misconduct against the PTA’s former manager of safety and rail access Richard Clark, who invoiced private company Railtrain for almost $50,000 in consulting work while also working for the authority from November 2022 to April 2024.
The CCC has uncovered serious misconduct at the PTA.
Clark started his job in July 2021, which included managing and procuring security trained by companies like Railtrain, the largest provider of guards to the PTA.
After receiving a tip-off, the CCC launched Operation Absecon in April last year to investigate Clark’s work for Railtrain.
It found Clark had known Railtrain director Graham Butler for more than 20 years and helped the company develop its training materials before and during his employment with the PTA.
“Through his relationship with Mr Clark, Mr Butler was able to obtain information about the PTA which may have assisted the Railtrain Group to market itself to, and develop its relationship with the PTA,” the CCC report found.
The CCC found Clark invoiced Railtrain about $47,000 for his consulting work from 2022 to 2024, which included writing training programs for the company ultimately used by the PTA.
While he had gained external employment approval from the authority, the CCC found his true relationship with Railtrain was never disclosed, and the PTA never probed beyond what Clark had told them.
The CCC found Clark provided Railtrain with a “who’s who” list of authority staff and helped the company develop its safety incidents course as well as its marketing pitch to the PTA.
“He did not advise [his manager] that he had been paid to assist in developing the course. Railtrain was paid approximately $66,000 for delivering the course to the PTA,” the CCC report said.
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Clark hosted a workshop on PTA training and operational issues, and provided feedback to Butler on tenders being submitted to the authority.
He also helped Railtrain develop a Certificate IV training course and alerted the company to the fact that the PTA had intended to procure a course from rival Alium.
The CCC said Clark didn’t declare a conflict of interest until November 2022, stating that disclosure and subsequent disclosures never fully revealed the nature of his relationship with the company.
It pointed to a September 2023 declaration which suggested he had “undertaken work for Railtrain ‘some time ago’.”
“However, he rendered an invoice to Railtrain for $9600 two days after submitting
the declaration,” the CCC report said.
The CCC said Clark deliberately minimised the nature of his relationship with Railtrain.
“The Commission was fortified in that conclusion by a text that Mr Clark sent to a Railtrain employee in February 2024 requesting that the employee ‘please explain to [his] team not to mention the work I do for you’,” he said.
“The commission considered that Mr Clark ought not to have been involved in any decision by PTA to procure training courses delivered by Railtrain given his conflict of interest.”
The CCC was also critical of the PTA for not probing the obvious conflicts of interest earlier.
“There was no attempt to oversee a proper plan to manage Mr Clark’s obvious perceived/potential conflict (that subsequently became an actual conflict),” it said.
“There was no misconduct risk identified by the Integrity & Investigation division when a complaint was made to the division in October 2022. That was despite the obvious conflict alleged in the complaint.”
The CCC recommended the PTA overhaul its conflict of interest policies and Commissioner Michael Corboy said government agencies needed to take note.
“Government agencies must ensure their policies and procedures related to external employment and the management of potential conflicts of interest are appropriate and rigorously applied,” he said.
“If they are not, they give rise to significant misconduct risk as demonstrated in this investigation.”
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Hamish Hastie is WAtoday’s state political reporter and the winner of five WA Media Awards, including the 2023 Beck Prize for best political journalism.Connect via Twitter or email.Most Viewed in NationalFrom our partners