{"id":505157,"date":"2026-02-26T10:52:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T10:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/505157\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T10:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T10:52:11","slug":"basil-zempilas-apologises-to-swan-hills-mp-michelle-maynard-after-incident-in-wa-parliament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/505157\/","title":{"rendered":"Basil Zempilas apologises to Swan Hills MP Michelle Maynard after incident in WA Parliament"},"content":{"rendered":"

WA Opposition Leader Basil Zempilas has apologised to a Labor backbencher who says she felt “intimidated” by him when he stood over her during an incident in parliament.<\/p>\n

A recording of the interaction showed Mr Zempilas walking over to Swan Hills Labor MP Michelle Maynard while she was seated in the chamber after question time on Wednesday afternoon, before gesturing passionately while standing over her and showing her something on his phone.<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n

Mr Zempilas offered a public apology to the member for Swan Hills after being contacted by a journalist shortly after the incident, and repeated his apology outside parliament on Thursday morning.<\/p>\n

When quizzed by journalists, Mr Zempilas said it was not his “intention” to intimidate Ms Maynard.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“But I understand how Michelle said she felt about it and I have apologised for that,” he said.<\/p>\n

It is the second incident of alleged poor behaviour inside parliament in as many weeks after a Nationals member last week denied making a racist comment to a Labor MP of Chinese heritage as she and other members left to attend a Chinese New Year function<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘I didn’t feel OK’<\/p>\n

The incident unfolded after question time, when Mr Zempilas asked the government about the number of laptops lost by Western Power before going on to say the agency “can’t keep the lights on in suburbs like Bullsbrook”.<\/p>\n

Ms Maynard, whose electorate takes in Bullsbrook, yelled something back not captured by a recording of the sitting.<\/p>\n

\"Michelle<\/p>\n

Michelle Maynard spoke to reporters outside Parliament House as she accused the opposition leader of intimidating her. (ABC News: Keane Bourke)<\/p>\n

When question time ended, video showed Mr Zempilas going straight to a seated Ms Maynard and showing her something on his phone.<\/p>\n

“I was seated. The leader of the opposition is a tall man, and he was in my physical space with his phone in my face and waving his hands, which he does, it’s fine,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t feel like I had anywhere that I could go, and he wasn’t letting up.<\/p>\n

“I had four colleagues stand up around me and ask him to leave and he did not, so I didn’t feel OK.”Zempilas ‘pulled away’<\/p>\n

Ms Maynard said the opposition leader only moved away once a male Labor MP intervened.<\/p>\n

That was fellow first-term MP Daniel Pastorelli, who said he saw Ms Maynard looking “uncomfortable”.<\/p>\n

\"Daniel<\/p>\n

Labor MP Daniel Pastorelli says Mr Zempilas was “standing over” Ms Maynard. (ABC News: Keane Bourke)<\/p>\n

“So I walked over and stood between the opposition leader and Michelle and asked him to leave and to leave Michelle alone,” he said, although the parliament camera had cut away at that point.<\/p>\n

“I had to ask him three times. I think one of his colleagues, at that point, sort of pulled him away and got him to sit down.<\/p>\n

“I’ve never seen \u2026 a leader decide to take up an issue after question time with another MP like that, in front of her face and standing over her and [gesturing] like he was doing.”<\/p>\n

While parliament could be a “robust place” during question time, Ms Maynard said, “question time was over and I didn’t find the behaviour acceptable at all”.<\/p>\n

‘I won’t do that again’<\/p>\n

Mr Zempilas said his intention in speaking to Ms Maynard was to show her that data he was referring to about power outages had come from the Western Power website.<\/p>\n

Basil Zempilas takes fight to government in first week back<\/a><\/p>\n

Housing, health and household stress \u2014 those are the three H’s WA’s opposition leader Basil Zempilas says are his focus for 2026 as he and his party face an uphill battle.<\/p>\n

“I apologised because I was asked to do so,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It was not my intention to cause any of those things, but I accept that if that’s how Michelle felt it was the right thing to do to give an apology.”<\/p>\n

But reflecting on the incident, Mr Zempilas said: “I won’t do that again”.<\/p>\n

“I’ve seen many members from both sides as soon as question time finishes go up and have a conversation with another member, and I think we would expect that that is something that can happen,” he said.<\/p>\n

“However, I understand I’m the leader of the opposition, perhaps it’s best if I don’t do that.”<\/p>\n

Behaviour improving: speaker<\/p>\n

His colleague, Shadow Treasurer Sandra Brewer was sitting across the aisle from Ms Maynard at the time and described the interaction as “a good debate about power supply”.<\/p>\n

“I was enjoying the conversation,” she said.<\/p>\n

Speaker Stephen Price said the matter had been dealt with in the chamber by Mr Zempilas’s apology, and that despite the two incidents \u2014 in his view \u2014 behaviour was improving.<\/p>\n

\"Stephen<\/p>\n

Legislative Assembly Speaker Stephen Price says events in the chamber reflect on all MPs. (ABC News: Keane Bourke)<\/p>\n

“[MPs] need to be mindful of their behaviour in the chamber,” he said.<\/p>\n

“it is seen by the public and it is reported by [the media] so everything that happens in there reflects on all of us.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WA Opposition Leader Basil Zempilas has apologised to a Labor backbencher who says she felt “intimidated” by him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[23040,43,44,86,41,39,42,40,253749,193253,45,9570,9569],"class_list":["post-505157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-basil-zempilas","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-perth-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-wa-liberal-leader","tag-wa-liberals","tag-wa-news","tag-wa-politics","tag-wa-pols"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}