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Corrective Services Minister and Secret Harbour MP Paul Papalia has resigned from WA parliament due to a close family member’s serious diagnosis, triggering what is expected to be a highly contested byelection in the southern suburbs electorate.
The announcement by the long-serving MP will also leave the door open for a major cabinet reshuffle for the Cook government, including the important roles in defence and corrective services.
Prior to his resignation, Papalia held several of the state government’s high-profile portfolios, including corrective services, emergency services, defence industries, racing and gaming, and veterans.
The minister said a close family member had been diagnosed with a serious illness, which he said meant he could not continue to give his parliamentary role the attention it deserved.
“What I’m doing wasn’t planned … it’s by necessity,” he said.
“The condition that my family member has been diagnosed with is a significantly debilitating overtime. It’s progressive.”
WA Premier Roger Cook said a caucus meeting would be held on Friday to appoint a new cabinet.
Papalia had come under fire from the state opposition in recent months following a damning report highlighting a “systemic failure across multiple prisons” in WA.
The report, released last month by Inspector of Custodial Services Eamon Ryan, revealed deteriorating conditions at Hakea, Casuarina and Melaleuca prisons, and led to Ryan issuing a show cause notice.
The opposition seized on the dire details of the publication and called for Papalia’s resignation.
Under the emergency services portfolio, Papalia faced irate Perth paramedics in April last year, with drivers scribbling messages of frustration about ramping and response times on their ambulances after overwhelmingly rejecting a pay offer from their employer, St John WA.
As police minister in 2024, the then-Warnbro MP gave law enforcement officers sweeping powers to search people for weapons in public under stringent new knife laws.
Born in Bunbury and raised in the South West town of Burekup, Papalia joined the Navy in 1978, going on to serve in the military for 26 years.
He brought a wealth of experience to the defence industries portfolio, having served in the Special Air Service’s counterterrorism squadron. He was also deployed to Iraq on two occasions.
In the course of his military career he was awarded the Conspicuous Service Cross and Commendations from both the Land and Maritime Commanders before leaving the service in early 2004.
Papalia was first elected to the seat of Peel in 2007 in a byelection following the resignation of the previous member Norman Marlborough in November 2006.
Marlborough stood down from politics after an ACCC investigation found explosive evidence of dealings with disgraced former premier Brian Burke.
Papalia was then elected to the new seat of Warnbro in September 2008 and re-elected in 2013, 2017 and 2021, before winning the new seat of Secret Harbour in the most recent state election last year.
After WA Labor lost office in 2008, Papalia was named in the shadow ministry with portfolios including tourism, local government, education, citizenship and multicultural interests, corrective services and defence issues.
Following the Mark McGowan-led victory in 2017 he held several ministerial appointments including police, road safety, defence industry and veterans issues.
Papalia’s resignation will trigger a hotly contested byelection in Secret Harbour, with WA One Nation leader Rod Caddies already targeting the seat as a priority for the party.
Labor won the seat in 2025 with more than 62 per cent of the votes on a two-candidate preferred breakdown of the results following the distribution of preferences.
On first-preference results, Papalia received 12,876 votes ahead of Liberal candidate Mark Jones.
Greens candidate Tamsyn Jones came in third place with 2439 votes followed by One Nation’s Liam Hall with 2332.
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