BEN HARVEY: Why Rita Saffioti's the human punchline

West Australian

07-06-2025

Rita Saffioti, you are weak as p***.
The writing was on the wall that bare-knuckle boxing was politically poisonous but you didn't have the guts to use your power as Sports Minister to veto it.
Instead, you let the Combat Sports Commission do your dirty work by putting a last-minute kybosh on the Bare Knuckle Boxing Championship event.
You were the only person who wanted this thing to happen, Rita.
For weeks you failed to read the room, insisting community concern was a storm in a teacup that would blow over when West Australians realised just how much fun it was watching two people bash each other the way nature intended.
You knew best.
Perhaps it was because eight years ago you stared down those opposed to cage fighting.
Perhaps it was because, having represented the good burghers of West Swan for so long, you know a thing or two about punch-ups.
You refused to intervene even when it emerged that a former bikie who went to jail for bashing a police informant was being considered for the card.
His opponent? A British reality TV 'star' called Aaron Chalmers who, presumably, decided that having his head punched in was worth it because it gave him the requisite brain damage for another season on Geordie Shore.
'The advice to me is that with very strict protocols and criteria that the event, if the organiser were to meet that, that it could be conducted in WA,' you said.
In making it clear you were a woman not for turning you made the entire Cabinet look like hapless idiots.
Why buy tickets to Cirque du Soleil when you can watch Meredith Hammat contorting herself while dodging questions about how a health minister could endorse what the Australian Medical Association was calling a blood sport.
If it was up to the AMA the most dangerous sport in WA would be Ring a Ring o' Roses (perhaps accompanied by someone playing the lute) so we don't want to be led by the nose by medicos, but still.
Your government, which adhered slavishly to medical advice during COVID, was very quick to discount the opinion of doctors on this one.
I hope you apologised to Meredith for making her look such a fool.
You owe Paul Papalia a beer as well. He didn't hesitate in going over the top for you, making out that bare-knuckle boxing was something the Famous Five might indulge in, refreshing themselves with lashings of ginger beer between bouts.
At least Paul sounded like he believed what he was saying. Perhaps his performance was compelling because he was a navy clearance diver before politics. Let's face it, anyone who swims towards the bomb has a unique appreciation of risk.
Rita, so terrified are ministers of your wrath in Budget expenditure review committee meetings, they would have built a Thunderdome in your honour.
Two men enter, one man leaves, they would have chanted, had you asked.
You took advantage of their pathetic weakness and insisted they back your absurd rationale that the Combat Sports Commission could never be questioned.
It's not the bloody Roman Senate, Rita; it's sports administration.
'I can't stop one and then not stop others,' you said, hinting that your ministerial override risked the fall of the Westminster system.
It was only when the July 19 card was confirmed that you appeared to have realised there might be a political problem.
It turns out there is something as bad as a former bikie who bashed a police informant being the star of the show.
Alex 'Godly Strong' is a 140kg, 195cm meat-axe who went to prison for bashing a drug dealer during an aggravated home invasion.
It was a bridge too far. Labor had ceded the moral high ground to Basil Zempilas and was enjoying what must have been a novel view.
Everyone knew the wound needed to be cauterised.
But still you refused to act.
And now you're asking us to believe that at the last minute the Combat Sports Commission 'independently' arrived at the conclusion that this show could not go on.
The same commission whose chair, Bob Kucera, had been so enthusiastic about this event he was practically humming Eye of the Tiger.
This was a contest between 'superb athletes', Bob told us a couple of weeks ago. Strict medical conditions had to be met before anyone could step in the ring, he said.
And it was best to have these kind of events held out in the open, otherwise bare-knuckle fighting might go underground, the former cop warned ominously.
Bob even managed to keep a straight face when he said that last one. I was waiting for him to gush, 'I would like to thank the Academy' at the end of each interview.
He was so convincing the promoters started selling tickets to the fight!
Bob had your back, Rita. And you hung him out to dry. You made him look like a stooge.
Does anyone believe that there was no political pressure here?
That nobody in the executive arm of government had a quiet word to the commission about the need to somehow get the shit back in the horse?
That there were no phone calls asking that the commission take one for the team?
Bull****.
I can't imagine what the atmosphere was like in the State Solicitor's Office when the commission knocked back the event application.
Did someone at least give them the heads-up that we were about to pick a legal fight with Conor McGregor, the man who owns Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship?
Rita, do you have any idea how wealthy this bloke is? He earnt $US130 million in one fight against Floyd Mayweather, for the love of God.
The only people richer than Conor are his lawyers.
We were worried about Clive Palmer's lawsuit bankrupting us; wait for this costs order!
Rita, I know that you didn't initiate this mess.
That was your predecessor, David Templeman. David should never have recognised bare-knuckle fighting as a sport when the application was made prior to the last State election.
He should have understood the politics but was probably distracted by the excitement of delivering his last end-of-year serenade to the Legislative Assembly.
You, on the other hand, Rita, should have known better.
You're no political fool.
There's no excuse for allowing this public policy absurdity to run for so long.