Laurie Connell of Rothwells

About Laurie connell

Lawrence Robert ('Laurie') Connell (1946 - 27 February 1996) was a Western Australian business entrepreneur. He was well known for his dealings with the Government of Western Australia and his close relationships with a former premier of Western Australia, Brian Burke, and Alan Bond during the WA Inc period in the mid to late

1980s as chairman of the Rothwells merchant bank.

In 1994, Connell was jailed for conspiring to pervert the course of justice by paying a jockey to leave the country.

Rothwells
During the 1980s Connell started acquiring numerous local businesses through aggressive takeovers before setting himself up as a

deposit taker for investors under the name of Rothwells

Merchant Bank, which had begun its life as a Brisbanebased menswear chain.

After the 1987 stock market crash There was a run on the bank from local investors. Connell put together a rescue package involving numerous

Australian businessmen and approached the premier,

Brian Burke, who provided a A$150 million government guarantee to provide short-term relief.

 Despite this, after Burke's resignation on 25 February

1988, incoming premier Peter Dowding was required to

enter very complicated and controversial dealings in an attempt to protect the government's interests.

Rothwells ultimately went into liquidation, causing heavy

losses to the government and Rothwells investors.

Royal commission & main findings

After approximately 21 months of enquiries and hearings, royal

commission later found that:

Mr Burke's motives in supporting the rescue were not related solely to proper governmental concerns. They derived in part from his well-

established relationship with Mr Connell, the chairman and major

shareholder of Rothwells, and from his desire to preserve the standing of the Australian Labor Party in the eyes of those sections of the

business community from which it had secured much financial

support.

 Mr Dowding, as premier, presided over a disastrous series of decisions designed to support Rothwells when it was or should have been clear to him and to those ministers closely involved that Rothwells was no longer a viable financial institution.

This culminated in the decision to involve the Government, through WAGH, in the Kwinana petrochemical project as a means of removing the Government's contingent liability for certain of the debts of Rothwells. Electoral advantage was preferred to the public interest.

 The political fallout from the collapse as well as other government dealings in the period dominated media and political discourse in Western Australia during 1990, and

premier Carmen Lawrence ultimately called the royal

commission in November 1990 to investigate. The enquiry became known as the WA Inc royal commission and resulted in the jailing of Connell, Burke and a number of other involved parties.