Western Australia appoints Alex Rho as Clerk of the Executive Council

The Governor of Western Australia, Christopher Dawson, acting in Executive Council, has accepted the resignation of Nick Hagley as a Clerk of the Executive Council and appointed Alex Rho as a Clerk of the Executive Council with effect on and from 13 October 2026. The decision was notified for public information in the Government Gazette of Western Australia of Friday 16 October 2026, No. 130, under the Premier and Cabinet heading and the reference PR401. The notice carries no stated reason for the resignation and no biographical detail on the incoming Clerk.

The announcement is a short administrative notice, but it concerns one of the machinery offices of state government. The Executive Council is the formal body through which the Governor acts on ministerial advice, and its Clerk is the officer whose signature attests the instruments that emerge from it — appointments to public boards, designations of acting ministers, delegations and orders — most of which are printed in the Gazette each week. A change of Clerk therefore touches the documentary record of every decision that passes through the Council.

What the gazette records

• Resignation accepted: Nick Hagley, as a Clerk of the Executive Council.
• Appointment: Alex Rho, as a Clerk of the Executive Council.
• Effective date: 13 October 2026, expressed as “on and from” that day.
• Publication: Government Gazette of Western Australia No. 130, 16 October 2026, page 2306, item PR401.
• Signature on the notice: B. D’Sa, Clerk of the Executive Council.

A signature that runs through the statute book

The Clerk’s name is the recurring mark on instruments made by the Governor in Council. In the weeks before this notice, the Gazette carried the Edith Cowan University Council (Appointment of Member) Instrument 2026, dated 15 September 2026 and published on 22 September 2026, signed by Nick Hagley as Clerk of the Executive Council. Other instruments published in August and September 2026 were signed by Amelia O’Sullivan and, in earlier notices, by Kate Colleran, showing that the office has been exercised by several signatories over recent months.

The 16 October notice sits in the Premier and Cabinet section of the Gazette, the part of the publication reserved for the administrative acts of the Governor in Council and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. It is published alongside routine instruments of other portfolios — mental health practitioner designations, mining forfeiture notices and deceased estate notices — rather than as a standalone proclamation.

Three days between effect and publication

The appointment took effect on 13 October 2026, three days before the notice appeared in print, so the change was already operative when the Gazette was published. The notice does not indicate whether Alex Rho will sign instruments jointly with the existing Clerk or assume the role alone, and it makes no reference to any other staffing change within the Council’s secretariat.

For readers of the Gazette, the practical consequence is a change of signatory to watch for. Instruments dated on or after 13 October 2026 and published in coming editions will carry the new name, and anyone tracing the chain of authority behind a regulation, board appointment or ministerial designation will need to follow the transition from Nick Hagley to Alex Rho in the official record.

Source: Government Gazette of Western Australia, No. 130, 16 October 2026, Premier and Cabinet, p. 2306 (official reference: PR401).