Liberal hopeful quits after scrutiny over driving record, party investigation

WA Liberal candidate Christopher Tan, who was pre-selected to run in a winnable upper house seat, has quit at a party meeting called to reconsider his endorsement.

Mr Tan was under pressure to stand down after details of his long history of driving without a licence, driving unlicensed vehicles and defaulting on fines emerged last week.

On Friday he told WAtoday the fines were "not necessarily of my making" and denied he had skirted his responsibilities as a citizen.

But the Liberal Party's State Council was poised to spill the candidates chosen to run in the East Metropolitan Region, with the exception of opposition education spokeswoman Donna Faragher, in order to remove Mr Tan from the party's ticket.

The Liberals will decide in June on a timeline to replace Mr Tan in the prized position.

As part of the WA Liberals' strict new candidate vetting requirements, Mr Tan was required to provide a police clearance before his preselection was endorsed.

Mr Tan has a string of convictions for road traffic offences racked up over many years, some of which were disclosed to the party in February.

In November 2017 he was caught by police driving without a licence while he had 30 unpaid fines against his name. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Liberals at the election earlier that year.

In a transcript of one of Mr Tan's court appearances, he told a magistrate he hadn't paid the 30 fines because the debt collectors assigned to his case would not communicate with him in writing.

He asked if his debts could be transferred to WA's Fines Enforcement Registry.

Mr Tan said some years ago his family had come into "significant financial difficulty".

"I had purchased a property and some years into ownership had to move in with my mother due to her health," he said.

"My property and some of the vehicles were left in the other property. Some of those vehicles incurred fines not necessarily of my making."

Mr Tan said he had been focusing on repaying debt which accrued interest, and this had made it difficult to sort out "some traffic infringements made with vehicles I was not in possession of".

"On reflection it might be seen by some that I somehow skirted my responsibilities as a citizen. This is not the case," he said.

While the convictions do not disqualify Mr Tan from sitting in Parliament, a number of Liberal politicians have privately questioned his suitability to stand as a candidate for the party.

A WA Liberal spokesman said the party had conducted an ongoing and extensive investigation into Mr Tan after "information was forthcoming".

It is not the first time Mr Tan has found himself at the centre of controversy within the party.

In February, he insisted he never claimed he had a degree when he told party preselectors he went to Murdoch University for four years and "completed in majors management and marketing".

He made the statement on an application form for Liberal endorsement, but he never finished a course or was awarded a degree, according to the university's records.

Mr Tan was also required to provide the Liberals with a statutory declaration in which he said he was not involved in a 2013 incident relating to a vehicle that went missing from the West Swan campaign when he was its manager.

A source who asked to remain anonymous because of the political sensitivities of the incident said the car had been provided to the campaign by a donor.

Police were never called in over the incident and there is no suggestion Mr Tan was involved in the vehicle's disappearance, only that he was asked by the party to confirm he was not involved during pre-selections.