Joseph Poprzeczny

The Mid-West region’s state seat of Greenough, which skirts the northern port city of Geraldton, has a range of claims to fame.

The Department of Industry and Resources (DOIR) is about to make a concerted bid to propel Western Australia into becoming a significant new player in the international petrochemical industry.

Western Australia’s Liberals have emerged in far worse shape from the February 26 election – at which they attracted 35.6 per cent statewide voter support – than after the February 2001 election when they scored only 34 per cent.

A large, three-kilometre deep subterranean basin about twice the size of Perth’s CBD could be the answer to the state’s peak power needs this summer.

The English had Richard the Lion Heart, the Macedonians Alexander the Great, the Poles Boleslaw the Bold and even a Boleslaw the Brave.

Colin Barnett’s tactically motivated promise to build a $2 billion-plus Kimberley-to-Perth aqueduct wasn’t the most far-reaching conservative promise of the election campaign.

With Western Australia’s second election of the 21st century just days away it’s worth recapping some of the campaign’s stand-out points and to also consider something that never eventuated.

Now that Labor’s all-powerful Sydney-based rightist faction, with which Kim Beazley is associated, has again made him leader it’s worth considering the likelihood of him being successful in his third tilt at the nation’s top job.

The Liberal Party’s surprise promise to build a canal to take water from the Kimberley has changed the election dynamic. Joe Poprzeczny reports that one party had to move in what was a dull and boring campaign.

Liberal leader Colin Barnett has aspired since at least 1990, the year he entered state parliament, to become premier.

Despite the Latham imbroglio and State Labor’s dismal scores in several opinion polls held late in 2004, a surprisingly large number of senior Liberals – MPs and rank-and-file – believe Gallop-led Labor is still likely to sneak home in the coming election

The headline of a story reporting Premier Geoff Gallop’s recent address to the WA Media Club read: ‘Gallop sorry on taxes as poll looms’.

Premier Geoff Gallop isn’t the one calling the shots in State Labor’s current election campaign. Joe Poprzeczny considers the role of Labor’s real master strategist who, nearly a decade ago, underwent a Latham-style resignation.

Both sides of State politics have failed to provide a visionary planning policy for Perth’s CBD, according to a leading urban planner. Joe Poprzeczny reports.

WITH a State election imminent letterboxes will be increasingly stuffed with more unwelcome advertising bumph from parties to convince voters they and their candidates are working for their electorates.

With 19 Saturdays before the next parliament can be convened, Joe Poprzeczny outlines why Premier Geoff Gallop has little choice in the actual election date.

“WELL, here we are again” were the words former prime minister Paul Keating uttered when announcing the 1996 Federal election he would lose to John Howard.

With health expected to be a major issue at the forthcoming State election, the Government has given Dr Neale Fong the job of restructuring the sector. Joe Poprzeczny reports on what is expected from his appointment.

IT has been some time since I’ve read anything on America’s brutal Civil War, a conflict that so horrified Australia’s colonial politicians that they responded by enacting the White Australia policy once the colonies had federated.

IN a stellar year for initial public offerings, four of the top IPOs in Australia in 2004 had a Western Australian connection.

WESTERN Australians quickly forget former premiers. Thankfully Perth author and poet Hal Colebatch, son of WA’s shortest-serving premier Sir Hal Colebatch, reminds us of his father’s efforts and achievements in a recently released biography.

THE Gallop Government is considering proposals for a new type of Aboriginal land title in a bid to empower land councils to promote local development.

LABOR and Liberal campaign strategists expect the preferences of Western Australia’s six minor parties to play determining roles in deciding the outcom

IT’S no secret that Prime Minister John Howard and his inner Liberal sanctum want Labor’s Mark Latham to stay on as Labor leader for as long as possible.

Earlier this year Perth hosted a weekend conference convened by the conservative public affairs group, the Samuel Griffith Society.

Administration of the State’s budding medical research sector must rely on more precise management practices to help ensure maximum overall benefits, according to an Office of Aud

Does Geoff Gallop’s surprise decision to call a two-part shopping hours referendum for election day show that Western Australia, at long last, has a democratically inclined premier?

In the lead-up to the State election, Joe Poprzeczny looks at some of the issues and battlegrounds on which the campaign will be fought.

An elated Energy Minister Eric Ripper has announced Western Power’s 25-year billion-dollar deal for transmission of North West Shelf gas to Perth for electricity generation.