Mark Pownall

THE financial strain of a poor season in Western Australia’s Wheatbelt is starting to show, with the owners of machinery dealership Farmpower calling in the administrators.

Nunzio Nici’s back to doing what he knows best at the new Il Padrino Caffe in Northbridge. Mark Pownall reports.

Inspired by fictional lawyer Perry Mason, Patti Chong brings colour and passion to her profession.

IN what has proved a slow period for floats in Western Australia, the $150 million listing of mining services group MACA Ltd could prove to be one of the biggest of the calendar year.

Unrealistic expectations plague our society, from the market to the political realm.

Having assumed a spoiler’s role in the economic debate, retailers act in no-one’s interests but their own.

EDUCATION entrepreneur Rod Jones believes his biggest opportunity is the US, which is just emerging as a market for the services of his company Navitas.

Navitas chief Rod Jones spoke candidly at a business breakfast this week.

GOVERNMENT trading enterprise chiefs continue to dominate the list of the state’s highest paid public servants, taking out the top six places according to annual reports tabled in parliament recently.

Regional development commissions want more definite funding mechanisms from the resources industry. Mark Pownall reports.

The common ties that bind Australia and India should be remembered as India suffers a Commonwealth Games PR nightmare.

When Regional Development Council chairman Graham Thompson brandished a 123-page report into the resources sector’s impact on regional communities, he believed it offered an insight into what can be done well.

CORPORATE reputations of mining companies have become increasingly important as society tries to grapple with costs and benefits of producing resources.

Footballer, chaplain, CEO and chairman. Neale Fong’s celebrity status may have waned, but he’s still flat out.

EAST Kimberley businesses are racing to finish the first part of the latest Ord River project expansion before the wet season arrives in earnest in November, with several indigenous contractors working on the development.

Why do we continue to ignore the past? Each generation believes things are different this time around.

WANTING to train more doctors might seem like a noble pursuit, but Curtin University’s $110 million plan to start a medical school is meeting high level resistance at the core of the profession.

IN a time when government infrastructure funding is at a premium, Fremantle Ports has a rare claim – its multi-million dredging program has come without a net cost to the enterprise or public purse.

THE generosity of private funding of medical research in Western Australia continues with a $1.5 million contribution by the McCusker Charitable Foundation.

An unseen form of stimulus was a soft and flexible tax office, but that is changing this financial year.

Fledging agricultural IT company Agworld has won the backing of Bentley-based venture capital group Yuuwa, which has invested $1.5 million in the business that provides farms with an simple data capture service.

Once popular forestry managed investment schemes have collapsed under the weight of government policy and tax office crack downs.

This week’s collapse of Melbourne-based Willmott Forests is third major failure of a managed investment scheme player this year and lands a significant blow to the once multi-billion dollar sector with strong Western Australian roots.

Is a revolution occurring in Perth’s law land?

NO sooner had the Australian Labor Party limped over the line earlier this week to claim victory in the 2010 election, with the support of two key independents, than attention in WA turned to the impact on the mining sector.

STEPHEN Edwards looks back on the past decade and tries to put his finger on the key reason for his two-partner law firm's success.

Law firms are responding in different ways to WA’s increasing strategic significance.

Marylyn New has always been a bit different. For her next move she's stepping futher from the mainstream.

FEDERAL government-owned medical insurance giant Medibank has continued the consolidation of Western Australia’s occupational health sector with the purchase of Carepoint Industrial Health Services.

Those suggesting we’ve entered a new era in Australian politics seem to be forgetting the strengths inherent in the current system.

THE narrow win by Liberal candidate Ken Wyatt in the Perth metropolitan seat of Hasluck has swung momentum towards Tony Abbott as negotiations to form a federal government continue.

It’s not just the online bookies who have seen their clients gamble on a Coalition win in the drawn out federal election, the Australian stock market seems to taking the same punt.