Opinion

I am always amused to read Joe Poprzeczny’s weekly back-page opinion piece in WA Business News.

While the Gallop Government was tabling its One Vote One Value Bill, a Melbourne University institute and The Australian newspaper were jointly hosting a national conference on Australia’s economy.

Margaret River’s next big wine event is being planned, not for the town, but for Heathrow Airport on the outskirts of London in about six weeks’ time.

Not surprisingly, I have been fascinated by politics this past week or so. But not in an admiring way, more in that stunned, what-are-they-going-on-about way, when you shake your head and wonder if there isn’t something better they might all be doing.

Lots of conservative-minded city and country Western Australians remain bitter about the Barnett-led Liberals’ needless loss of the February 26 State election.

Dullsville becomes Gabville next week when two big resource events hit Perth.

Next time you receive one of those early evening calls from someone with the faintest sub-continental accent trying to sell you shares in Vegemite or raise money for surf lifesaving, put your feet up, answer the questions and think of Australia.

I have always been fascinated by generational change and the way society evolves no matter how many people would like to preserve the status quo.

Defeated Liberal leader Colin Barnett, like his predecessor Richard Court, promptly resigned from the party’s top parliamentary post after losing to Geoff Gallop.

Pricewaterhouse-Coopers, the accounting and consultancy firm with the silliest name in the world, is recruiting staff.

At the time it didn’t seem so extraordinary, but the more I dwelt on a couple of events I attended last week, the more it started to sink in.

Conjecture as to why the ‘No’ case won the retail trading hours referendum is understandable and will no doubt be of considerable interest to social marketers, researchers, psepho

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

Last week in the story ‘Alcock nurtures building sector’s next generation’ WA Business News incorrectly stated that Dale Alcock was the chairman of the Building and Construction I

If Len Buckeridge needed another reason for not floating his BGC Group on the stock exchange then John Roberts has just given him one.

We never like to go patting ourselves on the back but there are times when its worth giving ourselves credit – mainly because no-one else will.

I refer to your article on Manny Papadoulis (WA Business News, March 10).

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.

Premier Geoff Gallop has won his second election, his parliamentary majority is intact, and he has refreshed his ministry with a modest reshuffle and five new faces.

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

Big bets have been placed on the assumption that a new bidder will emerge in the battle for control of Portman, the iron ore miner with a split board and widely differing valuations.

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.

Prince Charles and Andrew Roberts do not, on the surface, appear to have much in common.

There are two things I think we can be sure of from this election campaign – we won’t be getting a canal and we won’t see any significant deregulation of shopping hours for the next decade.

Right, it’s the pointy end of this election campaign – the time when most minds are made up.

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.

Third time lucky? That is the kindest comment that can be offered to yet another attempt to revive the dream of WA having its own vanadium industry.

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.

High oil prices are doing wonders for the share prices of oil producers, which makes just about every stock in that sector worth a look.

Our 40under40 Awards have been announced and yet another group of worthy people have been recognised for their achievements – not only in business but across many other fields where entrepreneurialism and innovation thrives.