Opinion

INCREASING numbers of voters claim there’s no real difference between WA’s conservative Liberal and left-of-centre Labor parties.

EVER since The West Australian newspaper ran Dullsville as its front page headline, there has been significant public debate about whether or not this is a great place to live.

WA Business News has won third prize for Best Newspaper, Small Tabloids at the Association of Area Business Publication’s Editorial Excellence Awards, announced at

I REFER to your article on sand drift (Councils slam summer dust, WA Business News July 3).

POLITICIANS can have a devastating effect on language. This was highlighted by George Orwell in his brilliant essay, Politics and the English Language.

PROFESSIONAL indemnity is one of the crises that has failed to capture the imagination of the very people who will end up being affected – consumers.

JOE Poprzeczny’s State Scene column of June 26 mentioned how I started the first Sunday trading push in WA.

NOW the second Gallop cabinet has bedded-in it’s worth considering more closely the reshuffle and some outcomes.

THE high-profile dumping of the Maud’s Landing proposal near Coral Bay may have been politically expedient but it leaves the Gallop Government looking extremely weak when it comes to policy.

THE re-emergence of former WA Governor Major-General Michael Jeffery as Australia’s top vice-regal promptly raised the question of public

EVERY week we publish dozens of government-based contracts and tenders in our For The Record section – doing our bit for transparency by picking through the reams of available information.

SOME of you might have noticed Dr Fiona Wood gracing the cover of a magazine that came with an edition of a national newspaper this weekend.

WHEN it comes to the shopping hours issue none of WA’s political parties are worth a crumpet. They either back outdated trading regulations, find excuses not to scrap them or hope the issue goes away.

MARK Beyer’s article on the Perth Parking Levy (BN June 5) has the Government “playing down” suggestions that it was considering extending the levy  to regional shopping centre

THE long lead-up to this week’s political bloodletting in Labor’s Federal Caucus room was a Godsend for State Liberal leader Colin Barnett.

THIS week I received an interesting note that started me thinking. The notion it contained was generally against compulsory superannuation.

PREMIER Geoff Gallop teamed-up with Queensland and South Australian Labor premiers, Peter Beattie and Mike Rann respectively at the February 1998 Constitutional Convention to argue for an elected Australian head of state to be called president.

THE situation occurring in the Western Australian parliament with the Greens (WA) decision, unusually backed by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in at least one instance

AN article I wrote last week on the Federal Government’s plans to place an environmental levy on plastic shopping bags has highlighted a number of issues — including a pet subject of mine, taxation.

THOSE wishing to see Australia’s last constitutional link with Buckingham Palace severed undoubtedly saw the resignation of former Brisbane Archbishop Peter Hollingworth from the Governor-Generalship as a major victory.

WHATEVER you might think of the way Singaporeans run their state, you have to hand it to the head of its airline and his management team for taking a pay cut due to the tough economic circumstances.

NOW the Gallop Government has moved to replace the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) with a similar bureaucracy, the Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC), are we to assume all will be kosher on WA’s crime fighting front?

LAST week’s column State Scene by Joe Poprzeczny hits the nail on the head in relation to what departments (and Ministers) think the public want from government, and what the public

GEOFF Gallop probably recalls from his university student and teaching days that an often used disparaging term, when referring to politicians, was to allege they were being authoritarian.

AM I wrong or are there a lot more ideological battles taking place in our country than there has been for a long time? Recently we’ve had the obvious ideological battleground of whether Australia should commit forces to war.

MANY of us will remember seeing a baffled Health Minister Bob Kucera recently facing TV cameras and attempting to explain why his department had bankrolled a publication coaching Perth women on how to be sensual and client-oriented prostitutes.

IT’S that time of year again, when all the wailing and gnashing of teeth keeps us all in a miserable state. Yes, that’s right, its budget time.

IT is good to note that Fisheries Minister Kim Chance is taking a close interest in the rock lobster industry, one of our most successful niche exports.

JUST as former Labor premier Brian Burke vacated the media spotlight over lobbying, his long-time party pal Kim Beazley came into its beam. State Scene certainly never expected to be re-focusing on Mr Beazley so soon

CONGRATULATIONS on your recent initiative to host a boardroom lunch to discuss the current state of affairs with WA’s research and development efforts.  I found the articles in

THE Gallop Government’s guillotining of former premier Brian Burke’s and one-time minister Julian Grill’s lobbying work highlights several interesting inconsistencies.

THE bunfight surrounding VRI Biomedical had just gone off the corporate radar over the Easter break when the sudden implosion of national therapeutic drug giant Pan Pharmaceuticals appeared as a large blip on the screen this week.