Opinion

If stock market and property prices are to be believed, the international financial world is back to where it was seven years ago, which either means good times have returned or we are exactly where we were just before the 2008 GFC.

The size of Canberra’s bureaucracy and government financial support for some lobby groups can no longer be justified.

Business leaders and politicians says all the right things in terms of women’s ascension up the corporate and political ladders, but what’s really being done to make it happen?

Asking the right questions and offering appropriate solutions is a recipe for more business.

Are calls for change self-serving or do they highlight a collective opportunity?

In this week's edition of Business News Background, head of content Mark Pownall and news editor Mark Beyer discuss the week’s top news, including job cuts in iron ore, the $615m takeover offer for Papillon Resources, skills shortages, and Indian investment in Western Australia.

Tax compliance costs hit all businesses, from small operators to big miners, and need to be addressed.

The fractious relationship between Colin Barnett and Clive Palmer has echoes of an earlier stoush between a 20th century premier and a mining magnate.

It’s hard to not admire Frank Lowy, either as founder and major shareholder of the Westfield retail property group or for the $6 billion personal fortune he has amassed after arriving in Australia as an impoverished European migrant in 1952.

Politicians from both sides have failed to offer real choice when it comes to our retirement from the workforce.

Salespeople want to make sales – and for the most part feel alone in the process.

Booms are to navigate through, so we emerge stronger and better equipped for future challenges.

The switch from ‘demand-pull’ to ‘supply squeeze’ in the global resources market may provide opportunities for WA miners.

In this week's edition of Business News Background, head of content Mark Pownall and news editor Mark Beyer discuss the week’s top news, including FMG’s call for gas market reform, new hotel projects in East Perth and Fremantle, the launch of our Giving Well philanthropy guide, and our annual listing of the Most Influential people in business and politics in Western Australia.

Does it make sense for a gas producer to retain title over a gas field for 27 years without proceeding with development?

The problems keep mounting for federal Labor in WA, with former colleagues speaking out against each other in a very public stoush.

No business sets out to deliberately make life hard for clients, especially if the client base includes some of Australia’s richest people, which is why a recent technology change at the blueblood stockbroking firm JB Were is an example of how not to change a system.

For all its much-criticised cuts the federal budget fails to address the core issue of spending.

The federal budget has triggered a serious bout of Commonwealth-state conflict.

Research, preparation, knowledge, and enthusiastic presentation skills are among the ‘new’ strategies you need to make sales.

‘A man before his time’ isn’t a description many would associate with the prime minister, but the federal budget may put him in that category.

The potential strike action at Port Hedland has brought into sharp relief key workplace relations issues facing Australia.

Peter Kennedy’s new book promises a fascinating ride through four decades of WA political history.

In this week's edition of Business News Background, head of content Mark Pownall and news editor Mark Beyer discuss Woodside Petroleum's exit from Leviathan, Craig Serjeant and John Gannon's SFG takeover by IOOF Holdings, Shell to take a whole tower in the new Kings Square development, worker shortage in the LNG sector but job shortage for engineers and a huge pull-out feature in our paper this week - Giving Well, your guide on giving.

Whether state and territory leaders like it or not, federal cuts to education and health put GST reform front and centre.

Western Australia’s nickel miners are celebrating a classic supply-side surprise, which has driven the price of their metal sharply higher; but the same Indonesian government ban on the export of unprocessed nickel ore could soon do the same way for another WA specialty – bauxite.

If the 2014 federal budget succeeds in reducing bloated bureaucracies and duplication it will have achieved significant change.

If you and your team aren’t making enough sales, maybe you’re not asking yourselves the right questions.

It's a case of 'where to now?' for the start-up sector after funding cuts in this month's federal budget.

The Perth Freight Link is the latest in a string of big projects to highlight the lack of cohesive, long-term infrastructure planning in WA.

Deutsche Bank’s latest analysis of Boral has rekindled debate over a potential move on the Buckeridge Group.

The Abbott government has put off making the really tough decisions in its first budget.