Special Reports

Overwhelming interest in Western Australian property appears to have pushed the state’s median house price above $400,000 for the first time, and almost doubled the price of land in the year to June 2006.

The impact of booming economic conditions and high commodity prices led to a stellar year for the state’s finances in 2005-06, with a record $2.26 billion operating surplus.

It has been a year of record-breaking results in the resources sector as economic powerhouses China and India fuel demand and world prices for the majority of commodities continue their upward trajectory.

Western Australian employers have responded to the skills shortage by making staff recruitment a continuous process.

Just a couple of years ago, the closing of a big manufacturing plant would have caused much political anguish.

The shortage of skilled labour is the biggest issue facing many Western Australian businesses. WA Business News reports on some of the innovative responses to the skills crisis.

Perth seems an unlikely place for the development of tools to manage a globally ubiquitous product such as Microsoft Outlook, but by some coincidence two local firms have based their time management solutions around this common software.

The internet may have revolutionised information access, but email has gone one step further in the way it has broken down traditional hierarchies, offering almost unfettered access to all.

Email has changed the way we communicate at work and in our personal lives, but the technology has also given rise to problems, particularly in the office. WA Business News looks at the issues to be overcome and how WA businesses are going about it.

The oil and gas and iron ore sectors are leading WA’s investment boom, WA Business News’ third annual survey of major projects has found.

Increased private sector involvement in infrastructure development is one option for the state government as it seeks to manage rising costs and rising demand for new infrastructure.

Sharp increases in project costs have done nothing to deter the growing number of companies aspiring to become iron ore miners in Western Australia.

Western Australia’s strong economic growth has spurred the development of new power generating capacity, with five power stations collectively worth $1.4 billion currently under construction in the South West.

The Gorgon LNG project has provided a $1 billion boost to the Western Australian economy, and it hasn’t even started yet.

The liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry stands to become the most significant part of the resources sector if projects proposed for waters off the coast of Western Australia come to fruition.

While the iron ore and oil and gas sectors dominate the outlook for project investment, Western Australia is in line to host a diverse range of projects in other sectors worth more than $5 billion.

BHP Billiton’s Ravensthorpe nickel project is in line for the invidious honour of having the biggest cost blow-out of all the major projects in Western Australia in recent years.

If ever research and innovation were going to boost Western Australia’s economic prospects, now is the time.

Woodside chief executive Don Voelte has warned Australians not to take the resources boom for granted or assume the resources sector would easily cope with all of the challenges facing it.

Premier Alan Carpenter and federal Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane don’t seem to agree on very much, but there is one issue on which they share a similar outlook.

The ongoing debate over broadband access has prompted calls for an overhaul to the current copper cable network.

The dumping of Telstra’s plans to build a $4 billion high-speed broadband network through Australia has raised questions about the future of broadband technology.

Resource stocks are not the only ones to be profiting from the burgeoning environment in Western Australia, with companies in the mining services and property sectors also welcoming significant returns.

Uranium company Paladin Resources was the top performing Western Australian stock for the three years to June by a wide margin, with an average annual total shareholder return of 618 per cent.

A diverse range of resource stocks, including coal, gold, iron ore and uranium, as well as non-resource stocks from the property and water treatment sectors, featured among Western Australia’s top stocks in one-year returns.

Investors in listed Western Australian companies are usually focused on the potential for capital gains, but in a minority of cases there is potential to earn a tidy income from dividends.

Winemaker Evans & Tate, internet services provider iiNet, pharmaceutical manufacturer Chemeq and ticketing technology company ERG are some of the high-profile Western Australian companies that are laggards in the latest total shareholder return survey.

While significant one-year returns are a positive sign for any business, maintaining these results year-in-year-out is a challenge of more significant proportions.

The booming resources sector has underpinned strong returns by listed Western Australian companies in WA Business News’ fifth annual survey of total shareholder returns.

In the midst of Western Australia’s escalating property prices, Jenelle Carter spoke to a number of prominent WA property figures to find out if and when the bubble will burst.

Developers are lining up for a piece of the next phase of Perth’s office market action to capitalise on the solid returns promised by high rents and current vacancy rates of 3.5 per cent.

A hot property market and soaring median house prices are not the exclusive domain of Perth, with regional centres also getting a good dose of property fever.