Opinion

Has Wesfarmers become just another tired, diversified industrial, destined for the knacker’s yard, or is it one of the best investments on the stock market, destined to disappear

The retail trading debate is on again. This time I have far less sympathy for so-called small business than before.

One month after the most recent federal election, held in October 2004, State Scene chose to write a predictive column.

If there really is a boom in Western Australia, someone forgot to tell the top Perth-based industrial companies.

It's quiz time and today’s questions is: How much financial detail should be available to shareholders in a company?

What a year it has been.

The Business Council of Australia needs to reconsider exactly what it is that it believes to be a functioning and appropriate federation.

For State Scene, 2006 will be memorable for several reasons.

Does history repeat itself?

State governors sometimes comment on topics that are then dutifully reported in the media.

Local government is one of those subjects that tends to agitate business.

If cash really is king in the investment world, and the investment world is being shaken by private equity funds seeking cash to fund their debt loads, then surely the game to be

State Scene has a rather soft spot for Western Australia’s, indeed Aust-ralia’s, farmers, farming communities, rural townships, and most things associated with rural economic life.

There’s no doubt that Nigel Satterley is the man of the moment. He’s on top of his game at a time when his game is the central focus of almost anyone who isn’t running a mine.

Extreme capitalists argue that private equity is the bee’s knees because it proves that markets can sometimes be wrong in valuing assets, such as Qantas.

Some years ago, in conjunction with accounting firm Deloitte, we launched the concept of Rising Stars – a search for the growth companies of the future that often hide among the unlisted sector.

A largely overlooked public address by University of WA emeritus professor of geography, Martyn Webb, delivered earlier this month focused upon a rarely considered aspect of one of Western Australia’s most historic urban or man-made precincts – Fremantle.

Last week, we tried to look at the nuts and bolts of the taxi industry, which has been struggling under a yoke of over-regulation for at least a decade.

The heirs and successors of the late Rene Rivkin are not alone in worrying about tax matters.

Better late than never is all State Scene can say about the Carpenter government’s moves to regulate Western Australia’s tiny band of lobbyists.

Secrets, as we are seeing graphically in Perth today, only have one purpose: betrayal.

There were several reasons State Scene attended day one of the Corruption and Crime Commission hearings focusing upon the behaviour of Claremont-based company, Canal Rocks Pty Ltd, owners of a 45.3 hectares tract adjacent Smith’s Beach at Yallingup.

Here at WA Business News, we like to think of ourselves as the thinking person’s media.

Current parliamentary moves to impose daylight saving upon Western Australians shows just how many state MPs have little regard for democratic principles and processes.

It is with a great deal of caution that I wade in to comment on the current Corruption and Crime Commission matter relating to the proposed Canal Rocks development at Smiths Beach in the Shire of Busselton.

Like drunks at a party, speculative share traders always say there is time for one more round before quitting.

Just in case anyone mistakes my cynicism last week about daylight saving suddenly having emerged on the political agenda, it was the process, not the outcome, I was commenting on.

Greed, in case you hadn’t noticed, is rampant.

The Labor government led by former ABC journalist Alan Carpenter is doing its level best to put the Paul Omodei-led Liberal opposition into power.

“Under new management”. We’ve all seen that sign many times on an A-frame outside a business, or writ-large across a shop window.

Julie Bishop has had a dream run since she arrived in Perth from Adelaide as a junior lawyer, just in time to benefit from the mounting work arising from that costly ongoing political and legalistic imbroglio called WA Inc.

Daylight saving is an issue that I welcome back onto the agenda, even if I am deeply suspicious about how it has suddenly woken from its coma after more than a decade on drip-feed.