Opinion

If Charles Dickens was alive today, working as a finance journalist, he might have borrowed one of his most famous opening lines to describe last week’s events on the stock market

This week, State Scene brings bad news to those believing Western Australia is justly governed.

There’s an air of mystery around the giant Gorgon project at moment.

Cast your mind back to 2001 - the last time Kim Beazley challenged John Howard for Australia’s top job.

Observant readers might have noted that my regular column was absent last week.

It can take time for really big mistakes to be recognised for what they are. Alan Carpenter’s two energy bloopers, in the name of winning votes at the next state election, are classic example of time bomb blunders which will cost Western Australia dearly

Three current but very different issues throw up some challenging questions about how much trust Western Australians place in markets.

Looking for the peak is Australia’s newest national investment sport, whether it’s peak oil, peak nickel, or the peak of the stock market.

State Scene first met one-time Labor Goldfields federal MP, Graeme Campbell, back when Bob Hawke was prime minister.

Every Australian country town has a ‘big’ something.

State Scene is pleased to report that one of Western Australia’s most important, but largely unappreciated, post-war entrepreneurs is set to be recognised with publication of a biography.

There is a significant debate at the moment about whether we should reserve natural gas for domestic use.

The morning after federal Liberal MP Dennis Jensen was disendorsed by his party’s Tangney preselection panel for a former federal ministerial staffer originally from South Australia, State Scene was telephoned by an interstate journalist who got straight

This week’s cover story was a bit of a personal one for me.

A pet theme of Briefcase’s, if you hadn’t noticed, is the disconnect between government and business in a rapidly changing world.

Prime Minister John Howard’s August history summit certainly showed he had located the electoral power of promoting history for school students.

It’s easy to be relaxed about change when it doesn’t really affect you.

Competition is a wonderful thing, until you discover that you’re losing.

For the average Australian investor there is nothing more frustrating than trying to find someone with the guts to say whether Telstra is a buy or a sell.

Towards the end of last month, State Scene was invited to a salubrious business lunch that was attended by a state Liberal MP, who quite promptly made it clear he was factionally unaligned.

One of the big questions going around is whether Western Australia is heading for yet another one of its cyclical busts or if, just maybe, the state is going to snub its nose at history.

With calm having descended over leadership tensions in the federal Liberal party, in the media at least, State Scene has decided to look back a century or more to see how some ambitious politicians of an earlier era gained the prime ministership.

The federal government’s announcement that the next tranche of Telstra is to be sold is good news.

On the road from Esperance to Albany there’s a factory rising from the low-lying, south-coast scrub, which will one day produce nickel but which is already acting as a red-flashin

State Scene, like most, prefers to be at the head of any queue, especially those slow-moving ones at banks and post offices.

This year’s total shareholder return survey results are perhaps less surprising than usual.

Four years ago, only a handful of people believed that the world was heading into a resources boom.

The US is often cited as the best example of poverty in the midst of plenty.

For State Scene, the biggest surprise about Islamic jihadism’s onslaughts upon the Western world is that so many people still find aspects of this conflict surprising.

I am finding this fuel debate quite extraordinary.

So, it’s official. The Perth Convention Exhibition Centre is a white elephant. Hands up anyone who is surprised?

State Scene has an answer for those wondering what some former Australian prime ministers, ambassadors and even top spies do in retirement – they can become global consultants.