Opinion

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

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.