Opinion

Examining the thinking of Perth’s council candidates has provided some interesting fodder for thought, especially with regard to issues confronting our central city and its role as our capital.

With the upper house still debating Jim McGinty’s One Vote One Value Bill, which some Liberal MPs and all Nationals view unfavourably, it’s worth considering several less publicised aspects of the ongoing issue of vote weighting in rural seats.

Woolworths is trading on a prospective price/earnings ratio of 16.85. BHP Billiton is on 9.85. Can anyone explain the gap between two of Australia’s corporate icons because it is ridiculously wide?

I noted a recent Federal Government initiative to allow backpackers an additional year on their working holiday visas – something that I believe is long overdue and still probably doesn’t go far enough.

In your editorial on interest rates, ‘As political theatre this doesn’t rate’ (WA Business News, April 14) you say: “From what I recall, Mr Howard never made a promise that intere

Petrol at $1.10 a litre, and more, is a pain in the pocket, as we all know. Less well known is the changes it brings to the way we think, and act.

There is a fascinating battle under way over states’ rights and taxation, with federal Treasurer Peter Costello wielding his new-found power as chieftain of the biggest pot of gold the nation has ever seen – the GST.

I have read with interest the many articles relating to the shortage of accountants and the various solutions being advocated to relieve the situation, the latest of which was tit

The Gallop Government’s historic One Vote One Value Bill will be debated in the upper house next week, with voting on it to take place a fortnight or so later.

I am always amused to read Joe Poprzeczny’s weekly back-page opinion piece in WA Business News.

While the Gallop Government was tabling its One Vote One Value Bill, a Melbourne University institute and The Australian newspaper were jointly hosting a national conference on Australia’s economy.

Margaret River’s next big wine event is being planned, not for the town, but for Heathrow Airport on the outskirts of London in about six weeks’ time.

Not surprisingly, I have been fascinated by politics this past week or so. But not in an admiring way, more in that stunned, what-are-they-going-on-about way, when you shake your head and wonder if there isn’t something better they might all be doing.

Dullsville becomes Gabville next week when two big resource events hit Perth.

Next time you receive one of those early evening calls from someone with the faintest sub-continental accent trying to sell you shares in Vegemite or raise money for surf lifesaving, put your feet up, answer the questions and think of Australia.

Lots of conservative-minded city and country Western Australians remain bitter about the Barnett-led Liberals’ needless loss of the February 26 State election.

I have always been fascinated by generational change and the way society evolves no matter how many people would like to preserve the status quo.

Defeated Liberal leader Colin Barnett, like his predecessor Richard Court, promptly resigned from the party’s top parliamentary post after losing to Geoff Gallop.

Conjecture as to why the ‘No’ case won the retail trading hours referendum is understandable and will no doubt be of considerable interest to social marketers, researchers, psepho

The Mid-West region’s state seat of Greenough, which skirts the northern port city of Geraldton, has a range of claims to fame.

Last week in the story ‘Alcock nurtures building sector’s next generation’ WA Business News incorrectly stated that Dale Alcock was the chairman of the Building and Construction I

Pricewaterhouse-Coopers, the accounting and consultancy firm with the silliest name in the world, is recruiting staff.

At the time it didn’t seem so extraordinary, but the more I dwelt on a couple of events I attended last week, the more it started to sink in.

If Len Buckeridge needed another reason for not floating his BGC Group on the stock exchange then John Roberts has just given him one.

We never like to go patting ourselves on the back but there are times when its worth giving ourselves credit – mainly because no-one else will.

I refer to your article on Manny Papadoulis (WA Business News, March 10).

Western Australia’s Liberals have emerged in far worse shape from the February 26 election – at which they attracted 35.6 per cent statewide voter support – than after the February 2001 election when they scored only 34 per cent.

The English had Richard the Lion Heart, the Macedonians Alexander the Great, the Poles Boleslaw the Bold and even a Boleslaw the Brave.

Big bets have been placed on the assumption that a new bidder will emerge in the battle for control of Portman, the iron ore miner with a split board and widely differing valuations.

Premier Geoff Gallop has won his second election, his parliamentary majority is intact, and he has refreshed his ministry with a modest reshuffle and five new faces.

Prince Charles and Andrew Roberts do not, on the surface, appear to have much in common.