Oft forgotten Western Australia is looking to be decisive in the federal election, with Morrison and Shorten both groping at the state’s proverbial sand. The leaders’ debate was held in WA last Monday, with the two leaders making multiple trips to and from Perth, their sweaty handshakes dampening our atavistic desire for secession.
But there is a definite whiff of desperation coming from both camps as they try to woo WA voters in wavering seats.
Labor is tilting for Pearce, Stirling, Swan, and Hasluck — two held by ministers, one vacated by a minister-turned-retiree. The Coalition are shooting for Cowan, a once-safe Labor seat made vulnerable by the economic-flux of the boom.
Hannah Beazley is running in Swan, the seat held by her father Kim for 16 years, and Christian Porter, son of Charles “Chilla” Porter (himself a Liberal Party heir), is just clinging on to the seat of Pearce. This all lends the WA race a nice dynastic bent, allowing a sense of born-to-rule entitlement to sneak into the mediocrity that makes up election’s mid-shelf candidates.
It is hard, as a West Australian, not to view the federal election — and the visiting leaders — from the perspective of the two mud-shovelling peasants from Monty Python’s The Holy Grail: “How do you know he’s the PM? He’s the only one not covered in shit.”
WA has fallen into an existential miasma after the mining boom’s once in a blue-moon windfall was piddled away by the Liberal Barnett government’s poor planning and cronyism, and an avaricious GST (something Morrison has promised to change).
But Shorten and ScoMo both arrived in the West barking the usual hollow echoes of national hero-quests, solemn apologies, and wistful promises. Both tunes ring tinny in a state that fuelled Australia’s prosperity but got little in the way of attention or gratitude.
What many politicians and commentators fail to grapple with when they discuss the strategies and policies peddled by leaders in WA at election time is the psychic split through which West Australian voters view their mountebank antics.
To view Canberra and its goings-on from WA is to hold an empty peach-tin to your ear, as messages pass down its copper (not fiber) cable from a creaky, occupied outhouse.
We are not, like those in the outhouse, privy to all the bullshit.
Whether that distancing is real in a political, economic, or cultural sense is not the issue. Voters perceive the neglect to be real; thus, so do think tanks, and thus, so do our enlightened leaders.
And so the optics of Shorten and ScoMo and countless would-be PMs before them landing their dirigibles at our mega-pits and surf clubs don’t inspire much more than a “yeah, nah” from WA voters.
The reason Hanson and her gaggle of crooked loons did so well here in the state election was because the Barnett government, and the federal Liberal leadership, left much of their base disaffected and disillusioned by their management of the boom. There was a gross misunderstanding of West Australian voters’ needs and grievances.
When MP Steve Irons stands up and tells people that the Liberal government delivered on their promise to “stop the boats”, he might as well be telling West Australians that John Butler has ditched the Trio and is releasing new music: we know! We do not care!
Sicking the tired old dogs of “boats” and “taxes” on West Australians reveals the contempt and distance at which we are held by the hollow men on both sides of the aisle.
Yes the GST is a big deal here, but the psychic scars are long made, and may be unfixable. WA receives 47 cents for every dollar it sends to the nation’s coffers (up from 34 cents in 2017-2018). The federal government is proposing a GST fix that would leave the sate $4.7 billion better off, which would cushion the state’s post-boom freefall.
But the issue of WA and how it is helped or used by the federal government goes beyond promises of tax cuts, jobs and even much needed infrastructure. The fix may be there, but the trust is not.
The key issue is one of narrative. Where does Western Australia fit within the Australian narrative, one that has traditionally kept it at — for want of a better word — a distance. How will people who see us as backwards ever lead us forward?
As the nation now stands rudderless, isolated, forgotten, stagnant and somewhat dull, there is some karmic relief for us sand gropers as you “t’other siders” realise that Australia may just be the Perth of the world.
“Sicking the tired old dogs of “boats” and “taxes” on West Australians reveals the contempt and distance at which we are held by the hollow men on both sides of the aisle.”
Don’t worry, they use the same tired lines on the rest of Australia too.
Good article. But I have to point out that it is rarely noted in GST discussions that Western Australia received a lot of GST money in the early days, as the boom was hitting, which was corrected for later due to the lag in the calculation of the GST. Peter Martin has an excellent description of it (http://www.petermartin.com.au/2016/08/prodigal-prodi-gl-adj.html), and how the government at the time spent the windfall rather than planning for the correction.
I couldn’t find figures from before 2000/01 but since 2000 the only years in which WA has received $1.00 in the dollar or more are 2004-05 $1.03, 2005-06 $1.03 and 2006-07 $$1.00. Previous years were $0.97 – $0.98. During those years WA did better than NSW and Vic but worse than all other states. 2007-8 saw us drop to $0.95, still better than NSW and Vic but worse than all others. After that we drop ped rapidly from 2008-09 $0.88, worse than all others, to 2014-15 $0.35, about 36% – 40% of what the next worst states were getting, then slightly up in 2016-17 to $0.38, the latest figure I could find. The next worst states, always NSW and Vic, have varied from $0.87 to $0.99 throughout. During those years WA was below $0.80 for 8 years and below $0.46 for 4 years. 2017-18, for which I couldn’t find a figure, will be the fifth. So you can see that the oft-repeated misunderstanding that we had our snouts in the trough for years is just that, a misunderstanding.
Yep, but the transparency around how it is calculated means that the lib govt was doubly profligate when spending all their boom time wealth.
The GST has largely been NSW and Vic subsidising the rest of the country. I’m good with that and you hear little whinging from those two states (the people, that is).
Perhaps WA and QLD can budget a bit better when the times are good knowing there is a 3 year lag in GST contributions.
It’s a thought.
They were wasteful in some respects and the comment on better budgeting in times of plenty is justified. It could be applied to the Federal Government too – we don’t compare well with Norway, for example, in our use of wealth earned from energy exports.
Surely the whole rationale for the tax system is that the better off subsidise the less well off, whether individuals or regions. It’s not just a bank account, getting back however much you put in.
Yes it is. But the rationale of the GST was that it was a “state tax” to provide the means of running the various state and territory governments and their services. It was never envisioned that any state would get very little of the GST it contributed. Since 2009-10 WA has uniquely subsidised other states as if it were itself fabulously rich, which was not the case even during the resources boom and is manifestly not the case now. Nobody in WA is saying that WA’s good fortune should not be shared to help poorer states. The concern here is the formula. If WA were keeping 70% of its collection you wouldn’t hear any complaint, even though no other state has ever had a return as low as that. If you look at the figures I’ve given above you can see that the system is working for other states as envisaged originally, richer stares keeping 85% – 95% of their collection with SA, Tas and NT getting much more than 100% because they need it. The formula has failed WA which for years since the end of the minerals boom has continued to receive under 40% of its collection at a time when its other receipts don’t justify that. My original comment was in answer to a suggestion that in the early days of the mineral boom WA was raking in huge subsidies from other states that it didn’t need. It was indeed getting too much at that time but only by a factor of 10% – 20%. Current levels are punitive, uniquely for WA, at a time when all the costs of running a big state with a widespread mining industry are still there but most of the receipts have long since stopped coming in. To put it in perspective: No state in Australia is poor and WA certainly isn’t. We can continue, even in the absence of a mineral boom, to help other states as we should. The concern is only about the scale of the help.
When I said, “If WA were keeping 70% of its collection you wouldn’t hear any complaint,” every state has its whingers of course. And currently, Queensland voters please note, Mr Palmer who wants to be a Qld senator is encouraging us to want the whole lot back.
Rais, That would be because the GST began on 1 July 2001.
There you go. There had to be a good reason for it. Thanks for pointing that out 🙂
Poor mouthing by erstwhile cashed-up bogans (one of Gruen pitch contests was a bogan proof fence running N-S to protect the rest of the country) is very unattractive and evinces little sympathy.
Three hours, three thousand kliks and thirty years behind.
Have you been to WA AR? It’s pretty far from what you, perhaps facetiously, describe. You might be pleasantly surprised. The home of Australia’s only non-stop flights to Europe and 3 1/2 hour flights to Asia,where you don’t need to adjust your watch, from a 24 hour airport, some pleasant holiday locations and a stadium that was built because we needed one, not because some contractors wanted work demolishing perfectly good existing stadiums as in some less enlightened places.
Need is a relative term when it comes to sporting complexes! They are never really “needed” in the way that schools/hospitals etc are! Anyway despite being a Sandgroper that originally thought it was a terrible waste of money I do actually like our stadium, particularly the gardens around it! However WA still deserves the cashed up bogans comments and I’m disappointed I didn’t see that pitch because it would be hysterical!
Some might be cashed up, I’m not, by retired middle class Aussie standards and I don’t personally have friends who are. But we’re not poor – I’ve seen poverty both abroad and in this country – and we’re thankful for what we’ve got.
As for the “need” for the stadium, I used that word because it’s an attraction for events and therefore an attraction for tourists, one of the ways of turning the temporary mineral boom into long term income.
PS I’m pleased however to see the 30 million dollar commitment to upgrading the WACA because it would be a travesty to see that facility bulldozed!