FormulaNova said..kiterboy said..FormulaNova said..
I think a lot of you life-long west australians underestimate how much comes from the east coast.
Yeah, sure.
If Australia was a broken marriage, WA is the hardworking ex-partner having to hand over three quarters of their salary to the bludging ex of an east coast, who greedily takes more than they deserve so they can live the everyday latte sipping lifestyle with their other divorced friends.
FormulaNova said..
I think the media here has got you all wound up in a west coast versus east coast competition. It seems very common to hear about it here, even on tv news articles, but when in the east, no one ever talks about Perth other than 'yeah, I should go there someday but its so far away'.
The east coast is to Australia what the US is to the rest of the world. Too caught up in their own navel-gazing to realise there are better places to be.
FormulaNova said..
I think all you people that don't want to be invaded by 'the east' will be safe for a very long time. Don't lose any sleep over it.
Good.
If you turn around and say 'WA' is rich because of its mining assets, why don't you just go further then and say 'The Pilbara is rich' and separate that from WA and the rest of Aus? Break it down further into mine sites and make them independent nations?
Maybe things are slightly different now, but a lot of workers in the mines come from other states anyway.
One thing I do find sad though is WA doesn't seem to be getting enough infrastructure in other industries built into Perth. Sure the mining dollars come in, but how much of that ends up in other industries in Perth and decent head offices in the CBD? In my minimal experience it seems like these companies run a fair bit off-shore and do as little as they can to build up Perth into a truly diverse city.
The east coast is good too, just different. I think a lot of younger people move there from Perth, and some of them move back.
Enjoy your lifestyle here, but don't be too caught up in whether 'The East' really cares.
Yeah look, the west (including the pollies) can complain about the east getting the lions share of the GST generated here, but the pollies are doing their best to let the mining companies get around paying their fair share of taxes, leading to there is less investment put back into the state by way of infrastucture.
It's the pollies that are responsible for the lack of infrastructure and development, but as long as they get their back-handers they don't care and are happy to release small time infrastructure projects every now and then.
That way they can puff up and beat on their chests and say 'look how we are looking after the state with these new developments!'
The truth is, if the state was managed properly, the west would be a hell of a lot further developed than it is. By a long shot.
There is no development to encourage other industries to take root in the west.
The pollies are only interested in:
- selling real estate wholesale to overseas interests (no infrastructure required)
- approving mines (infrastructure, ie - the mine and maybe corporate buildings, is paid for by the mining company)
It's all easy money for little effort for them. They don't have to do squat for the bucks.
They certainly aren't interested in doing any hard thinking on how they can make the state diversify and expand via other industries.
That's just too hard.
and wearing a mask is not really much of an issue??? Is it??
