Opinion

Reinventing yourself, repeatedly, is not an easy trick.

Last month’s announcement by former Fremantle Labor MHR, Carmen Lawrence, that she intends to return to academe raises an interesting triple-headed historical question.

Like many other Western Australians, I enjoy wines from the state. Admittedly, my loyalty to WA-only products has waned over the years as I have learned to appreciate that our winemakers have some worthy competition elsewhere around the globe.

Predicting the demise of institutions – including political ones that have been with us for ages – is a risky exercise.

Wealth is strange subject which we have shied away from for many years.

It has been a long time since anyone thought seriously about investing in WA’s Wheatbelt region for the potential of a substantial future capital gain.

An interesting aspect of what has been dubbed ‘triple-C-gate’, ‘Burkegate’, or ‘lobbygate’ by different media outlets is the expulsion of Labor high-flyers from cabinet and party ranks.

Two weeks ago I had to make a presentation to a sizeable group of businesspeople.

No boom lasts forever, but over the past week Briefcase has seen evidence that this boom really is something completely different and might, just might, live up to the expectation

It’s not Brian Burke’s Panama hat that is causing so much trouble in Western Australia these days. It’s something far simpler – it’s the letter ‘b’ itself.

It’s common for those living in parliamentary democracies to forget most of their accomplished figures.

I very much appreciate state opposition leader Paul Omodei focusing attention back on the Perth foreshore.

This week, as a treat for its reader, Briefcase wanted to declare this page a Burke-free zone.

Despair, despondency, dejection. Pick any of these ‘d’ words and it will describe the mood within the parliamentary wing of the state Liberal Party. The reason is obvious.

Astute readers will have noted my absence during the past few weeks.

The past three dramatic weeks of Corruption and Crime Commission hearings into the shadowy dealings of Brian Burke, Julian Grill and Noel Crichton-Browne exposed several shortcomings within Western Australia’s outdated system of governance.

Western Australia’s Corruption and Crime Commission inquiry has become a much bigger issue than any observer would have predicted at the outset – or even at the start of last week.

It appears no-one has outwardly canvassed the possibilities raised by a simple, three-word question – was anyone trading?

Politics and investment advice are two subjects largely foreign to Briefcase.

Few would disagree that February 2007 was the month the dual questions of perceived water shortages and suspected climate change were firmly embedded onto Australia’s political stage.

The revelations at the Corruption and Crime Commission are deeply disturbing.

Australians are getting used to the idea of a two-speed economy, with resource-rich Western Australia and Queensland rocketing away from the southern rust-belt states.

With the political stage now set for a federal election in October or November, and any upheaval in the upper echelons of Western Australia’s two major parties before the February 2009 state contest unlikely, a cursory look at various contenders is worthw

In 1997, gold explorer Westgold Resources bought a parcel of St Barbara shares from Perth investor, Ron Woss.

State Scene dislikes pooh poohers – those who, just for the heck of it, pull down everything others feel nice or comfortable about.

Western Australia’s remarkable run of good economic news continued this month with the unemployment rate falling to the lowest level since official records started 30 years ago.

Regrets abound in financial markets, especially when share prices fall sharply. But what about shares that rise sharply; can anyone have regrets about that?

It never rains but it pours, so they say.

Conflicts of interest have been in the news lately, but mainly at the top end of town, and mainly because of internal boardroom squabbles.

Clandestine political lobbying, restrictive retail hours, “bandit trading”, petty government enforcers, jailing and hefty fine threats, phony referendums, political opportunism, and much more.

If you can buy a big bottle of multi-vitamins for $20 why do some people still pay $30?There is a one-word answer: ignorance.

From 1920 until 1990, humanity faced a dangerous worldwide fraternity – the Bolsheviks – bearers of a primitive, murderous ideology whose founder, Vladimir Lenin, unfortunately, gained executive power violently in Petrograd in 1917.