The Forum > Article Comments > WA: the unsustainable state? > Comments
WA: the unsustainable state? : Comments
By Peter McMahon, published 27/7/2009The future for WA: it relies on cheap oil; has a volatile and fragile climate and environment; and it is isolated.
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Yes, there are some positive signs of change with the Barnett government needing green votes to survive the next election, and the Greens on the rise. But really, even if we saw a strong swing towards sensible governance, it would still most likely be nowhere near enough.
WA (and the rest of the country) is just so fundamentally dependent on cheap oil that a most fundamental and massive readjustment would be needed to prevent major economic and social collapse when the price of oil reaches an uneconomic level, which is likely to be in the very near future.
I can’t see that any government can do what is necessary without getting itself booted out of office. The only way a government could implement changes of the magnitude needed would be to react after major economic and social upheaval. Proactive governance is just so incredibly inhibited by a business regime and general community that just desperately wants to continue with business as usual.
Even if the local community was strongly onside, we'd still have other enormously powerful forces acting against us.
“The rise of national centralism has diminished the role of state governments to some degree, and the growing importance of huge firms like BHP-Billiton and Rio Tinto along with foreign investors like the Chinese and Russian governments present new challenges for local control over local resources.”
It is a grim outlook indeed.