Wake up and smell the fossil fuels in mining-controlled WA

Bill Castleden writes: Bernard Keane is correct (“The stench of WA Inc is back — and it’s wafting over to the rest of us”). Woodside has indeed captured Western Australia. The monopoly newspaper and its regional titles love the Woodside and Woodside Little Nippers advertising. As with the tobacco industry’s takeover of WA’s media many years ago, so it is today.

Of course it helps that Seven West Media’s billionaire owner Kerry Stokes is a gas supporter through and through. Woodside’s tentacles spread so deep into WA that, through the media, social licence has been bought too. The silence of most Western Australians, as well as Woodside’s donations, has helped to buy the politicians of both major parties. All that Keane wrote is encapsulated in the Juice Media satire “Visit Western Australia. Honest Government Ad”.

Wouldn’t it be good if COP28’s call for “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade” might begin some kind of recalibration of the awful current situation in WA?

Don’t hold your breath.

Ben Rose writes: Keane’s article is spot on. I and many of my aware fellow Western Australians have fumed about the Seven West mining petroleum-controlled trash media propaganda machine for decades. It — together with the Chamber of Minerals and Energy — is in league with both Liberal and Labor government executive arms.

We don’t have good state print media such as The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Channel Seven and The West Australian media opinions are the only ones many West Australians absorb. You won’t read any truths about climate change and Burrup Hub gas climate bomb and government collaboration with gas corporations on those platforms.

Peter Barry writes: The impact of mining largesse and rampant state capture by mining and fossil-fuel interests is on display everywhere in WA. From the huge city towers to funding the humblest local sporting organisation, the companies have successfully wooed politicians and all strata of the community with their munificence.

That the big companies own WA hook, line and sinker is scarcely deniable. Politicians ricochet straight from Parliament to high-salaried positions in these enterprises. Laws are changed to accommodate the whims of these hugely profitable companies, to evade penalties for noncompliance, or to prosecute anyone resisting the juggernaut.  

Patrick Irwin writes: Keane’s words ring with clarion clarity. I live in WA and long ago ceased to buy The Worst Australian. A person I know who works there hates it, but what can anyone do? The issues Keane writes about are crystal clear here and the recognition makes us feel less isolated.

WA was founded on fraud, as a land grab for the privately funded Swan River colony, and land grabs and fraud continue to be the modus operandi over here. Thanks, Crikey, for exposing some of it.

In a sense WA is the worst, but Australia as a whole is in the same boat. I’m reading Land by Simon Winchester. It seems that as soon as you have the concept that a person or corporation can “own” land you have the seeds of capitalism exploitation and venal behaviour. Oh, and feudalism, under which we Aussies all live!

Adam Ford writes: Keane writes: “It’s hard to avoid the editorial conclusion of The Sydney Morning Herald  this week that ‘Stokes’ Seven West Media has fallen into a dark hollow, with part of its news division recently turned into a platform for proven and alleged wrongdoers and egotists, where the priorities of late seem to outweigh a sense of news or professionalism.”

All of which is true, but where Nine is concerned that really is the pot addressing the kettle as to its swarthiness.

Chris Lewis writes: “The stench of WA Inc is back and it’s wafting over the rest of us” is wrong when it says that in the 1980s Peter Dowding as WA premier had worked with his predecessor, Brian Burke, to forge close links between WA Labor and big business with disastrous financial consequences.

Burke was premier from February 1983 to February 1988 and in that period it was he and his tight cabal that created and drove the links between Labor and big business. Burke fell on his sword, Dowding became premier in February 1988 and, seeing the mess he had inherited, set up the judicial inquiry into Rothwells Merchant Bank, which infuriated many in Labor and business. It got worse when the inquiry came down hard on previous bad practices.

Far from being complicit, Dowding as a lawyer had to wrestle with enemies within and without his entire time as premier. Then, despite rising community resentment against Labor, he won the “unwinnable” election in 1989, helped by the Liberals having foolish stand-offs with their Nationals partner. I know about this because I was communications adviser to Nationals leader Hendy Cowan for that election and the internal conservative nonsense was maddening.

Cowan was a deputy premier who stressed respect and opened the first meeting of the election campaign by saying: “In this election we will play the ball not the man.” Yes, the old country footballer attitude was alive and well and decency mattered, and neither Cowan nor Dowding attacked each other in the campaign. Can’t imagine that happening today.