By Joe Spagnolo
The Sunday Times
PREMIER Colin Barnett says WA will split from Canberra if the Federal Government doesn’t reward the state for driving the national economy. “That’s not a threat. It’s reality,” Mr Barnett said.
While he said a formal separation from the rest of Australia was not on the agenda, relations with Canberra would become “negligible” if revenue created in the state kept being shifted east. And he said the ramifications would not just be for the national economy, but for the broader Australian society including sport.
“There would be very little relationship and the WA economy would be fully integrated as part of Asia,” he said.”It’s a trend you may see over the next 20 years.”I think that’s a bit of a problem for Australia it would be a bit of a problem for Canberra.
“Unless Canberra gets up to pace with the WA economy we will simply move away from the rest of Australia and get closer and closer to Asia in every respect whether it’s business, sport … or whatever else.”
In an interview to be screened on Sky News Australian Agenda today, Mr Barnett stopped short of saying WA should break away from the commonwealth, but in a veiled threat he said the West could survive on its own and was already heading in a very different direction to the rest of the country.
Buoyed by a fourth successive surplus since winning government in 2008 and predictions WA will be in the black for at least three more years, Mr Barnett said the rest of Australia was battling to keep up.
He said Asia was fast becoming WA’s new best friend. “There is not an understanding on the east coast how significant the growth of the WA economy is,” he said.
“The WA economy is growing at quite a different pace than Australia as a whole and to some extent the strength of the WA economy is concealing the true weakness of the national economy.