West Of A Greater Divide?
The Sun Herald
Sunday February 20, 1994
The burly drinker in Fremantle's famous Sail & Anchor pub slammed his Matilda Bay beer down on the counter and rounded on this unsuspecting reporter asking questions about how folk in the West felt about folk in the East.
"You ES people think you own the bloody place," he growled. In the West anybody east of the State border is an "ES" - Eastern Stater.
"You take our bloody minerals, you give more power to the abos than to the whites, you tell us how to run things, you block every one of our blokes from getting into the test team, you don't know anything about how things work here. Well mate, we can do very well without you lot."
Did that mean he seriously thought Western Australia would secede from the rest of Australia ?
"You betcha. The sooner the better."
Talk of secession is once again flaring in the far West of Australia, and it is not limited to beer-charged men who see a massive conspiracy in the evil East to keep them out of cricket teams.
Mabo and the republican debate have put secession back on the frontburner in WA. It has been a hot topic ever since the West was dragged kicking and screaming into the Federation back in 1900.
Two-thirds voted for secession in a 1933 referendum. In 1935 WA asked Britain to take them back as a colony. The move floundered when Britain decided not to interfere.
In the 1970s mining magnate Lang Hancock bankrolled a secessionist party. It bombed at the polls, getting just 1.3 per cent of the vote. But political pundits say the sentiment today is back just as strong, if not stronger, than in the 1930s.
Fanning the flames is WA Premier Richard Court. When he took office 12 months ago he was labelled a wimp, a mere shadow of his legendary father Sir Charles Court, who strode like a colossus as WA Premier from 1974 to 1982.
But Richard Court has won grudging respect by enthusiastically embracing WA's favourite sport - kicking Canberra. He puts the boot in every chance he gets - from slamming Canberra's public servants to blasting the arrogance and imperialistic style of Prime Minister Paul Keating.
Mabo is the flashpoint. Last week Court launched the long-expected challenge to the Federal Government's Mabo legislation. It will be a crucial showdown on State's rights in the High Court.
Sitting in his modest office high over Perth's scenic Swan River, Richard Court explained to this ES reporter how the West saw the battle.
"There is a complete lack of understanding by politicians in the East about how Mabo will affect the States differently," he said. "The eastern States are not really effected by the Mabo legislation, but it has a huge effect here. What has really made WA angry is that Mr Keating has decided to treat us as an expendable commodity. They have the numbers and will try to force us into their way of doing things."
Court said that if WA lost the High Court case it would place even more pressure on the Federation. He wouldn't advocate secession, saying he would work within the system. But it's a threat he clearly likes to hang over his dealings with Canberra.
He gave a short history lesson through WA eyes.
"We are the only State that has never been a part of NSW. When Federation was discussed, Western Australia was a reluctant starter. New Zealand was also at those early federation meetings and they are just as far away from Sydney-Melbourne.
"New Zealand didn't join and there was a reluctance here too. It was a time of depression for the rest of Australia but not here, as they had discovered gold. It was only the huge influx of miners from Victoria who voted for Federation that got us into it.
The secessionist movement has always been strong here. The way Mr Keating is going I would say the 60pc who voted for it in 1933 would be a conservative figure today.
"I see it as my responsibility as Premier to not push a secession argument but to try to strengthen the Federation by getting back to where we were when it started.
"The role of the States is clearly defined under the Constitution, and if you start interfering with that you are going to get kicked. The way it is operating today is very, very different. You bring all those together and add on Mabo, which is a blatant infringement of our constitutional rights of land management, and you have pressure on the Federation."
So could the West survive without the East?
"We enjoy buying manufactured goods at inflated prices to support your protection policies," he grinned dryly, a WA version of irony.
WA is a booming State, he said, with the lowest unemployment in the country, soaring trade opportunities and a spirit that says nothing is impossible. "We have 9 per cent of the population and 25pc of Australia's export income; 70pc of that trade is with Asia."
So should Keating start applying for a passport to come to Perth?
Court put on his most magnanimous tone.
"Look, we all need each other. We are blessed with a large State with a lot of resources and attractions, and we all have a lot to contribute to each. But we do get angry when we pull our weight as a major export earner, we don't ask for a lot of industry protection, we compete in a cut-throat world, and Canberra comes over the top of us with such things as their Mabo response that, if we had to implement it, would hinder our growth.
"They can't have it both ways. They can't have a share of our prosperity and then do things which hinders our growth."
Court stops short of advocating secession, but others on the conservative side of the fence are not afraid to whip it up.
Bill Hassell, president of the WA Liberal Party, says he would be"delighted" if WA were to secede.
Easterners, said Hassell, were hugely ignorant of the West. Keating ignored WA's elected representatives over Mabo. He refuses to see the need for national unity on the issue. "If we are so unimportant, please release us. If we don't count, let us go. We'd be delighted. We'd be glad to get out of this bloody bondage. We would fare exceedingly well."
He said it was wrong to dismiss secession because it can't be done under the Constitution. "At the end of the day in a democratic system it is what the majority of the people want that eventually happens, and if there is a strong and determined majority then, as in Quebec, the tree would be shaken until change is made."
Asked if it could end in civil war as in the United States, Hassell said: "Who knows? If (Foreign Minister) Gareth Evans can send fighter planes to Tasmania to spy on their dams, who knows what this mad Federal Government would do?"
Liberal MLC Ross Light foot from north Perth proudly and loudly supports secession and predicts it could happen "in a few short years" given the right prodding. He claims not one Liberal MP disagrees with the idea of secession, but they differ on whether to push it.
He feels he is in a different country already and "unity does not offer us a thing". Lightfoot has set up an informal committee of academics and lawyers to see how WA could legally secede, but he raises the spectre of blockading the only two roads into WA through Eucla and Kununurra "after all other avenues are exhausted".
Young Liberal law student Alan Dungey, who founded a secessionist club at the University of WA, even has a name ready for an independent WA: Hesperia, Greek for "land of the evening sun".
Perth radio talk-back king Howard Sattler says calls about a WA breakaway are getting a lot more support lately. "I wouldn't have a bar of secession but I can understand people feel they have been badly treated here," Sattler said. "That desert barrier makes us feel like we live in another country. Prime ministers rarely get over here, and then only make a fleeting visit. People think Keating doesn't care about WA, and WA hates Canberra with a vengeance.
"When I came here in 1969 from NSW there was an incredible animosity. Anyone who came over from the East was only seen to be exploiting the unsullied purity of the West. I thought it went away in the early 80s but it is back now, bigger than ever - and Keating is giving them all they need to get it fired up."
But Perth's most respected political commentator, David Black, associate professor of history and politics at Perth's Curtin University, warns secession is just part of the daily rhetoric in WA.
"I don't think anyone in authority really believes it is feasible for WA to secede. Concern about eastern dominance is very widespread. There is a strong feeling here that we are excluded from decision-making at almost every level.
With the economy picking up, Black sees no danger of the secession sentiment becoming a political movement. But that could change. "Secession sentiments flare up when there are economic problems. It is simmering at the moment with Mabo, but if there is a depression, it could give it a real push.
© 1994 The Sun Herald