TAKING WA INC SERIOUSLY - AN ANALYSIS OF THE IDEA AND ITS APPLICATIONTO WEST AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the term WA Inc (or WA Incorpor ated) became a by-word in the West Australian community for the failin gs, especially in their commercial activities, of the West Australian Labor governments of that period. Despite popular and academic interes t in the notion of 'WA Inc', it is arguable that the conceptual linkag e between 'business' and government, once central to popular interpret ations of the term, remains under-analysed This article has two main p urposes: to illuminate usage of 'WA Inc' by identifying several basic referents of the term and relating these to popular criticisms of the West Australian government in the 1980s and to determine the importanc e of those criticisms, thereby contributing to the larger debate about capacity of government to emulate private sector business.