The text of former West Australian Premier Richard Court's Vista Public Lecture Series 2008
address is now available. It is worth a read and has a handy short history of WA attitudes to Federation. Some key quotes:
"Joel Fitzgibbon, the Federal Member for Hunter and the current Minister for Defence, said in presenting the Inaugural Edmond Barton Lecture this year, that an ideal reform of our Federation would be the abolition of the States.
At the time I said I could offer my 100% support for this proposition with just one proviso – that Western Australia secedes just prior to the States being abolished!"
"So in the three decades after Federation, with a population of around 400,000 there was growing dissatisfaction with the Commonwealth’s fiscal and legislative dominance and control.
1930 we were in the Great Depression and just prior to this discontent coming to a head. In 1932 the Western Australian Government decided to hold a referendum on seceding from the Federation on the grounds of unfair financial treatment.
This referendum was held on 8th April 1933 and it was 2-1 majority in favour of secession from the Commonwealth.
On 24th May 1935 a Joint Select Committee of the House of Lords and Commons resolved it was not proper for the Western Australian petition to be received because the United Kingdom Parliament could – as a matter of Constitution priority – only dissolve the Commonwealth at the request, and with the consent, of the Commonwealth. That consent had not been provided."
"Western Australia accounts for 35% of the nation’s export income."
"I am not advocating secession, but if you read “The Case for Secession” which is very thick and “The Case Against Secession” which is very thin that was prepared in the 1930’s, the case for secession today will be even stronger if this financial imbalance is allowed to continue."
I have updated the original gold confiscation post and will continue to do so as I want it to be the definitive research on the topic.