NEWS that the WA Supreme Court has ruled that the case against the State government by a Buckeridge-led consortium for $1.2 billion is to proceed, provides an interesting backdrop to the imminent State election.
The case involves the decision by the State government to renege on an agreement the Richard Court-government signed with the late Len Buckeridge in 2000 to build a new port in Cockburn Sound.
Although the State election is not to be held until early next year, the phoney election has already started, with Colin Barnett's Liberals announcing that the basis of their campaign will be to flog off parts of the State's infrastructure so that it can acquire newer models.
The government has previously announced that it desires to sell/lease all or part of the State's electricity network and/or the port of Fremantle, with many seeing its decision to stop a new port being based on a desire to enhance the sale price of Fremantle Port.
Labor policy leans heavily towards opposing anything the Liberals want, while the Nationals are concentrating on doing wondrous things with the proceeds of its "big new tax" on the two big iron ore producers.
It's quite probable that a good economic case could be made to flog some old assets so that the money can be invested in newer, more appropriate ones, but experience would indicate that they won't do it well.
The really predictable item is that all parties will have a hard job marketing their various visions, partly because there are big "ifs" attached to them, but mostly because they face a cynical electorate.
The Liberals will need to convince the punters that it is in their best interests for its infrastructure sales to proceed.
The most jaundiced views will come from the bush, for a State government of the same political colour flogged off the operations of the State's rail network.
A government that signed a long-term lease on a rail network without any provision for the asset to be maintained will have a hard job convincing the bush that a similar exercise with electricity supplies will be different.
After all, if the winning bidder can close parts of a rail network it considers aren't worth fixing, it would be reasonable to assume that this government will sign a similar agreement with whoever wants the electricity grid.
It would be just as reasonable to assume that the new owners or operators of the grid will declare large sections of the country network aren't worth fixing.
If the government is smart enough to frame an agreement to stop that happening, why wasn't it done so with the rail network?
Although the Libs are trying to stop a new port from being built, British PM Maggie Thatcher went the other way, encouraging the construction of a new private port at Felixstowe, Sussex.
It was so efficient it is now the nation's largest port, with the inefficient Port of London and its union rorts fading away, all without any concern for the value of the redundant port.
But back to the phoney election, the Nationals seem unconcerned that their new tax would almost certainly cause another round of retrenchments in the Pilbara, or that the funds would soon end up in Tasmania and the Northern Territory.
The ALP's election campaign should be far simpler, for it could be successful by just repeating: "We are not the Liberal Party! Our leader is not Colin Barnett!"
It might just work.