Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaleditions.com/i/103334
miningreview IS WEST STILL BEST? Ever since the birth of the resources boom, east-coast Australians have been packing up their swags and heading west for the big bucks and a better life. But, a new report suggests, Western Australia could be losing its sheen. Christine Retschlag investigates. A new survey has cast an interesting spotlight on Western Australia's mining boom, with one in three Australians announcing they are prepared to move interstate for a better life. But, rather than moving west, as has been the trend in recent times, they have their sights set on Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria – in that order. The nation's 'far east', it appears, is back in business. In fact, WA came in at fourth spot in the survey, just ahead of South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT, with the Northern Territory lagging behind in last position. The most recent ING Direct Financial Wellbeing Index found 46 per cent of households around the country would be willing to move to the Sunshine State to improve their standard of living. The survey, compiled by Galaxy Research, was taken from online answers from 1,024 households across the country between September 20 and October 3. Thirty-one per cent of Australians indicated they would move to WA for the promise of a better life, while one in three Western Australians said they would move away from the state to improve their financial wellbeing. Among the age group most likely to be attracted to the mining industry, more than 50 per cent of respondents aged between 18 and 34 said they would leave WA to be better off. It's not as if they would be swapping one mining hotspot for another, either. Western Australians are most likely to move to Victoria (47 per cent), followed by New South Wales (43 per cent) and then Queensland (43 per cent), the report revealed. Recently, The West Australian indicated that even the Reserve Bank was losing faith in the short-term impact of the mining boom, following a rush of interest rate cuts. The newspaper stated that while the Reserve Bank acknowledged the long-term effects of the 75