Western Australia is a fascinating place. I’ve spent a lot of time there and have written about it in short pieces. So when it came to deciding on a backdrop for my novel ‘Dig’, I couldn’t think of a better place. As emerging writers and writing students, we’re often told about the importance of setting, and I can unequivocally say it makes a big difference. Characters can spring from a setting. But so does what they do: the story’s action and events.
Western Australia is where mining magnates cash in on big gambles with big shovels. There’s a frontier mentality. I read somewhere that Perth, the capital city of Western Australia, has the highest population per capita of self-made millionaires in the world. Western Australia also has the richest plots of land in the world for natural mineral wealth. You connect the two. Now money creates opportunities, but also problems. Either way, it’s fertile ground for writers.
Pilbara mining truck.
Other than the money, the biggest thing that stands out for me in Western Australia is the isolation. The state is bloody big. You could fit Texas and Alaska in it. You could fit ten New Zealands in it. Such vastness makes for some great descriptions, but also contrasts. In the south of Western Australia, the state is lush and green. But the further north you travel, it becomes red and barren as the treasures sink to beneath the earth’s surface. There’s over twenty thousand kilometres of coastline. The coastguards patrol the beaches with helicopters and guns. Perth is also in the state’s far-flung southwest corner. This makes for some stunning sunsets over the Indian Ocean, but you need to travel nearly three thousand kilometres before you hit the nearest city, Adelaide in South Australia, to the east. In between the two cities, there’s nothing but desert. To the north of Perth, there’s more desert. To the south there’s ocean. And to the west there’s even more ocean. So all that space, naturally, makes for some pretty impressive isolation.
Geographe Bay.
I’m setting all this up to say that the combination of money and isolation lends itself to some very interesting literary material. What happens if you’re cashed up, what do you do with all that money and all that space? The world is your oyster. By contrast, what do you do if you’re someone without money in a place of such wealth and opportunity? How do you get ahead? Or do you strike back?
Now throw isolation into the mix. There’s ostensibly opportunity all around you, but you remain largely cut off from the rest of the world, including your own country which is often viewed with suspicion. Isolation is known to create a parochial mentality; us against them. A common Western Australian complaint is that it’s a forgotten state contributing more to the nation’s economy than it gets back, and is discriminated against by the more populous states in the east. Western Australia nearly wasn’t part of Australia when the Federation came together in 1901. Its decision to join arrived late, which is why it isn’t actually mentioned in the preamble of the Australian Constitution – its support was given too late for the document to be redrafted. In 1933, 68% of voters wanted Western Australia to secede from Australia in a referendum that was eventually declared invalid by the British Parliament. In an opinion piece published in The New York Times in October 2013, Western Australia was grouped with Scotland and Wales in the UK, British Columbia in Canada, and the Basque Country and Catalonia in Spain as ‘places seeking maximum fiscal and policy autonomy from their national capitals’.
The Gloucester Tree, a 72-metre high karri tree in the Gloucester National Park.
I’ve a good friend who was born and bred in Western Australia, which he jokingly refers to as ‘the great nation of Westralia’. He often rails against his own state, criticising the inward-looking mindset, which he said ‘comes with the isolation – geographical, spiritual, and intellectual. The cultural landscape mirrors the sparseness of the state with small intense pockets of interest and then vast spaces in between. Westralia is largely divided between: the super-rich, who are determined to hold onto their private wealth, avoid paying tax, and are desperately afraid of any kind of change, lest it expose their greed and acquisitiveness and criminality to the world; and the poor and ignorant, who are naturally conservative and racist and exclusionist, but who aspire to join the super-rich and look down on the rest. Caught in between those two groups is a small band of right-thinking people. The strongly conservative The West Australian newspaper is also the only one-party state newspaper this side of North Korea. That’s why Westralia is and will be the last bastion to hold out against: extended business trading hours, daylight saving time, Australia becoming a republic, marriage equality, multiculturalism, asylum seekers, climate change, and renewal energies.’
Asbestos fence in Perth with bore water stains.
Like I said, this is incredibly fertile ground for any writer, and all born of setting. My novel concerned a group of people who were tired of their isolation and disadvantage and decided to take action.
What about you? What’s your setting?
After writing about Western Australia and its compelling isolation, my next hope is to write a novel set in Antarctica. Now, how to get there…?
From the Plastic Pen 