West Australians Have Started Pushing for #WAxit

We maybe knew it was happening on some level already, but Australia's democracy appears to be quite literally falling apart. On Sunday, WA Liberal Party members voted in favour of a motion to establish a committee that will investigate the feasibility of the state "financially" seceding—breaking away—from the rest of the country.

The movement already has a tragic, Nigel Farage-inspired hashtag: #WAxit.

The Liberal party, which recently lost government in WA, held its state conference there over the weekend in the presence of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. The Waxit motion was put forward by financial adviser and party member Rick Palmer. Palmer's motivations aren't anything out of the ordinary—he thinks West Australians are paying too much federal tax, and seeing few rewards for it. "It doesn't just go to the GST. We send a significant amount of revenue in the form of income tax…capital gains tax, superannuation contributions' tax all goes to Canberra," he told the conference. The motion passed 89 votes to 73. While WA Opposition Leader Mike Nahan was against the motion, WA Liberal Party state president Norman Moore voted in favour of it. Like many WA Liberals, Moore is a known secessionist who has previously advocated for Western Australia to become a separate country. "Because we are long way from Canberra we feel that we are being ignored and that our interests aren't being taken into consideration by both sides of politics," he said.

What the motion suggests is actually a slightly more low-key version of secession. A soft WAxit, if you will. It allows for Western Australia to technically remain within the federation but become financially independent of the Commonwealth, giving all tax-raising powers to the state government. This would require the Federal Government to relinquish a huge amount of its power, and would therefore be hugely difficult to actually achieve. Secession movements pop up in Western Australia every few years, although it's unusual for them to gain ground during an economic downturn of the kind the state is currently experiencing. The resource-rich state has long argued that it deserves to benefit more from its mining revenue, rather than helping prop up the rest of the country. Unfortunately, the Australian Constitution doesn't actually allow for states to break away from the rest of the country. Although, because of its reluctance to join the federation back in 1901, Western Australia isn't technically mentioned in the document's preamble which joins the former colonies together by stating that "the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God, have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown." No WA to be seen.

In the extremely unlikely event that Western Australia ever becomes its own country, a with around 2.6 million people it would become the 143rd most populous in the world. And Freo and West Coast would become international sporting teams.

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