The numbers governing WA: What the data actually says about Cook's billion-dollar state

Western Australia's general government sector recorded a $3.1 billion operating surplus in 2025-26, according to Treasury figures tabled in the Legislative Assembly on Tuesday — the fourth consecutive surplus under the Cook Labor government and the second-largest in the state's history. The number is striking, but the argument happening inside Dumas House right now is about what comes next with it.

The surplus lands at a moment when the state is absorbing pressures from multiple directions simultaneously. Iron ore royalties, which fund roughly 22 cents of every dollar the WA government collects, held above $9.2 billion for the financial year just closed, supported by a price that averaged around USD $97 per tonne across the 12 months to June. That figure defied most predictions made at mid-year budget review in December. The Pilbara kept delivering when the modelling said it might not.

Housing, population and the cost of growth

The population data is where things get complicated for the government. WA's population grew by 3.2 per cent in the year to March 2026 — the fastest rate of any state — adding roughly 90,000 people. The bulk of that growth landed in Perth's middle and outer corridors: Ellenbrook, Alkimos, Baldivis and the Butler-Eglinton corridor along the Metronet's Yanchep Rail Extension, which carried its first fare-paying passengers in April 2024 and has since exceeded patronage forecasts by 18 per cent.

More people, however, means more pressure on housing stock that was already constrained. Perth's median house price sat at $812,000 in June, according to the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia — up 11 per cent on the same month in 2025, but showing signs of plateauing in the June quarter after two years of double-digit annual gains. The state government's Keystart home loan program approved 4,870 loans in 2025-26, a record, yet eligibility income thresholds have not kept pace with wage growth, effectively locking out a growing band of middle-income earners who earn too much to qualify and too little to borrow commercially at current rates.

Opposition housing spokesman David Honey has repeatedly raised this threshold gap in budget estimates hearings held at Parliament House on Harvest Terrace over the past fortnight. The government's response has been to point to the $511 million Social Housing Investment Fund, which has committed to 2,400 new social and affordable dwellings by 2027, with about 900 either completed or under construction as of June 30.

Defence dollars and the Stirling equation

The AUKUS submarine pathway is generating its own set of numbers for WA to manage. The federal government has committed $4.7 billion over the decade to upgrades at HMAS Stirling on Garden Island, south of Fremantle, making it the largest single Commonwealth infrastructure investment in the state's history. Henderson's defence industry precinct — already home to ASC, Civmec and BAE Systems — is expected to add roughly 5,500 direct jobs by 2032, according to projections published by the WA Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science and Innovation in May.

The state government allocated $220 million in the 2026-27 budget specifically for workforce training programs tied to the AUKUS pipeline, including expanded trades facilities at South Metropolitan TAFE's Henderson campus. Whether the training supply actually meets the projected demand is the question defence economists at Curtin University's John Curtin Institute of Public Policy have been pressing for months.

For Perth residents trying to make sense of all this, the practical picture is as follows: royalty revenue remains strong but volatile, and the government is banking heavily on two bets — continued Pilbara output and a successful transition of the workforce toward defence manufacturing. State Treasurer Rita Saffioti is expected to deliver a mid-year economic and fiscal outlook update in December, which will show whether the iron ore price held or retreated in the September quarter. That update, more than any policy announcement, will set the parameters for what WA can actually afford heading into 2027.