Western Australia has come last again in a quarterly report comparing Australia's state economies, lagging behind on all growth indicators as the end of the mining boom continues to hurt.
CommSec State of the State report arrives at its ranking by analysing key indicators for each state and territory, including unemployment, economic growth, retail spending, business investment, construction, population, housing finance and dwelling commencements.
It's April 2017 edition shows New South Wales is solidly on top with little to separate ACT and Victoria. Then there is a gap to Tasmania, Queensland, Northern Territory and South Australia then another gap to Western Australia.
Economic activity, a by-proxy-measurement used by CommSec to assess Gross State Product, shows WA has fallen into last spot behind Tasmania, with it's economic activity just 9.5 per cent above the decade average.
Despite unemployment easing in the past three months, WA's economic performance still reflected the end of the construction and mining boom, the report says.
WA lost third position when it comes to retail spending, falling behind Queensland in retail trade since the December quarter.
The West has avoided the wooden spoon position on investment (measured by spending on plant and equipment), which is down 35.1 per cent, just slotting into 7th position before the Northern Territory.
New business spending was down by 10.3 per cent while equipment spending has been falling in WA for the past four years.
Despite unemployment slowing over the past three months, the jobless rate in WA is still the worst in the country with 6.4 per cent, just over 37 per cent higher than the 4.7 per cent decade-average.
Going back further, the 20-year average jobless rate in Western Australia is 5.0 per cent.
When it comes to overall new construction work, WA's latest quarter was over 32 per cent below the decade average, coming in last in the nation for the indicator.
In terms of new homes being built (dwelling starts) WA has recorded its lowest levels in more than four years, with only the Northern Territory and Tasmania performing worse.
Inflation rates rose across all capital cities in the past quarter - except Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
Wages in WA in the past quarter were up 1.4 per cent, with a CPI of 0.4 percent. Home prices in Perth were 4.7 per cent lower than a year ago.
In conclusion, Western Australia has annual growth rates below the national average on all eight indicators but there is light ahead of the tunnel according to CommSec, with WA benefiting from higher mining and metal prices and record export volumes.
Unemployment has also eased over the past three months while tourism and agriculture both provide scope to drive growth.
