EVENTS FAR FROM HOME IMPACT CLOSE TO HOME

I'll bet not many West Australians anticipated this:

Municipal rates in Western Australia may have to rise if shires and councils are to claw back about $60 million lost because of the collapse of Lehman Brothers investment bank.

Creditors of Lehman Brothers Australia have backed a proposal under which local councils receive between 2 cents and 10 cents in the dollar for their failed investments.

Six WA councils including the City of Melville, the City of Swan and the shires of Geraldton and Ravensthorpe have written off debt.

Geraldton is about as far from Wall Street as it's possible to be.