PAKISTANI stand-up comedian Sami Shah has some advice for West Australians who are worried about boat people taking their work - "Be better at your f------ job".

"If a guy who has been on a boat for the last month, has lost half his family on the trip, can't speak the language and spent two years in a detention centre can take your job from you, it might be time to update your LinkedIn profile," he said.

Shah, his psychologist wife Ishma and three-year-old daughter Anya, moved from Pakistan to Northam eight months ago on a work visa.

"Really, it's getting to live in Australia, but feeling like you never left a Third World country in the first place," he said.

The 34-year-old described Northam as a "social and cultural black hole" where there was not much to do or see.

"Obviously there's a great deal of exaggeration there ... there's not the suicide bombings and all of that, so there's much to be grateful for," he said.

"And the whole lack of threat to life is quite nice. But they could do with a bookstore or cinema, that's for sure."

As a visa requirement, Shah and his family must live and work in regional WA for two years.

"We were hoping for Mandurah, but we got Northam. You know, you take what you can get. And that's not something that a lot people actually say out loud, 'We were hoping for Mandurah', but yeah it actually was something for us," he said.

Shah's arrival in Northam coincided with the opening of the town's $125 million Yongah Hill Immigration Detention Centre, which houses up to 600 detainees.

He said locals mistook him as an escapee while he was shopping in Woolworths during his first week in town.

"People kind of freaked out and said, 'Oh my god, one of them got out'," he said. "Yongah Hill got a few calls saying there's an escapee.

"I have a beard and I am quite distinctly brown, so if you turn on CNN or anything, bearded and brown people are usually the troublemakers."

Shah said he was bewildered by concerns that detainees might escape.

"They're not savage animals who are just going to start raping, pillaging and looting," he said.

"They're probably going to come and fix your TV or teach you how to read."

He said that initial protests and town meetings about the detention facility had died down. Shah said most boat people were Shia Muslims from Pakistan, like himself, who were mostly doctors, lawyers and other qualified, intelligent people who were just escaping "shitty" countries.

"So I think Australia might benefit from it if it gets over its xenophobia a bit," he said.

The first stand-up comedian in Pakistan, Shah began his comedy career eight years ago. He abandoned his three-year career as a journalist and got into advertising.

"Once I attended my third suicide bombing I decided I was done with journalism. It didn't seem worth losing my head over," he said.

Shah said he is bracing himself for the backlash from the shire of Northam.

"I might actually be tarred and feathered and chased out of town," he said.

Sha said most of what he says is exaggeration, for comedic effect.

“Comedy is all about excess. So my reactions are, obviously, excessive,” he said.

“My only real goal is getting people to come laugh at my Perth Comedy Festival show, in which they will see I am more a whiner than a critic."

Sami Sha will perform at the Mt. Lawley Bowling Club ‘s Jack High Room on May 14, at 7:30pm.