Compiling WA’s Rich List is a bit like listening to an AC/DC song. You reckon you know what you’re gonna get but there is always a surprise waiting if you watch or listen closely.

We have Gina Rinehart firmly back in the black after enduring some pretty hefty falls in 2014 and 2015 as the mining downturn took its toll.

If it were her style as a St Hilda’s old girl, Mrs Rinehart could rightfully sing the words of the few decent songs AC/DC produced after the death of WA’s own Ronald Belford “Bon” Scott:

Yes, I’m back in black ...

Number one with a bullet

I’m a power pack.

You probably guessed Mrs Rinehart is still number one, the remarkable bit is how well she is doing, thanks to making the utmost of the legacy left by her father Lang Hancock.

WHO MADE WHAT: WA Rich List 2018

It’s a mixed bag below the top spot, with a WA business veteran bursting into second place with a bullet with the help of his son and some well-timed investments.

The resources recovery has helped the estimated net worth of people on this list from $49.8 billion last year to $53.8 billion this year.

Yet 20 of the people and families who survived from last year’s list endured falls in estimated net worth. While resources generally are back in black, property players are still living with the down-payment blues in post-boom suburbia.

We cannot estimate or extrapolate that which we have not been able to see. You could own 4.9 per cent of BHP Billiton through a variety of trusts, investment managers and nominee companies and nosy parkers like us would never know.

I’ll let you into a little secret of compiling lists like this. Our valuations are quite conservative and based on what we can see or have clearly seen in living memory.

We’re pretty sure there are families out Peppermint Grove and Mosman Park way who have squillions invested through the likes of JBWere, Rowan Jones’ Entrust, Willy Packer’s Packer & Co, Jon Horton’s NWQ, John Bond’s Primewest and Nigel Satterley’s Satterley Property Group.

We cannot estimate or extrapolate that which we have not been able to see. You could own 4.9 per cent of BHP through a variety of trusts, investment managers and nominee companies and nosy parkers like us would never know.

Business owners who do a deal in today’s dollars or have plenty of highly visible land holdings will always get noticed.

If we could nail down names such as Clough, Packer, Morgan, Middlemas and Bunning we might be able to take the list out to 75, but we struggle to confidently get more than 60 above our self-imposed $150 million cut-off.

The self-imposed restriction of the list to 50 names has necessitated the dropping this year of long-time rich list members Danny Hill and Peter Meurs, who both live overseas and may not return to Perth. Geographic bulldust aside, these successful men were dropped because we need to make some room.

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Our limit of 50 entries means we say goodbye and good luck to Arlec boss Ian Trahar, Ferrari lover Steve Wyatt and cattleman Sterling Buntine, whose estimated fortunes have not risen with the tide over the past year.

This year, we welcome two former Osborne Park pharmacists who have done well out of shopping centres over the past 40 years and have just sold a big Perth pub for a tidy profit.

We welcome an occupational therapist and her reproductive biologist husband, who live in former rich lister Mauro Balzarini’s old Dalkeith mansion.

Probably our most tentative entry is a former Sacred Heart College student who is building online graphic design company Canva. Some Silicon Valley punters reckon Canva is going to make squillions and we’ve suspended disbelief in accepting their valuation methodologies. Many graphic designers hope our faith is misplaced because they fear Canva is creating a monotony in visual design.

But as the great Scott and his AC/DC colleagues showed, you can do very well if you find four good chords and flog them the right way.

Who made the cut? See the full list of our wealthiest West Australians.