Bligh's comments made during the business forum were widely interpreted as an overt pitch to WA skilled workers to come and work on the other side of the country.

"Over the next decade one of the biggest competitions in Australia is going to be the competition between WA and Queensland for high skilled people and Queensland is going to need to be very aggressive in our marketing to make sure that we get the people that we need for [Queensland-based] projects." she said.

"Companies are inevitably going to compete on salaries and wages but at the end of the day workers also want somewhere that's great [to live], somewhere to bring up their families, places that have great schools and hospitals and are right on the doorstep of the Great Barrier Reef."

At the very best, her comments were seen as a faux pas in the west but at jingoistic worst it was an outright declaration of economic warfare.

It was a theme WA Minister for Training Peter Collier picked up on in his response to Bligh's comments.

"We haven't been as robust as we could have been [to attract workers to WA] so she's got a fight on her hands," he said.

"Wages in WA are much higher, the quality of life in WA is better - quite frankly I think life is better. If [Bligh] wants a fight she's got one."

It's this sort of sabre-rattling which has peak bodies on both sides of the Nullarbor worried.

"We're aware that some people are choosing to live in Queensland, but commute to WA," Queensland Resources Council chief executive Michael Roche told EnergyNewsPremium.

"We would say to them that there are plenty of opportunities in Queensland where they can be closer to home and family. We need governments and communities to move beyond the concept of threats, to taking a national skills focus too."

However, Roche didn't outright deny there was an almighty struggle for the hearts and minds of skilled workers going on.

"It's probably fair to say that at present we are all doing our best to recruit people where-ever they are from… we also have to remember that it is the choice of employees as to where they wish to work," he said.

"This is a market economy; people rightly choose where they wish to work."

Chamber of Commerce and Industry of WA CEO James Pearson told ENP the fight between the resource states was the result of poor planning at the federal level.

"There's no doubt that industry in Queensland and WA is increasingly going to be competing for the same workforce," he said.

"Competition is a good thing but competition between two states on an issue like this is not helpful."

Pearson also saw Bligh's comments at CHOGM as an overt pitch to WA workers, and said WA would be foolish to ignore the overtures.

"WA is not a state that waits around for someone else to solve its problems for it," he said, adding that the state and the CCI was putting time and money into national and international migration to shore up workers.

He said the simple reality was that there weren't enough local workers to fill the gaps, and that a lack of engagement from the federal government had indirectly led to a situation where both states were seeking workers wherever they could get them, even from each other.

"Better collaboration between the two states and the NT and the federal government, I believe, would go a long way to solving the looming labour shortages in both states and stop the unnecessary competition between the two states for a finite labour pool which is simply not big enough to service the needs of both state economies," Pearson said.

Roche backed up the sentiment.

"It has to be led by governments in terms of enabling education, training and immigration policy and initiatives, and in a genuine partnership with industry as the employers," he said.

The need for a comprehensive, united front talked about by Roche and Pearson is backed up by the numbers.

The oft-repeated figure on labour shortages in WA is that the state faces being short 210,000 workers over the next ten years, with a fair chunk of the workforce needed in the resources sector.

The Chamber of Minerals and Energy of WA estimates the resources sector in the state will require 33,000 workers - including engineers, metallurgists and tradespeople -over the next few years.

A reminder of Queensland's needs was highlighted last month, with a report prepared by Deloitte and released by the QRC painting a bleak picture.

It found that an extra 40,000 workers were needed for various resources projects across the state, with demand to peak in 2014.

The Deloitte study concluded that the labour market in the state simply did not have the flexibility to cope with the extra demand, and demand from other states was adding pressure to a dwindling pool.

Among the study's key recommendations were "promoting the state to encourage state migration" - read: pinch workers from other states - and simplifying the process for 457 visas.

While the federal government is trying to pitch in with a raft of initiatives in training and encouraging interstate migration, the consistent line from both WA and Queensland has been that further reform and flexibility is needed on international skilled migration if demand is to be met.

The red tape surrounding visas had been the bane of WA's Collier when he visited Ireland earlier this year in an effort to source workers from the recession-affected nation.

Collier said while his Irish counterpart expressed great enthusiasm for the deal, efforts to apply for positions in WA were stymied by red tape and delays on visas.

"Everyone wants to come here but the almost unanimous message we got from people there was, and it's quite disenchanting really, is that they had difficulties with visas. So quite frankly, Canberra can get stuffed," he said after the trip.

With both states finding themselves hamstrung by the slow worm of visa reform, interstate migration has become a key part of the puzzle.

When you have two giants trying to accomplish much the same thing, the earth is more than likely going to shake, and the effects of such conflict are rarely pleasant.

"In the absence of a collaborative approach it becomes a zero sum game," Pearson said.

All the usual suspects are here too, with a rapid rise in wages, and a further schism between legislative powers is forecast.

More worryingly for governments and shareholders, if a collaborative approach isn't reached then it could even raise the spectre of project cancellations.

"You've got to remember that a lot of these projects are designed to sell their product into an international market, and the window to meet that market is not open forever," Pearson warned.

The message from peak bodies to legislators: make up and come up with a collaborative approach now, or you may end up squabbling yourself out of royalties, jobs and prosperity.