Interesting article in the Australian "Dutch Disease Maybe"

[gemjay]

http://iphone.theaustralian.com.au/stories/102957

[newjez]

It is - when is the next election in Oz? I doubt labour could hold onto power at the moment. Would the liberals bin the carbon tax? Would it make sod all difference? Interesting times in which we live.

[Steve99]

This has been on the cards for the last few years and seems to be aproaching faster now. What amazes me is that we have such apparent low unemployment at around 5%, incredible terms of trade and higher wages than many countries (particularly at the low to middle section of the workforce). Perhaps the government/press/average-bod has been blinded over the years by the carefully massaged statistics, just like the USA/UK etc, hence the suprise that things are not so good in wonderland. However the reality of the situation is that real unemployment is much much higher, many are not counted at all, ie you only need one within a couple to have a part time job for maybe 4 hours a fortnight to be counted as employed. I have applied for quite a few low level jobs(after my real line of work in IT/telcoms moved to India) and found 200 applicants for 10 part time postions stacking shelves. Dito wife with office work, 75 applicants she was told for a basic office job (well beneath her level) at the lowest local pay levels.

The other issue in Australia is the fact that apart from mining, the next biggest industry, it seems, is building sprawl, ie making existings cities bigger by adding more roads, houses and shopping centres, which employs lots of people, when this slows down, say due to lower immigration, then we have problems.

The artificialy high Aus$$ is not helping either, with many firms unable to compete either at an export level or import replacement pushing out local production (an engineer friend of mine is out of work for the first time in 30 years due to closure over the years of his type of business) and of course the mines dont employ everyone.

Due of course to the high Aus$ interest rates we have massive inflows of cash, all leveraged up cash from foreign banks chasing the high interest rates, if the RBA/govt lower these rates to save the economy, then these inflows will stop/slow and there will be little money for housing (as 30% of any mortage is comprised of overseas cash) which will affect the sprawl building bonanza.

I sugest that the uncertainty over the carbon tax is mostly due to exagerated claims made by TAbot and chums and their very much aligned press buddies who are promoting their line. The effet will be minimal in comparsion to the other issues and certainly nothing in comparison to the introduction of GST.

[Petals]

I agree with you Steve and am fed up with the papers and their carbon tax bashing talk about Murdoch papers controlling the UK they control ours here too. Its time for some proper journalism instead of fear mongering headlines and short grab articles.

 

Australia faces a lot more than the carbon tax as we are linked to China and once we used to say that if the US sneezed we all got a cold, well the US has full blown flue now and its the East who will be calling the shots. Therefore if the East sneezes we will get a cold.

 

The former liberal gov placed way too much emphasis on bricks and mortar and not enough on R & D in my view, they never spend money on this, baby bonus, first home buyers all that stuff only fueled part of the economy.

 

The libs in Victoria have gone backwards in my view since coming in, who are they, and what are they doing, oh I forgot they are looking into a crystal ball to see what is to be done I guess.

 

If everyone rushes off to the polls and changes their votes at the behest of the journos then heaven help the country and our future.