Australia’s blue ribbon economy has laid its last golden egg: well goodness gracious me…
When I left the country in the 1960s, it was still exporting wool and wheat. Certainly, jump back to the 1880s and gold played a major role in the fledgling GDP. 100 years on it was nickel. And more latterly it was coal. Plus iron ore deposits hacked out of the Pilbara region in the far north of Western Australia.
Today, as demand from China, its biggest buyer, slows down with the completion of major infrastructure projects, Australia’s rich raw materials sector is getting a bad dose of gastric reflux.
Australians have whinged when they were riding high—the 7th most buoyant country in the world according to the World Bank – so heaven knows what it will be like now economists predict a severe jolt in its limited export market (bearing in mind that “official figures” are likely low, so as not to cause panic among Joe Public).
What will we do? Bingo! Export oranges. Australia is awash with navel oranges. Only $1 a kilo in some fruit markets. Let’s send oranges to Beijing and as well we absolutely must keep up our live animal exports to the Middle East.
Sheep? Oh, bugger the wretched sheep. We have nothing else to export as everything else is MADE IN CHINA.
So to my point: imagine the figures are far worse and get your $$$ together with a Plan.
ie. Lock it in and batten down the hatches…
Reuters report : http://reut.rs/QO4Lcp
Brave woman writing about money. Politics and money, like water are changeable and find their own levels and create their own delusions, as does love, another of those variables of life, that keeps life interesting and us on our toes. But this marriage is not based in love. Let us hope the global trend does not repeat old patterns of lessons learned and forgotten only to have to be learned again. And, may we be spared the spawn of the past – War! As this time we might not survive.
Thanks for your comment.
I worked for the Labor government–the ‘Whitlam government’–in the 70s so I know a bit about Australia. And I earned a PhD from an Australian University (ANU)
In the 70s and on into the 80s Australia was still known as true the “Lucky Country’.
I am not so sure that Australia can still legitimately lay claim to being the
‘Lucky Country.’ It may well be that its luck is running out .
To quote Tennyson: “Only the event will teach us in its hour.” Time will tell.
Thank you for your comment Jim. And I like the quote.
I guess by comparison that Australia can still consider itself a “lucky country”. What a pity it is so reliant on China.