Prime minister Kevin Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan can spin it how they like, but today’s GDP figures showing a contraction of the Australian economy of 0.5% for the December quarter show the one off sugar hit was a total waste of our cash.
The Rudd Government’s quick efforts to pump-prime the economy with budget handouts and the Reserve Bank’s rapid interest rate cuts had no hope of resisting the full impact of the global crisis.
The big political debate will be whether Canberra’s quick blowing of the budget deficit was worth it.
Clearly, households cared more about paying off their debts than splurging their government handouts in the initial wake of the crisis.
The really interesting thing is that Agricultural exports were the only sector to grow. They added 0.3 increase to GDP. In simple terms if Ag had just stayed flat – the GDP would have contracted by 0.8%.
Amazing, it does not seem to matter how politicians try and kill our Ag industry it just keeps bouncing back. You know one day politicians and the Australian media & public might just have to admit that Australia still does ride on the back of our food and fibre producers.
Ahhh but that would be to cringe worthy for all those folks to admit any time in the near future.
Full Wrap of GDP figures for all of you detailed folks.
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