Economy sick, Labor at fault

The GDP numbers were about as good as a truly awful lot of numbers about a dreadful state of play can be.

Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The GDP numbers were about as good as a truly awful lot of numbers about a dreadful state of play can be.

They also emerged with exquisite timing, as Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock was telling our – if you’ll excuse the word – worthy senators that she wouldn’t hesitate to raise interest rates.

But she also said she wouldn’t hesitate to cut rates either. The first if our (slightly, my word) “sticky” too-high inflation persisted in being, well, sticky. Or worse, actually kicked higher.

The second if the economy turned out to be sicker than the RBA was assessing.

There you have it. Our economy. Sticky and sick. Which will emerge on top?

The GDP numbers proved entirely predictable. In the March quarter, the economy grew just 0.1 per cent. In other words, we essentially stood still. Over the year, it grew by just 1.1 per cent. Outside the Covid insanity, that was the lowest annual growth rate since the Keating recession of the early-1990s. Except it’s worse now than then.

Back in the 1990s, we didn’t have today’s crazy, utterly out-of-control immigration-driven population growth. Yes, that gave us that – pathetic – 1.1 per cent overall growth in the economy. But in per capita terms – the “terms” that actually matter for Australians – the overall economy shrank by 1.3 per cent. As the Institute of Public Affairs pointed out – surprisingly, not Treasurer Jim Chalmers – this is the longest fall in GDP per head since these records began in 1973.

And it has all happened on Chalmers’ watch as Treasurer.

They got elected in May 2022 – we are talking about the period since the December 2022 quarter.

Do you think, do you even thunk, that just maybe we are on the wrong course?

With that wrong course boiling down to two things.

First, that massive
out-of-control – both in aggregate and in skills composition – immigration-driven population growth.

It’s struggling even to deliver a bigger economy. It’s clearly sending us backwards in qualitative terms – real growth per head. Second is the deliberate destruction of the absolute foundation of a successful, strong, sophisticated and, yes, caring, sharing, economy and society. In three words: electricity that is cheap, that is plentiful, that is reliable. Now we toss around, from time-to-time, who has been Australia’s worst-ever PM. A sort of reverse prime ministerial GOAT.

They’ve mostly been Labor, but Malcolm Turnbull did valiantly push himself forward for the accolade; true as a Labor-in-Liberal guise. But what about the worst minister of all time? Step forward, the utterly unchallengeable minister for destroying our electricity system, the always-twerpish Chris Bowen.

Now, what most commentary won’t highlight is that these GDP numbers are for the March quarter. We don’t have the Chinese luxury of manufacturing official statistics two weeks after a quarter has ended.

We are into June and heading for the second half of the year. Not much though has really changed. So far. But as I have been suggesting, I think we are on the cusp of more decisively breaking one way or the other. Higher inflation. Or even more serious downturn.