In fact, virtually all significant economic indicators except gross domestic product (GDP) growth show Australia’s economy is among the world’s best-performed.
- record employment growth;
- record employment to population ratio at 64.6%;
- record job participation at 67.3%;
- inflation in the lower half of the RBA’s optimum band;
- wages growth above inflation for five straight quarters;
- median wealth per adult as the second highest in the world;
- ASX200 above 8,000 since last September;
- poverty and homelessness reducing, according to the Productivity Commission;
- emergency calls to the National Debt Helpline declining,
- record high new car sales in 2024;
- record sales of new private aircraft;
- overseas trips in 2024 at a new record high of 11.6 million;
- enrolments in fee-paying private schools at an all-time high;
- record manufacturing gross profits last financial year (2023-24) at $47.4 billion;
- record construction profits last year, at $31.1 billion;
- record profits in several other sectors;
- household spending at a record high.
Ehhhh I watched the footage to check (which FYI, is linked with the wrong timestamp - the relevant stuff is at like 4-ish minutes) and think this article is some miss, some hit. The entire discussion (by the ABC) that was being had wasn’t on the topic of “how is the Australian economy doing compared to everyone else”, it was in a segment with the headline “Reserve Bank set to announce its interest rates decision”.
Within the context of the RBA setting interest rates, how we’re doing vs peers isn’t reeally the core of the discussion. Here’s the quote with some more context (I’ve bolded the first part which the article quotes). Maybe I’ve just been captured by Big Economics 🫠
IA lists a bunch of stuff that are positive indicators for the economy, but if the headline GDP growth figure is (by “normal” economic standards) low, it seems more like a disagreement over what stats are most important moreso than the actual state of the economy.
I don’t feel qualified to authoritatively interpret the retail stats (it’s not clear where we’re supposed to put the cutoff for “normal” vs “COVID-era” spending, for example) but I’m… hesitant to agree with the description of “surging”. If you look at the graph and say the cutoff is 2022 or 2023, then we’re definitely not surging. But even if you go with IA’s comparison here where we look at pre-COVID vs current, it’s still only a modest increase at a rate comparable to the annual pre-COVID increases (you can draw a trendline from the first bar to the final bar).
The part where there’s a mismatch of quoted stats raises an eyebrow, but it makes me want to ask for clarification of information sources before attributing it to malice.
I’m not thrilled with the published Ombudsman response, but that might also be (at least mostly) a case of pulling stats from different sources. The linked OECD data source currently gives an error (even when I hunt it down manually in case it was a URL issue) so I can’t check that one. I looked for other sources and it looks like the RBA has published data showing that real (in economic terms, i.e., inflation-adjusted) Australian household disposable income has experienced meaningful negative growth from 2020-2023 inclusive. It’s possible that the OECD data is calculated differently and would lead to the stated differences. The RBA data is obviously Australia-only rather than comparative, but it makes it feel plausible to be a data-source issue or some other less malicious error. I don’t know what’s up with the unsourced QoL claim; it’s possible they just mean cost of living stuff? Idk.