What Has Happened to Australia's Economy

Video Chapters

Trouble in Paradise - 00:00 - 03:59
Laying the Foundations - 03:59 - 06:40
Housing Crisis - 06:40 - 10:45
Stagnant Wage - 10:45 - 12:15
The Growing Gap - 12:15 - 14:59

[jasonr]

The real problem is that Australia is always busy solving short-term issues on a superficial level.

[mickob]

The biggest problem we have here in Australia is the weak politicians that just want to exploit taxpayers for their personal gain

[mcviper]

Australia's economy is more primitive than many think. Yes we have a large resources sector but due to poor government policy foreign companies reap the benefits of our rich natural resources far more than we do. Australia doesn't have a big "value add" industry. We send the resources overseas and countries like China + Japan do the value add and sell it back to us.

Regarding housing, supply & demand are a huge factor but also poor government policy means housing is seen as an investment first and a place to live second here. The return on capital is often better on housing than other assets and with much less risk than starting a business or buying individual stocks.

I see self interest & laziness from our politicians as the key contributing factors:
Self Interest -- many politicians own multiple investment properties so have no personal gain to slowing rising house prices thus do nothing to help. Further, there is a quid pro quo where politicians will do backroom deals with industry to implement poor policy or no policy then work for these industry bodies when they leave politics in high paid "consulting" roles.
Laziness -- reforming an economy is hard work. Permitting mass migration to grow the size of the consumer market to juice GDP (but not per capital GDP) is easy.

[ViralWeb-socl]

Norway invested what they received from selling oil into now what is the largest sovereign fund. They started investing 30 years ago, the fund has been compounding nicely. Every norway citizen is virtually a millionaire thanks to that decision. What did the australian politicians do with the money received from selling iron ore coal and LNG? Nothing.

[Jesuswalks]

Theres alot of poor australians living in campervans because they cant afford rent.

[ropa]

Interesting that such a under populated country like Australia and an over populated country like the UK are experiencing much the same problems….

[neilstleon]

The cost of a house here is out of control and people only have themselves to blame toasting each other about how much their house is worth when the only real winners are the banks and real estate agents.

[Field_Marshal_Emu]

As an Aussie, I gave up on owning a house twenty years ago when they were asking $900K for a house that was worth $70K a generation ago.
Cost of living certainly has become deeply inbedded and insidious. Our grocery bill is almost twice what it was 5 years ago.
The lucky country is now only lucky for a very few.

[clarkstarindustries]

All I know is, $2 hot chips wrapped in news paper doesn't exist anymore :(

[DeadDancers]

Any time anyone talks negatively about immigration, it’s important to remember that the government controls that and they allow the high numbers at behest of those poorly-producing companies that want cheap labour to drive real wages down, but aren’t obliged to provide any housing support.

[BenjaminTravelTheWorld]

If democracy is so great, how does the government just “ignore" these problems for multiple decades and by both parties, I think I see what is going on.

[outdoor]

Being an Aussie that has left for more than 2 decades and recently returned temporarily. I see how bad Australia has gone downhill in every area except the freshness of the air. So many more homeless people and people with mental health issues and just a lack of general optimism in the youth of today, many of whom i work with. The cause is totally the government's fault. Firstly, selling off all the government owned infrastructure and departments to fund their political promises, thus losing any future ability to generate revenue and control on basic costs of living for its citizens. Secondly, the stupid citizens (like myself, i still postal voted) voting for these parties without realising how they funded their election promises. Now that everything is privatised, the government doesn't have the money to invest into massive infrastructure projects and just keeps funding silly feasibility studies, like those for the high-speed rail. A high-speed rail corridor opened from Sydney to Melbourne, via Canberra would open up so much land for housing it would bring the cost of housing down in the major cities of Sydney and Melbourne Imagine living 150km from Sydney and being able to get to work in 30 to 40min. Of course, this will never happen as the politician will leave it to private enterprise to fund and operate these projects, making the fares so expensive that the end user pays ridiculous amounts to use such services. And risk a drop in house prices in the major cities, oh no, we (govt) cannot allow that to happen because we get taxes from the housing prices being so ridiculously high. Take driving from mascot to marsden Park costed me $30 in tolls taking 50min otherwise not using tolls would be 1hr 40min. Ok, there is a toll cap per week. But I only drive it once a week, so return trips. I barely get any relief. Everything the government does is such a money grab here, for a government to derive so much of its revenue from taxing its citizens is unsustainable when without immigration the pool of tax payers is reducing and will continue to, until someday immigrants get fed up and leave because they cannot afford anything and are stuck in a never ending cycle of paying off their 1.5m house, travelling 2 hours one way from their work places paying minimum wage. The lucky country? Sorry, I will be heading back overseas as soon as I can. What is the government's plan for Australia as a whole for the next 20 years? No politician can answer that as they will be already out of politics and getting their parliamentary pension whilst sitting on the board of some private company that won the contract to build the infrastructure the govt should have built, owned and operated itself in order to control prices (at least for the basics like power, gas, water, transport, roads, airports, and the list goes on...) sorry for the long rant, but really, this doesn't feel like the australia I left 20 plus years ago. The quality of life has at least halved for the wages earn today.

[disco]

When your government signs up to buy $368 billion in submarines, just because the submarine salesman told us it'll keep us safe.

[craigleverenz]

You say it takes 13 years for the average person in Australia to save a deposit to buy a house. Problem is, after 13 years the price of said house will have more than doubled, and your deposit won't be enough. House prices in Australia are increasing faster than people can save.

[seflinokasonde]

For the first time Australia has seen a rise in corruption. Most people working in key places are corrupt. This might contribute to the down fall in economy.

[mikestanmore]

What has changed in Australia since the sixties? The death of the housing commission and the financialisation of the property market. What other impacts could you expect after sixty years of mismanagement?

[whydontyouwork]

I’m Australian citizen. Walk outside and there are people everywhere! Too many people ! And not enough houses. We are screwed. No upward movement in jobs. Can’t buy a house. It’s chaos. Nice to visit but not to live.

[indoman]

It all boils down to mediocre governments populated by mediocre politicians since the early 1990’s, which was when our last reforming government was in power. We have governments that can’t look beyond the next election and to be quite frank, are completely out of their depth when trying to manage the multiple issues the country currently has and those that are forming on the horizon. The days of the “lucky country” are coming to an end.

[Salaryman_]

As an Australian that was living in Canada and speaks regularly to friends in Can/USA, it’s still far better living in Aus, it’s not even close…

[itsonlyaflshwound]

Australians haven't seen any royalties from our coal, ore, gas or gold! The country where corporations pay little to no tax and government employees make the rules then go work for those corporations! Corruption is disgusting in this country.