Vanna, GDP is higher thanks to daycares and family lawyers. That's all that matters, didn't you realise?

“But the article still ignores "the elephant in the room", there is no way to reverse this trend other than return to protectionism.”

And that is a bad thing?

Antiseptic,
No, it has reduced GDP.

It can now take 2 households to run a family, and every time a family is split, it reduces savings and reduces spending ability.

If it is true that minimal revenue is raised from personal income tax, then it could be better to have no personal income tax, and as an added bonus, the rich would not bother with tax avoidance schemes.

Let the workers spend their pay packets without personal income tax, but the trick would be to make sure that money spent in Australia circulates as much as possible within Australia to stimulate Australian industry, and is not immediately spent on imports from another country.

Bob Hawk was probably the most short-sighted politician Australia has ever had, or did have up to the present government.

He introduced globalisation without stimulating Australian industry, which then decimated Australia industry. He also introduced the notoriously corrupt Family Law system which decimated Australian families, and he introduced HECS fees which wrecked the skills base amongst Australian workers.

Few anarchists could do a better job at long-term damage to a country.

Vanna,

I don't believe "It can now take 2 households to run a family".
It's consumerism, which seduces people into "needing" more and more and newer and up to date stuff and creature comforts. We could all live very well but modestly on a single wage. I have no sympathy for all those "battlers" who can't get by without "necessities" like huge houses, extra cars and boats and all the other lifestyle accessories and indulgences that supposedly make life worth living (they accomplish the opposite).
It's the same theme at the micro individual level as it is at the macro corporate, resource, fire-sale level. Shameless excess for the sake of it, on the social level--though ultimately for the sake of the profiteering few who feed off the whole saturnalia.
Apologies for the puritanical tone, but it's true.

We deserve to get screwed for being such bunnies! Individually and as a nation.

I guess that if you repeat something long enough, however wrong, you must eventually come to believe it to be true.

>>No, it has reduced GDP<<

Thank you, vanna. GDP growth appears frequently as one of the stars of this syndrome.

Here's the reality:

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=as&v=67

From $22,200, at purchasing power parity (PPP), in 1999, per capita GDP has increased with metronomic regularity, right through to $41,000 in 2010.

Another is the "buy everything here in Australia" mantra. Again courtesy of vanna...

>>...the trick would be to make sure that money spent in Australia circulates as much as possible within Australia to stimulate Australian industry, and is not immediately spent on imports from another country.<<

That is the surest way to condemn the country to an uncontrollable inflationary spiral. Think it through for a moment, by following the money.

Take the case where we spend all our money within the country. Being a highly inefficient manufacturer (can you imagine how much an iPhone would cost, if we made it here? The mind boggles) we would find a whole range of stuff out of reach - which would be annoying. But because so much would be out of reach, there would be too much money chasing too few goods. The classic recipe for inflation.

Plus, who would buy our minerals? The earnings lost in those industries alone would condemn all but the richest amongst us to poverty. And they would simply hop on their yachts and hightail it to their tax haven anyway.

We cannot close our borders, for any value of "close", without incurring some very nasty, unwelcome and unpalatable shocks. Any government that did so would be perpetrating the greatest harm, with the least benefit, to the most people, of any era in our history.

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Previousproducts/1301.0Feature%20Article262005?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=1301.0&issue=2005&num=&view=

There you go, Vanna. In just 18 years, the average NSW home grew
by 50%. That was my point, expectations have grown.

*Bob Hawk was probably the most short-sighted politician Australia has ever had*

Nonsense. Hawke was simply in Govt when the whole Ponzi scheme built
by McEwen, Gunn and others, finally came crashing down when reality
hit. Millions of bales of wool, stockpiled everywhere, billions in
debts to pay for it all, 170 million sheep which nobody wanted,
farmers had to get the gun out and shoot thousands and thousands.
Australia was broke, Keating admitted it with his banana republic
statement.

Australian industry had been mollycoddled for so long, they did not
know how to compete on a global market, like the Germans, Swiss,
French, Japanese etc.

Farmers could no longer buy crappy, overpriced inputs either to pay
for all the tariff subsidies. They were going broke by the thousands.

Hawke and Keating did the sensible thing, bring Australia into the
real world, as the the Ponzi scheme had finally collapsed.

Now some of you want to create another Ponzi scheme, some learn nothing from
history.

Vanna, the fact that women don't want to sit home and darn your socks
anymore, is up to them really. I am all for choice. But that has
nothing to do with globalisation.