What the writer fails to mention is the fact that Australian's, that is, the general population, now have a private debt to GDP ration of nearly 120%, perhaps even higher.

When people deleverage it places a major stress on a limited economy like Australia's.

China is in the process of flat-lining big time, you can forget the two speed economy, if you own shares or are hedging on the big resources companies to make you money or to invest in, you will be making one of the biggest mistakes of your life.

Europe and the US are China's two biggest markets, China has finally realised they cannot 'grow' with their two biggest markets headed for financial Armageddon. They are now focusing on getting internal (their service sector) to sustain their future growth, you don't need steel, concrete, iron ore or anything else that may come from an Australian mine when you shift focus like this.

Anyone with half a brain will notice growth is pretty much tapped-out.

We are heading toward a very different future, green economy or not.

The ride is going to be very different from the one we have enjoyed over recent history. Get ready; it's going to be rough!

...Why are Australians so low when their economy is so high?

...Let me answer this simple question with a couple of point-notes from a long innumerable list of similar examples:

...First, its Gillard closing down the live cattle export industry overnight without warning: And now….Closing-down the fishing industry by declaring huge tracts of ocean as marine reserves.

...If, maybe, the Gillard Government could simply get on with running the place, instead of their preferred alternative of ruining the place, some confidence and trust would be the reward.

hasbeen. Sure, solar and wind energy is carbon free, but the wing only blows for around 35% of the time with suffient power to turn turbines; and, solar voltaic is the most expensive way to convert solar energy into power; given only around 15% of full sunlight is actually converted to energy. And then only during daylight hours.
I believe we should investigate the nuclear option, thorium in particular.
Thorium is 4 times more abundant than uranium. It is old 1950's technology that was abandoned because there was no weapons spin-off.
However, it should be extraordinarily cheap. Let me elucidate. In oxide reactors, loaded with 500 kgs of enriched uranium; only 3.5kgs of the material produces power, the rest is waste; and yes the waste can be used a few more times in fast breeder reactors. And potentially, the resultant final waste will have a half life of just 300 years.
Modern pebble reactors reduce the risk of future melt downs to almost negligible, or nigh on impossible.
And given pebble reactors can be mass produced and then trucked on site, as ready to use modules. At least as cheap as coal-fired options, but particularly where there is an ever rising price to pay for carbon production?
Not so however, with thorium. Thorium is currently, the embarrassing waste of riches produced by rare earth processing!
Unlike uranium oxide, the thorium reactor consumes most of the material, leaving very little waste.
Thorium leaves the ground as virtually ready to use material, requiring little pre-preparation. Moreover, the very small amount of waste created is far less toxic and eminently suitable for very long life space batteries, in things like communication satellites etc.
All things considered, thorium produced power should be significantly less costly than any current coal-fired power.
We have lots of it.
As far as I know, there is no carbon production associated with it, particularly if we mine and process the stuff, using only carbon free power?
The very best alternatives will be ones that walk out the door, and be affordable in still developing third world countries! Rhrosty.

Diver Dan, yes, we should pause and please consider, what we may in fact, be locking away in the proposed maritime no go areas or reserves.
We could and should husband our marine resources?
This could be done for far less cost, by buying back fishing licences at full market value, which in turn ought to be enough for former fisher folk, to enter into alternative business ventures?
Like say, fish farms, which produce as much money as 10,000 acres of sustenance grazing, from a fish farms the size of Eagle farm's international runway; and indeed, far more reliably, than hit or miss conventional farming or fishing.
Green acolytes are, I believe, as ever busy busy trying, where they may, to shut down industrial development, or make us entirely dependant on fully imported oil.
Which by the way produces as much as four times the carbon of locally available, sulphur free, sweet light crude, which leaves the ground as virtually ready to use, as is, as diesel?
You may have noted the sheer size of the proposed coral sea exclusion zone!
Or, the prognostications of any number of geological/mineral development experts, who number amongst them, some who say, we have to our immediate north, hydrocarbon riches to rival the entire Middle East?
And wouldn't be good to know where it is, how much we are being asked to forego, by Canadian and other activists?
Even as Canada develops its much dirtier tar sands, without so much as a reported murmur, from those same advocates? Rhrosty.

While it certainly isn't the only factor in California's economic woes, John Muscat doesn't even mention the effects of illegal immigration on the California economy, as the business interests that employ the illegal immigrants privatise the profits and socialise the costs. People on very low wages can't pay much in the way of taxes, but they are entitled to expensive first world healthcare, education, welfare, and other public services. See this article from the LA Times

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/02/local/me-cap2

All those billions of dollars have to come out of someone's taxes.

"The C price will have about 1/3 of the impacts of the GST"

Absolutely incorrect; the GST standardised state indirect taxes and largely eradicated the black economy.

The GST was an economic enhancer and level playing field creater; anyone who invokes class warfare to describe it doesn't know what they are talking about.

The CO2 tax is designed to remove competitive advantage and put the brakes on the economy. It s effect is scandously underestimated by this wretched government and its sychophantic pundits.

To get a small idea of this effect all one has to do is go to the Department of Climate Change website:

http://www.climatechange.gov.au/en/government/initiatives/national-greenhouse-energy-reporting/publication-of-data/nger-greenhouse-energy-information-2010-11.aspx

There is a list of the top 150 or so CO2 emitters. This list will not represent the total spread of affected entities under the CO2 tax so its effect will be much greater than shown by this list.

The list gives CO2 emissions in tonnes; this can be totalled and then multiplied by the CO2 price of $23; the list total comes out to be about $12 billion; just for the top 150 or so companies; the full spread will double this.

About $24 billion will be taken out of the economy, per annum, at least.

The government is committed to giving at least $13 billion of this to wind and solar 'clean energy' start up programs and the rest as compensation in the form of periodic gifts to the deserving poor. None of this will be recoverable or have any lasting economic benefit because wind and solar do not work and consumption directed 'gifts' have no lasting effect on economic productivity or GDP.

The electorate have figured out that the economy is going down the gurgler despite the completely misleading 'good news' economic statistics trumpeted by this witless treasurer and government.

As the writer notes:

"Understanding more than they are given credit for, they fear that the current Labor Government, beholden to Greens and academic elites, and hiding behind stodgy rhetoric,"