Phillip S, you have proved my point.

Savage apparently introduced the welfare state to NZ. Draw your own conclusions.

As for long bows, claiming the Gillard-led ALP, with Ministers turning over faster than a teenaged boy at a nudist beach is a model to be emulated is the longest of long bows.

Actually, I'll ask the Reserve Bank. You remember them, the ones responsible for trying to work monetary policy to improve the economy because the Gillard and Rudd spending spree used all the money that might have been available to do useful work.

Yes, I could do with more salubrious company, because claiming Singapore or Switzerland are "free" means the premises of the measure are flawed. As for Hong Kong, it's not a country, it's the laissez faire outpost of a command economy. New Zealand is too small and insignificant to worry about, especially with 20% of their populace in Australia.

So "optimum actually means "arbitrarily chosen to suit my preferred argument". Thought so.

The mining investment cycle only started to pay off in the last couple of years. Before that there was lots of money being spent and lots of land being cleared and lots of infrastructure being built, but there was no product from all that investment. Productivity requires a product, hence the name.

Australia has done well out of minerals because of demand for specific resources, including high-quality coking coal and iron ore, as well as LPG. Other countries with lower quality resources have had less success, as might be expected. It was in spite of Gillard, not because of her. Some increase was due to the massive increase in wages to some sectors, notably those that derive their funding from Government and the flow-on effect of those women having more money to spend on consumerist purchases, thereby reducing the terms of trade.

Whichever way you try to slice it, Alan, she and her government have been and continue to be dismal failures.

Hi Alan Austin.

Your question presumes that no other nation on planet Earth since the beginning of creation to the present time has ever had better economic management than Australia under the Gillard government, and demands that I prove otherwise. Like, you are kidding, right?

Yeah, I think I see what you are doing. Make an outrageous assertion, and if I can't prove that it is wrong, then that proves you are right, eh? Nice try, Alan, but I didn't come down in the last shower. You must think I work for the ABC.

Australia is doing better than the rest of the world, Alan, for reasons that have nothing at all to do with Julia Gillard and the corruption riddled Labor Party. Australia is a European country settled primarily with North European Protestants, and such people are renowned for building safe and economically viable societies. Our commerce has always benefitted from our Protestant cultures low corruption index, despite the best efforts of the Labor Party to change our demographics, and to also change our low corruption reputation.

Do you think that we would be a prosperous country if we were populated primarilly by Muslims? Stick around for another 100 years and you will find the answer to that.

We are a politically stable, free enterprise island continent with one people, one language, and our six states benefit from almost identical, secular English common law. We have a low population for our size, and we have abundant farmland and minerals. But in actuality, Australia's performance for our size and resources is pretty miserable.

Holland is a European country that is primarily a giant swamp that is smaller than Tasmania, and it has a population that is 80% of Australia's. Rather incredibly, this tiny country with almost non existent natural resources has a GDP 60% of Australia's. If the Dutch swapped countries with the Australians, especially if the Australians were being led by a government with Julia Gillard as PM, the Dutch would be the richest people in the world and the Australians would be among the poorest.

Alan Austin,
So, in plain language what you & those ex-pats are saying is that Australia is simply the best out of a bad lot. ?
I get confused when my friends form various parts of the globe tell me about the great things they do & are free to do whilst I in the so-called best country only just make ends meet & have to take extreme measures to protect my property & loved ones. How does this equate ?

Greetings all,

Thanks for these further posts. A few responses before heading out.

@Antiseptic, re: “Savage apparently introduced the welfare state to NZ. Draw your own conclusions.”

The conclusions are clear from the data, Anti. New Zealand since 1940 has had impressive sustainability, growth and social equity.

Re: “Gillard-led ALP, with Ministers turning over faster than a teenaged boy at a nudist beach”

Colorful. I like that.

Just not true, however. These things are measurable, Anti. Do you know how many ministers have been “turned over” since 2007? And how many were turned over during the Howard years?

Count them, Anti. Just no comparison.

Refer here: http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/truth-tally-whats-wrong-with-australian-political-debate/372/

Re: “So ‘optimum’ actually means ‘arbitrarily chosen to suit my preferred argument’.”

It’s not an argument, Anti. An observation. Pretty sound one too.

What would you regard as optimum interest rates for Australia today?

Re: “she [Ms Gillard] and her government continue to be dismal failures.”

Hmmm. So how do you answer these questions, Anti:

1.Which nation at any time past or present has had better economic management than Australia today?

2. What were the factors that rocketed Australia from 12-ranked economy in 2007 to clearly top by 2011 – and forging further ahead each year?

@LEGO, re: “Your question presumes that no other nation on planet Earth since the beginning of creation to the present time has ever had better economic management than Australia under the Gillard government”

No. It’s not an a priori presumption. It’s a conclusion based on evidence. Important difference.

Re: “Australia is a European country settled primarily with North European Protestants, renowned for building safe and economically viable societies.”

Correct. Pretty much. But as noted, Australia was ranked behind the USA, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, Norway, Singapore, Finland, Iceland and Luxembourg in 2007.

All but Japan and Singapore had similar philosophical background.

So what was it that rocketed Australia to the top of all those Calvinists through the first three critical years of the global financial crisis? And how do we know?

Thanks, Lego.

Now, it’s Saturday night. Let’s go out and celebrate Australia’s great fortune.

Cheers,

'Now, it’s Saturday night. Let’s go out and celebrate Australia’s great fortune. '

Actually Alan we are saving it til 14 September.
'