<< Australia needs to become a lot more sustainable, else we will all be in trouble >>

Absolutely right Bec. And the biggest single step towards this end is to greatly reduce population growth, ie; immigration, and thus strive to balance supply and demand.

I have nothing against immigration, as a rural person I wouldn't have a doctor, a lot of allied health or nurses without immigration. But what does worry me about it is that the long term solution to filling these jobs does seem to be to "import" qualifications. (please I don't mean to insult anyone here...I have a great respect for all of those who do come to Australia and fill these position.) We have people whom are already in Australia who need jobs...why not train them to fill these positions in the long term. Once the balance of Supply and demand is restored, then we can look to grow more again...if needed.

Bec, even with net zero immigration we would still have plenty of scope for bringing in quite a lot of people with badly needed skills, as well as raising our refugee intake.

And critically we would then have a decent chance of achieving a sustainable society and of engendering some common sense into our economic philosophy.

As it is now, our dear Henry Thornton, Glenn Stephens, the treasurer and everyone else of any economic significance are all desperately trying to make us as unsustainable as possible, by concentrating on unfettered endless economic growth!

They’re mad! The lot of em are really quite bonkers! ( :>|

*Cutting rates further will relieve cost pressures for some, but will do nothing to reduce, and may worsen, Australia's generally high-cost structure relative to competitor nations.*

Exactly! Australia now has some of the highest costs in the world, with much of the economy in city Australia built on more baristas etc and building more expensive homes for more migrants. Meantime we have become globally uncompetitive, which this Govt has ensured will only become worse. Double time and a half and all these other little jokes are simply not part of the real world, which Australians have yet to learn. The mining boom meant that mining boomed, but other industries like agriculture, have gone backwards, as they were ignored. All very sad, but one day reality will hit with a thud.

Govts of all political persuasion treated the mining boom as recurrent income, and it wasn't!
Just a once only inflow, and a very small one at that thanks to Govt. short-sighted squandering; and or, a sell the family farm mindset to debt laden foreign investors!
All while ignoring self terminating thirty year bonds, which would have likely provided vastly more income in the interim, and a date by which the forgone asset classes, bought and paid for with this option, became entirely ours, along with any and all income streams.
This would have necessitated various politicians accepting actual responsibility for outcomes, as opposed to duck shoving or the very short term sell offs, that adroitly avoided both issues!
Even so, we still have some assets not yet sold at some fire sale, namely, vast potential hydrocarbon wealth to our immediate north.
Hydrocarbon wealth that can remain ours, while the responsible Govt. simply contracts out exploration and development.
The very same way multinational oil companies do!
Besides that, we need to get back into the overall energy business as a supplier.
To enable the provision and supply of the cheapest possible energy.
Cheap energy is what we need to rebuild/attract the manufacturing enterprises of the future.
After that, we need vast tax reform and simplification, to remove the huge impost of often onerous compliance costs of the back of business/industry. (Often much larger than the actual avoided tax?)
Further, future industrial estates ought to be built around their own power station, to all but eliminate transmission losses, which currently double the cost of electricity, and link many enterprises to increasingly unreliable power sources. Imagine the savings possible, if all cars and car components were manufactured at the one place!
Coal fired power, must be accompanied by mandatory companion algae farming to completely offset emission, as well as create additional and endlessly sustainable liquid fuel supplies.
Failing that, we need to convert to cheaper than coal, thorium.
We have huge reserves! The missing elements, essential bipartisan support and genuine political vision!
Rhrosty.

Yabby, you wrote "All very sad, but one day reality will hit with a thud." didn't you mean "All very sad, but one day reality will hit with a KRudd"?