Now lets look at our mining industry. I'm sure you've noticed some pattern here. Good times, pay whatever it takes to keep the stuff pouring into those ships. $100,000, $200,000 for a floor sweeper, it doesn't matter, we're making billions.

Then the slowdown. Suddenly the miners are competing for markets with each other, & South America, & even Africa. Where the bl00dy hell did they come from.

Then some fool bureaucrat suggests to an idiot government that the miners are ripe to fleece. A nice shiny new tax is the last straw.

Now the miners are struggling to find the payroll tax, let alone the payroll. They can't go bankrupt like those US car makers, they have too many profitable investments worldwide. All they can do is wind back their activities, mothball their less productive mines, & slowly ditch that expensive workforce.

The ore body will still be there in 30 years time, when Oz is a bankrupt country, the Greece of the South Pacific. It will be the new cheap labor country to go to, & rich pickings for them again.

Detroit got what it deserved, all we can hope is that some rather thick people can learn from the wreckage, & avoid doing it so badly here.

Not sure I agree with you there Robert.

Mining sector rises and falls are episodic. No one thought 10 years ago that it would go to 8 percent of GDP.

SA enjoyed moderate growth through mining but nothing like the returns of WA and Qld. In fact, SA has been coasting for 30 years, relying on manufacturing, ag, cars, etc. It's a relatively undiversified economy so when the stuff hits the fan, as it is now, it is left exposed. Ditto Tassie.

There is a place for tariffs but I can't think of one at the moment. One of the reasons odd anti-population groups go feral here is the 'decline and fall' atmosphere turns them on. They can fine tune their end of the world, survivalist fantasy.

Robert, hang in there mate, you have some valid points.

I remember the same critics mocking my argument about our agricultural sector declining. If I remember right, the balance was worsening only because we purchased high end food products.

Yeah, yeah, it a pity some people cant actually look at evidence and call a spade a spade before shooting their mouths off.

Has been is right, we are going down the tube, but I reckon we could do something rather than accept our fate.

did China accept its fate that it was a loser economy thirty years ago? No, they looked at trends, and did something about it.

Australia will change, hopefully sooner the better

Chris Lewis
you actually think you won on the ag argument?? No, no.. I think from your post the point your objectors were making is that most imports into Aus are for processed foods and so are of higher value than exports.. a per calorie analysis clearly shows that Aus food exports are many times more than it imports. But if you want an update on the ag industry you only have to look at the Journal produced by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences(ABARES).. on its web site. some of the other reports give longer term trends. No decline, sorry..

I don't think I won on anything.

I just what you guys to tell us why we have it so good, and why we are not in decline.

And don't tell me the crap about how good we have it with our lovefest with authoritarian China.

Thankfully barnaby joyce and a few others are around to remind people of reality, or I suppose we would ignore the rural sector even more.

So the WTO figures are wrong, Aust's trade balance for food has gone from 400% to 200%, but we need not worry.

I suppose we can always sell indebted farms offshore cant we, I suppose we could all salivate over cheap bananas and food from Asia in time.

Of course, we can' compete on a whole lot of industries because of our way of life, and that will also include food in the long run. Why else are many of our food producers folding?

Ah but we have tourism, international students, and even life cattle. What a joke.

I will look at the data, to see what it says. Hopefully will be better than Treasury.

She'll be right mate, stick your head in the sand and hope for the best