Way to go, Graham. Emphatically, Albanese and Chalmers set the immigration and population targets every year, in Budget Paper No. 3.

If Population Growth = 2.5%, Economic Growth = 1%, the incumbent government totally owns it. It is not the fault of Dutton, Murdoch, the global outlook, misinformation, social media, climate change, COVID, or any other of their 101 insulting and childish excuses for betraying Australians.

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Dear Graham,

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I don’t know if “it’s everyone else’s fault” or everyone’s fault, but I’m pretty sure none of our politicians, whether they be in the government or the opposition, were prepared to have their hand strapped to the back of a bucking bull and the gate thrown open for their first rodeo ride ever, on Covid 19.

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, in April 2020, 20% of people in the labour force were either unemployed or underemployed. By June 2021 this had declined to 12.8%, below late 2019 levels.

Unemployment increased from 5.1% in February 2020 to a peak of 7.5% in July 2020. It returned to pre-pandemic levels by May 2021, and by June 2021 it was lower (4.9%).

If Australia had experienced the same serious illness and death rates as 3 comparable countries Canada, Sweden and the United Kingdom, there would have been between 680,000 and 2 million cases instead of the 28,500 that did occur, and between 15 and 46 times the number of deaths.

The Reserve Bank of Australia describes the economic impact of Covid :

« GDP fell by a substantial 7 per cent in the June quarter of 2020, the largest contraction of the Australian economy since the end of the Second World War.

There was an historically large monetary and fiscal policy response to the disruptions caused by COVID-19 and the deterioration in the economy. Policies were designed to support demand and employment. They were introduced from March 2020 onwards, to limit the negative economic effects on households and businesses of public health measures to control the virus and to support the economic recovery. They were in line with the actions of other central banks and governments around the world. »

After more than two decades of low and stable inflation in advanced economies, inflation rose sharply after the Covid-19 pandemic.

In 2024, inflation has finally been harnessed. We now have to reboot the economy.

The IMF predicts that Australia’s economic growth will continue to outperform advanced economies over the next five years.

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Here we go again, a devote LNP supporter singing off the same old tied Dutton song sheet. In government these Coalition reprobates, including Dutton himself, were divisive, incompetent and wasteful. The Albanese government is not perfect by any stretch, but its light years ahead of the previous mob, who BTW left Australia with almost a trillion dollars of debt.

Today the Noalition simply sprooks un-costed, unachievable, "thought bubbles" as "policy", a couple of examples; "Lets build a bunch of nuks!" energy policy what a joke, where, when, how much, "DUN-NO!" is the answer. "Lets cut $315 billion from gov spending!" social policy, what a joke, from where, when ,how, "DUN-NO! again the answer"

I can remember the ABC predicting economic collapse from the Morrison government's handling of COVID in nearly every news bulletin. Lots of money went where it shouldn't have, but things could have been much worse.

Under Albo, there was a huge revenue boost from the commodity boom, yet the performance has been like Whitlam 2.0. Not a jot of criticism from Auntie though.

Hi Fester,

There is no commodity boom, the price of our largest export, iron ore, is down 22% this year alone. In fact it was the Morrison government which substantially profited from a commodity boom. The Coalition failed to deliver one surplus in almost 10 years in office. Government expenditure as a fraction of GDP peaked under the Coalition at around 3.4%, its now down to around 2.6% under Labor. If you favour that sort of thing. BTW where should the Colalitions $315 billion in cuts come from, they wont tell us.

BTW, I was not aware of the ABC "predicting economic collapse from the Morrison government" Things world wide were perilous at that time, both from a heath perspective, and an economic one.

By how many has bureaucracy increased since 2020 in comparison to the actual productive workforce ?