"And, among other straws in the growing wind, ABC News reports the World Competitiveness Yearbook 2006 ranks Australia “57th as an international trader” out of 61 on the measure of most competitive economies."

Mark, you might want to check your sources accuracy. The IMD World Competitiveness Notebook lists Australia as the 6th most competitive economy - last year we were 9th.

The IMD assessment used 312 pieces of data - measuring economic performance, government, business efficiency and infrastructure. It also included factors such as education, technology, health and social services.

We are behind the US, Hong Kong and Singapore but ahead of Canada, UK, China and India

Interesting statistic, Bruce; an improvement in competitiveness from 9th to 6th. It looks like the author (a "Senior Lecturer at the School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology") has fallen into a trap for young players and relied on the ABC News and not checked original sources. That would qualify the essay for a "D". The author can check the IMD approach here:

http://www01.imd.ch/documents/wcc/content/methodology.pdf

Actually, the most productive economies are those with centralised and mediated industrial relations. The the country with the highest productivity rate at the moment is Ireland, yet Ireland has the most centralised industrial relations policy according to the UN OECD reports. The US is actually behind Austalia.
Australian leadership is acting in arrogance, following private economic statistics, not the statistics of the UN, blindly following a false economy facing serious infrastucture problems.

There will be no ability for the Government infrastructure to deal with major natural disaster, and natural disasters are inevitable and expensive. A rise in fuel prices, which will only get higher, and then even higher interest rates, therefore secure higher unemployment, and finally recession will go double digits. This will not just be any recession like the other's we have seen. With Global warming, there will be even bigger and more cyclones next year, and meteorologists predict that they are moving away from the equator. Brisbane, could realistically, for example, face a major cyclone in the next few years. Australia is not prepared for this, and will not cope with the cost of the destruction of a major city. The draughts will make more farmers bankrupt.

Meanwhile, the recession will not cope with the oceans of unfairly sacked employed citizens, falling to hunger, then homeless and will be left with nothing. The economy could have avoided this. Australia, as a result of so many expenses not met by Government revenue, will not even be a "Banana Republic" as the greenhouse cyclones will destroy the bananas.

John Howard is following the omens of Malcom Frazer and Paul Keating before disaster. Malcolm Frazer's plot point to his down slide was his swan cry: "life wasn't not meant to be easy". Paul Keating's statement to infamy was "it was the recession we had to have". John Howard's passive-aggressive wimper was last week was: "this is going to be a difficult time". Now, he looks like he can't run away fast enough.

I didn't see any big picture stuff in the budget. Where are we going? What is the coalition's vision for Australia?

With the disappearance of government services and no investment in the future (ie education) in the last 10 years, a Darwinian free-for-all springs to mind.

I agree, a Darwinian budget is a Dickensian tragedy. You can almost picture the Artful Dodger, the stench of the Thames, and a misery of the underclass.

I agree saintfletcher, although you could of mentioned the massive burden of debt that ordinary australians are carrying so they can live their so called 'never been better off lives'. The fact of the matter is clear; any crumbling of the economy will be worsened by our incapacity to pay back the already monsterous amounts of personal debt we owe. This is the crux of the matter. We're as worse off now as we were under %18 interest rates back in the early nineties. We're paying much, much more for our homes (with rising interest rates all around us), paying back exorbitant interest on credit cards and buying now and paying back in 48 months time. We are living in a fanatsy land which suggests we are rich because we can own/have almost anything we want; problem is, it's not ours!
Keating used a good phrase once in Parliament: 'Going troppo; we are simply going troppo