Yabby, it also has to be said that Nokia got its start as a shareholder in a government-controlled company. However, it was largely because Finland was on the leading edge of deregulating the telecommunications market in Europe that it was able to grow to such an early position of prominence. There's no question that there are areas that governments generally do better by staying out of.
OTOH, they have fully taxpayer-funded tertiary education, and very well supported universities, where early adoption of modern communications networks was a critical factor. Perhaps by far the best thing the Australian government could do to promote development of new high-tech industries here would be to dramatically lower HECS fees, and put a whole lot more money into universities.

Regarding whether tighter regulation on borrowing and lending would lead to a "nanny state", that's a little absurd: money is a concept that absolutely requires strong government legislation and regulation to have any meaning. We aren't allowed to just print our own bills at will, and there are already regulations prohibiting banks from lending more than a certain multiple of their deposits. So a little extra regulation to protect borrowers from overstretching themselves is not unjustified: indeed, it need not be "thou shalt not" type regulation, simply "if you borrow more than x% of your income, the government will charge ever higher fees on what you borrow". Customers would be far less likely to be talked into that shiny new interest-free Harvey Norman card, if once it was determined that, already owing most of their income in interest payments on other cards or their mortgage, there would be a $100 monthly fee charged.

The supporters of the economy is weak camp all seem to be labor leaning. The political reasoning for this is:

- If the economy is weak then the coalition haven't done a good job,
- When the economy goes down the plug under labor, they can then blame the weakness of the previous economy. (pre building excuses for failure)

In the last 10 years, wages have had a 20% real growth compared to the negative growth under labor, unemployment has halved, a $90b federal debt has been paid off and there is now a constant budget surplus.

The debts are for individuals, corporations, and the states (labor). The lending mechanisms in Australia are much more strictly regulated and the sub prime lending crisis in the US is not reflected here.

There is no real sign of weakness within the economy yet, and the shadow cabinet has not even dared to suggest it.

I also notice that when ever the word myth is used, it is to attack something that is generally accepted, by sniping at small imperfections, and claiming that the measurements are generally flawed.

Future threads coming:

The employment myth,
The budget surplus myth, and my favourite,
The round earth myth,

Perhaps some of us are "Labor leaning" *because* we don't believe the economy has been managed nearly as well as it could have been. I've voted Liberal more than once in the past, when I genuinely believed my particular representative was the best choice, and I generally find the core philosophy of the Liberal party insufficiently different to that the ALP to choose either on ideological grounds.
I agree that calling the economy "weak" is a bit of a stretch, but Costello himself said it best: "finely balanced". Or in other words, vulnerable: too dependent on factors that we have no control over. Even the resources boom hasn't benefited us anywhere near as much as it could have financially: our resource exports have barely grown in quantity in the last 10 years. Now, as it happens, I don't actually believe we should be shipping off all of our raw resources to China as fast as we possibly can, but if the sole aim of the government has been to allow this process to generate as much short-term profit as possible, it hasn't done a terrific job of it.
OTOH, while I do not accept, like some, that economic growth is fundamentally incompatible with limits imposed by mother nature, as it is right now, virtually every extra $ that is added to our GDP means more greenhouse gases, more habitat degradation, more irresponsible water usage, more particulate pollution, more toxic waste, more landfill, more dependence on foreign oil etc. etc. That's clearly not an equation that can continue much longer.

Do I think Labor would have done a better job in the last 11 years? If anything, they would have further increased our infrastructure capacity, thus allowing our resources to be dug out and shipped off at even higher rates, and unfortunately there's not much reason to believe a significant percentage of the profits from doing so would be reinvested back into transforming our economy into one that actually works as part of our natural environment, rather than fighting against it - a fight that it is guaranteed to ultimately lose.

Shadowminister,

I could claim your arguments are straight from Liberal HQ, it's always short term considerations for the Coalition, anything to keep Labor out. Here's a few "myths" for you, generally ignored by the Liberals and their rural socialist allies.

1 The lack of venture capitalists - True
2 The chronic current account deficit -True
3 The enormous foreign debt - True
4 The debt is private so nothing can possibly go wrong
-false
5 The steady decline of manufacturing -true
6 Service industries will compensate for 5- false
7 Global warming - probably true
8 The twin deficits theory- false
9 The widening in income distribution - true
10 economic "growth" based on national rather than per capita figures

Mac,

The information on which the claims I have made are based are freely available on goverment statistics websites.

It is in the Coalition's interest to trumpet them and Labor's interest to ignore or undermine them. If John doe is arguing that the sky is blue and Joe Blogs is arguing that the sky is red, the sky will still be blue.

I have some serious criticisms of the goverment with respect to climate change, the war in Iraq etc, etc, however, with respect to the way the economy has performed the statistics speak for themselves.

By comparison Bush has cocked up the US economy so badly after being handed a going concern by the democrats, by poor fiscal discipline.

My concerns with a labor gov is not the other issues, but precisely with their past record of poor fiscal discipline.

I am not particularily enamoured with either party, but if you ask me who I would prefer to ensure my personal financial future for a further 10 years, the present incumbents are a safe bet.

Rather than comment on how labor could have done better, simply show me that my stats on the last 10years and the previous yrs under labor are wrong and I will be the first to change my vote.

Mac, I'm not into party politics, but issue politics.

A couple of points regarding your list. Yes, manufacturing
has declined, but then backward inefficient industries, no
longer protected by huge tariff walls, had to be weeded out.
In that sense we are still in a state of restructure, with
new niche industries arising. Take ferries for instance.
Building them is booming, they are screaming out for workers.

Employment in mining has grown 50% in the last five years,
employment in construction around 32%. Surplus workers have
clearly been absorbed into more efficient industries.

I tried to buy an Australian made MIG welder this week.
I was told that it was 500$ more expensive then 6 months
ago as "mining is booming, we can sell all we make".
Clearly there is a huge amount of business investment going
on, into new capacity. But rather then making shoddy, overpriced
consumer goods, they are making more specialised products.

If you want more export orientated venture capitalists, so create
conditions to encourage them to invest in Australia. Getting
rid of payroll tax on exports would be a good start. Penalising
exports is not exactly how to encourage an export economy.