Shareswatch Australia

On budget night Wayne Swan could have saved us all a lot of time by simply standing up and saying that his plan for the Australian economy was to simply sit back and hope the mining boom continued. As I have said for over a year now, Australian policy makers have set the economy up for a severe downturn if commodities prices slump and there is no Plan B.

The devastating floods across much of Australia should remind people that Australia has been for a long time, a land of drought and flooding rains. The floods have tragically not only taken lives, but will also have a lasting negative impact on the economy and sadly the Government seems intent on using the floods as an excuse for it’s own poor management of the economy.

Over the last few months it has become increasingly difficult to write about the Australian stock market simply because not much has been happening.  During the last 12 months the market has basically moved sideways with just the occasional dip or rally to break up the boredom.

Well the Government’s response to the Henry Tax Review has been released and even Ruddites like David Koch from Kev07′s public relations program “Sunrise”, seem annoyed by the way the report is basically being shelved. Suddenly the business media has woken up to the fact that Rudd and Swan are economic dills, but as reader’s of this blog will be aware I have been warning about what these two would do to the economy for years.

I have not focused on the Australian political landscape for a few months but the recent tragic deaths of 4 people installing home insulation as part of the Rudd Governments spend-a-thon, has reminded me of the dangers of a government obsessed with poll numbers and popularity.

Recently there has been a lot of joyous reporting about the massive Gorgon Project and the expected boost that the Australian economy will get from  multi-billion dollar LNG export contracts. However is Australia really getting a good deal for it’s LNG and as a nation, are are we tapping into all the benefits we should be getting from this massive project?

The tentative signs of a global recovery (albeit a weak one) are becoming stronger each day and people who predicted a global depression have faded from view.  So the Australian economy is poised for growth again and everything is back on track right? Well not quite.

For some time I have been saying that the Government’s economic stimulus spending spree will be wasteful, poorly directed and do little to make Australia a more competitive economy.  If this is not bad enough the chances are the reckless spending by the Rudd Government may also stir inflation again and cause more problems for the Australian economy than the global financial crisis ever did.

Almost everyday we hear about how commodities exports have helped protect Australia (so far) from the worst of the global economic crisis. However although Australian exports have held up well prices and volumes have still fallen for many mining products but almost nobody seems to be asking the question, what will happen if demand and prices for some key Australian commodities never returns to the levels reached in 2008?

I guess the word confused would best describe my reaction to the Federal Budget handed down by the Government last week. I was expecting some tough decisions to be made so that Australia could emerge from this recession in fairly good shape, but instead the Budget had no clear direction and it seems the Government is hoping that by throwing money at major infrastructure projects that it can appease the public until China saves the day.

Well done Kevin Rudd, just weeks after causing chaos in the financial markets with his bank deposit guarantee, he has been able to pull another blunder out of his magic hat and found a way to potentially waste six billion dollars of Australian taxpayers money. Let’s be totally clear from the start here, the bailout package for the Australian car manufacturing sector is a political stunt aimed at shoring up support with the unions and Australians who seem to think we have a car manufacturing industry.