Australia 01 (May 08 - Jan 11)

[kennynah]

the word Australia brings to mind....2 pictures

[millionairemind]

March 12, 2010, 2.03 pm (Singapore time)

Australia iron ore, coal exports hit record

SYDNEY - Australian exports of iron ore and coal hit record levels in the final quarter of last year thanks to strong demand from Asia, official figures showed.

Iron ore exports reached 98 million tonnes and coal shipments passed 74 million tonnes, mainly to South Korea, Japan and China, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (Abare) said.

'The record volumes of bulk commodity exports in the December quarter were underpinned by demand from steel mills and power stations in Japan, the Republic of Korea and China,' said Abare deputy executive director Paul Morris.

Australian officials have forecast a new mining boom lasting years, if not decades, thanks to the mass industrialisation and urbanisation projects under way in some Asian countries.

The record exports came despite a 9 per cent rise in the value of the Australian dollar, Abare said in its report released on Thursday.

Energy and mineral export earnings rose 1 per cent to A$31 billion (US$28 billion) in the quarter, it added. -- AFP

[iam802]

Clarion call for salvaging economy

http://www.smh.com.au/national/clarion- ... -qfq1.html

Australians face the risk of falling living standards for the next decade as the country has fallen into a reform malaise, according to one of the country's leading economic authorities, Professor Ross Garnaut.

In a private address to top officials of the Australian Treasury in Canberra on Tuesday, Professor Garnaut blamed two factors that had taken hold in ''the last half dozen years''.

The Australian public had come to expect too much prosperity too easily and the country's political culture had become too timid to make tough reforms, he said.

As a result, Australia's productivity growth had fallen from being among the best in the world to being among the worst in the past decade.

Living standards would fall unless governments made tough reforms. ''After a while, we have restored the old Australian political culture which had guided our chronic underperformance through the first eight decades of our federation.''

The Rudd and Howard governments had rewarded companies and industries for demanding special subsidies and handouts, a ''culture of rent-seeking,'' he said.

Professor Garnaut called on Mr Rudd to live up to his own rhetoric to control government spending and reform the economy.

The Melbourne University academic advised the Rudd Government on climate change policy and was economic adviser to the former Labor prime minister, Bob Hawke, in the pivotal reforms of the 1980s.

He recalled Mr Rudd's demand during the 2007 election campaign that the Howard government's ''reckless spending has to stop''.

''It was wise to increase government spending to offset the great crash of 2008, but now is the time to deliver.''

The renewal of the mining boom would not save the economy in the medium term. As the mining industry opened mines to feed the global demand, it would eventually lead to a rush of new commodities onto the world market.

The relative price of Australia's exports would fall as a result, ''exerting downward pressure on living standards''.

The public had developed unrealistic expectations: ''Nineteen years without recession, and with rising average living standards, is unprecedented in Australia and unusual in the world''.

And in the past decade the Howard and Rudd governments had responded by ''lifting all restraints on government spending and tax cuts''.

Professor Garnaut said ''the idea went around that managing the economy was easy, and that you could have change by buying off every interest group with dollops of money. The high point of this return to the old indulgent political culture was the Howard government's version of the emissions trading scheme.

''We have two big challenges ahead. First, we have to reduce public expectations of rising living standards.

''Second, we have to change the political culture to raise productivity growth'' through a wide range of reforms.

[millionairemind]

Beware the Dutch disease...

Mar 22, 2010
Australia's got gas
KARRATHA (Australia) - FIRST gold, then coal and iron ore. Now, a new bonanza is about to be unleashed from beneath Down Under: Australia's got gas.

Projects being ramped up to tap huge undersea fields off the country's north-west could quadruple Australia's exports of liquefied natural gas in the next few years and turn it into what the country's resources minister has called an 'energy superpower.'

It will be the next stage of a long boom that has enriched Australia and made it a key supplier of the raw materials underpinning Asia's development - from the girders in city skyscrapers to the fuel burned to light them. 'We have what the world, and particularly the rapidly growing economies of Asia, want - iron ore, energy and minerals,' said Colin Barnett, the premier of Western Australia state, which is at the heart of the new boom.

The mostly desert state has become known for a frontier atmosphere not unlike that of Australia's 19th century gold rush, the country's first mining boom that drew enough migrants to almost triple Australia's population within a decade.

As a major source of the materials driving Asia's economic surge, Australia has increasingly been drawn into the orbit of emerging giants China and India, spawning tensions and discord. There are also nagging worries over economic overheating and long-lasting environmental damage caused by its thriving resource industry.

Gas was discovered off Australia's remote north-west coast in the 1970s. But its exploitation has lagged behind iron ore and coal that have been easier to get and more in demand. Now, gas is gaining popularity as a cleaner-burning alternative to coal in power generation, with a fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions. -- AP

[winston]

Australia going to raise interest rates to 4.25% tomorrow ?

Non-event ?

[winston]

Australia going to raise interest rates to 4.25% tomorrow ?

Confirmed. Raised 25 basis point to 4.25%

[kennynah]

dont worry...fosters still on sale in their school canteens

[kennynah]

dont worry...fosters still on sale in their school canteens << same price

Australia Q1 Inflation Jumps To 2.9%
4/27/2010 9:48 PM ET

by RTT Staff Writer

(RTTNews) - Australia's consumer price index gained 2.9% year-on-year in the March quarter, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday.

This was higher than analyst forecasts for a 2.8% rise and follows a 2.1% increase in prices in the December quarter.

The most significant price rises in the March quarter were recorded in housing, education and health, while clothing & footwear was the only component to record a fall in prices.

On a quarter-over-quarter basis, consumer prices rose 0.9% between January and March, compared with a 0.5% rise in the December quarter. Economists had forecast a 0.8% increase.

[millionairemind]

May 3, 2010
Rio, BHP shares tumble
CANBERRA (Australia) - SHARES of mining giants BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto tumbled Monday after the government proposed a new 40 percent tax on the booming profits of resource companies.

The big miners' losses dragged the Australian market down by about 1 percent in morning trade after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced Sunday that the tax would be introduced in 2012 and raise an additional 9 billion Australian dollars ($8.3 billion) per year.

The new tax targets miners that have made bumper profits as burgeoning demand from manufacturers in China and India pushed up the price of iron ore and other commodities.

The mining industry has warned that such a tax would stall investment or shift it to other countries. Shares in BHP Billiton, the world's biggest miner, fell 3.7 percent in early trading while Anglo-Australian rival Rio Tinto shed 5.6 percent.

'The resources stocks are really getting carved up this morning given the land grab by the federal government,' stockbroker Michael Heffernan said.

After the tax announcement, BHP Billiton said the measure would raise the total effective tax rate on the company's profits from 43 percent to 57 percent.

Rio Tinto's Australian managing director David Peever said the new tax would make the Australian mining industry the highest taxed in the world and less competitive. -- AFP

[LenaHuat]

I like what Rudd is doing for Australians (that is the imposition of this tax and restrictions on property investments by foreigners). It's what I would deem sustainable growth. Why grow at a frenzy pace and leave a population (and its descendents) either spiritually behind or saddled with grave environmental and societal pressures? They are now pausing to re-think their immigration policy

Australia intends to grow steadfastly, steadily and evenly for the next 100 years