CommSec released its State of the States report overnight, which has elevated New South Wales to the top of the rankings:
Each quarter CommSec attempts to find out by analysing eight key indicators: economic growth; retail spending; equipment investment; unemployment; construction work done; population growth; housing finance and dwelling commencements. Just as the Reserve Bank uses long-term averages to determine the level of ‘normal’ interest rates; we have done the same with key economic indicators. For each state and territory, latest readings for the key indicators were compared with decade averages – that is, against the ‘normal’ performance.
Last quarter NSW shared the top spot of Australia’s economic performance rankings alongside the Northern Territory. However this time around NSW has edged ahead to take sole ownership of the top ranking. In second place is the Northern Territory. The next grouping is Western Australia and Victoria. Queensland holds on to fifth spot. The ACT and South Australia are closely grouped in sixth and seventh respectively. Tasmania is ranked eighth. Over the past quarter, NSW has improved its position on housing finance and dwelling starts to consolidate its position at the top of the economic performance rankings…
NSW has retained its top ranking on population growth and retail trade and is also now number one on dwelling starts. It is second placed on business investment, and housing finance. NSW is fourth on overall construction work, unemployment and fifth on economic growth.
You will notice from the above bolded statement that the primary areas driving New South Wales’ resurgence are population/housing-related, each of which requires the accumulation of more imports and debt, and a deteriorating current account balance, rather than genuine sustainable growth.
New South Wales is effectively running a ponzi-based economy so that its FIRE sector mates around Sydney can make more money.
It is precisely the wrong kind of ‘economic boom’ that Australia should be pursuing.
