Population ponzi masks fall in Victorian living standards

By Leith van Onselen

Victoria’s population growth fetish has once again been shown to be false economy, with today’s State Accounts, release by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), showing a 0.2% fall in Victorian gross state product (GSP) per capita in the year to June 2014, despite a 1.7% headline increase (see next chart).

The ACT also registered a fall in per capita GSP, down 0.9% over the year, whereas the mining strongholds of Western Australia and the Northern Territory registered 2.6% and 4.8% rises respectively, with the former’s due to rising export volumes and the latter’s due to the massive LNG project underway.