An annotated history of WA Treasury crack smoking

Friday, 11 May 2018

Let’s take an amusing trip down memory lane to assess WA Budget forecast performances. There are many metrics we could choose but my personal favourite is business investment. In 2012/13 when it was abundantly clear that the Chinese slowdown had commenced, there was nothing but blue sky and endless mining investment ahead:

By the time we reached 2013/14, a soft landing had appeared on the horizon:

In 2014/15, as the Chinese cyclical slowdown turned structural, the WA soft landing inexplicably softened even more:

The full text of this article is available to MacroBusiness subscribers

$1 for your first month, then:

$24.99 / month

$249 / year

Cancel at any time through our billing provider, Stripe

About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.