Anthony Albanese took to Question Time on Monday to declare that his government has grown Australia’s GDP growth of 2.7% is faster than any G7 economy:
“If you you look at our comparison with the G7, our GDP growth is the highest. Higher than any G7 country – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK or the US”, Albanese claimed.
This followed Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ claim over the weekend that Labor had delivered the “strongest start for jobs growth for any new Australian government in history”.
The above sums up everything I hate about economics commentary in this nation: the persistent focus on overall growth without considering per capita outcomes.
Who cares that Australia has ‘created’ 333,000 jobs since May 2022 and the economy has grown by 2.7% when the nation’s population has ballooned by around 500,000 people over the past year on the back of unprecedented net overseas migration?
The fact of the matter is that Australia is officially forecast by the Reserve Bank and Treasury to experience a per capita recession this year, because overall GDP won’t grow as quickly as the population (via immigration).
This means everybody’s slice of the economic pie will shrink, as it already has with respect to wages:
The rapid lift in the labour force via record immigration is also now growing the ranks of the unemployed, which means wage growth will likely fall in the future as the unemployment rate continues to climb:
Source: Alex Joiner (IFM Investors)
The ridiculousness of Australia’s ponzi growth model was exposed by OECD forecasts of GDP growth, which predicts that Australia will experience the equal seventh worst per capita GDP growth between 2020 and 2030 among the 40 nations surveyed:
Over that period, Australia’s population is expected to grow by around 4 million people, mostly via net overseas migration.
I suspect that in a year from now, the Albanese Government will be signing a very different tune regarding the economy.
Voters won’t remember its first year of government. But they certainly will remember the last before an election.
