Oh Did Anyone in Parliament Mention the Current Account Deficit, Even in Passing? (March 5, 2007)

    While the media play up the current stoush concerning the relative veracity of the leader of the federal Labor Opposition, Kevin Rudd, vs the leader of the governing Coalition, John Howard, the Australian Bureau of Statistics published on March 2 the nation's current account deficit as of the December 2006 quarter.

Yet again while the Prime Minister and the Treasurer emphasise the competence of the government's economic management, citing in particular its budget surpluses, the figures from the ABS denoting the nation's current account deficit and foreign debt call the government's self-assessment into question.

Credit: Australian Bureau of Statistics 02March2007

According to the ABS:

BALANCE OF PAYMENTS

• The current account deficit, seasonally adjusted, rose $2,493m (20%) to $15,096m. The deficit on the balance of goods and services rose $2,089m (143%) to $3,554m. The income deficit rose $407m (4%) to $11,406m.
   
• In seasonally adjusted chain volume terms there was an increase of $2,993m (36%) in the deficit on goods and services. This could be expected to contribute -1.3 percentage points to growth in the December quarter 2006 volume measures of GDP.

INTERNATIONAL INVESTMENT POSITION (IIP)

• Australia's net IIP rose $34b to a net liability position of $607b. Net foreign debt was $521b, an increase of $7b. Net equity liabilities increased by $27b to $86b.

The Coalition has shown little inclination to have either the will or the ability to develop policies to allow the nation's productive sectors to begin to fill the hole we continue to dig for ourselves. Certainly at present we have no evidence that the Labor party, were it to assume government, would do either better or worse but on the data to hand for the Coalition government to crow about its management of the economy boarders on the ludicrous.