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On the plus side — and I realise I’m playing the devil’s advocate here — I think* some of this boom helped Australia avoid the general downturn that a lot of th
by jen729w 8y ago
On the plus side — and I realise I’m playing the devil’s advocate here — I think* some of this boom helped Australia avoid the general downturn that a lot of the rest of the world has seen over the past decade.
People here — normal working dudes — have money. What do they do with it? They spend it. On cars, mostly, but on houses, and TVs, and out in the pub, and whatever else. If that discretionary income hadn’t been floating round our economy for the last decade, I don’t think we’d be in the doing-quite-nicely-thank-you situation we are now.
Totally accept that this is to the detriment of specific places like WA, or Kalgoorlie more specifically. I’m not saying it’s good, just that it’s a thing.
(*I’m not an economist, I don’t work in this industry, and I live in Melbourne, so this is pure armchair economics.)
- mwill 8y agoYou are absolutely right I feel, I think the boom played a role in keeping us out of trouble. But I feel like when you compare us to other natural resource rich countries, we've let them walk away with the goods for free. And make no mistake, these jobs are temporary (If you take a long view). The industry is happy to just shut down projects the moment the price doesn't make any sense. We've been lucky that there's been enough they want out of our dirt that's there's always something on the go, but sooner or later it'll dry up, and those jobs will vanish, even if only for a while. And we'll be left with very little. And this doesn't even go into the specter of automation floating over our head.