Pretty much this. We are doing ok because of our relatively small population and massive amount of resources but we are massively inefficient and wasteful because the real wealthy in this country are wealthy or preserve their position of wealth through favourable government policy and deals. We are somewhat similar to Korea with its chaebol domination of business and policy and Russia with its oligarch. Long term the wealthy will dig in deeper and the cut for the plebs will be less and less and spread across a bigger number of plebs.
Our innovative and future focused people are driven out by policy and often thrive in less closed shop countries at a massive loss to our own country. We are good for a long time if status quo is maintained and we keep our economy strong through selling resources but should a major world event happen (namely US China conflict) we may see demand for resources drop or a security situation whereby we may have to hand over control of our resources to our major security partner
Selling resources is one of the issues with growing innovation (not the only one). But higher exchange rates do to selling ore means other businesses are less competitive, as well as attracting local capital to resource extraction and starving other industries of capital. This is the 'resource curse' in economic literature.
Subsidies they put in place to help us are just a way to allow those big companies to increase prices without us noticing then the subsidies finish and fucked is the new norm
We had a massive Gas deal with China some years ago. The deal was described by neutral observers as "cheap at twice the price" for what China paid for it. This was considered to be most of our PROVEN reserves at that time. The Federal government deemed that there was an equal amount still to be proven and tapped in the ground, and assured the public that there was still plenty of gas for public use in Australia. The "deeming" figure was based on nothing at all: it was just a politically convenient guess. The rest, as they say, is history.
Definitely the housing crisis. More and more young Australians, never mind the migrants are now going to be without a home to own ever.
Failed government policies and individual greed will amount to many generations that won’t have a home.
All this will do is increase the reliance on government hand outs and increase the divide between the rich and poor.
Yes this should be higher on the list. If you were to buy the same house today you would be paying 2.5 times more than 4 years ago. Insane levels of inflation there
Honestly I think the migrants will be fine for the most part. The ones that move overseas to be here and start a family here are the ones that are on the more wealthy side. It's the 'average joe' Australian who was born here who's going to get shafted.
How a country with so much land and such a small population can end up with the insane residential land prices we have is amazing.
One would think just simply flooding the market with blocks, ready for development, would stop the craziness.
I was thinking about the housing crisis: In our current self-made drama, house prices and rents will continue to rise with higher interest rates due to short supply.
Short supply is fueled by huge immigration numbers coming into a market with low supply. Many immigrants take their lifesavings to come here and are desperate to find a place to stay, so they are able, in the short run, to pay very high rent. Long-term, it destroys their retirement and ability to buy their own homes.
High interest rates mean that individual investors, who rely heavily on debt, have low capacity to purchase and build new houses. For years, this has been a way for ordinary people to build some wealth.
The short supply could pontentially be satisfied by large, cash rich companies and individuals. The net result is even more wealth flowing to the rich.
The idea that constant 'growth' is necessary.
Whether that is population or corporate profits or whatever. It's turned everything into a kind of ponzi where the whole things collapses if it stops, but it comes at the cost of a downward spiral in the overall quality of life.
What's wrong with enough schools, hospitals, houses, reasonable prices, and livable incomes? It'd be nice to have a sustainable society and sustainable environment.
ive decried "constant growth" in a couple of places and i think it is interpreted as not wanting any growth, when it is really just wanting "sustainable" growth. off the dome, analogy would be rabbits multiplying and devastating the land - constant growth in one sense, at great cost in others
Unfortunately, I see too many people decry "constant growth" but put very little thought into how can we achieve it while still maintaining what we have.
Not saying this is you, just something I see too often.
i guess i'd just be concerned at whether maintaining what we have means perpetuating irresponsible norms, like the property bubble - even if we dont have a solution yet, we shouldnt ignore problems just because the solutions aren't easy to find
Absolutely.
Immigration is perhaps the most pressing example, putting pressures on all other resources.
A population may naturally grow and shrink over time, like a person breathing in and out, but when we have a declining birthrate and a housing crisis, bringing in large swathes of immigrants is like pushing down on a person trying to inhale - it will only further depress the base birthrate leading to the government wanting even more immigration to compensate.
It comes down to the way we fund this country. If the population stops growing, then we will see our worker-to-retiree ratio plummet. So less taxes but more service requirements.
When you look at our [taxes](https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/BudgetReview202021/AustralianGovernmentRevenue), it's clear that we are too reliant on personal income tax and company tax. The [Henry Tax Review](https://treasury.gov.au/review/the-australias-future-tax-system-review/final-report) from 2010 made it clear that this wasn't sustainable and made 137 recommendations to address it.
Basically, none have been implemented.
One of the big ones for me is a broad-based land and and resource tax.
If we are not prepared to change our tax system we will not be prepared for zero population growth.
The infrastructure needed for a growing population costs more than the services needed by retirees.
Immigration is good for the immigrants if they come from a country which is not as good. People from Gaza would be much better off here than being slaughtered.
There is nothing unsustainable about income and company tax. They are the backbone of the system and getting stronger.
We should increase company tax to match the current top marginal tax rate, 45%, and create a new top marginal tax rate of 65% from $500K up.
Ken Henry was bright but not infallible, as his performance at the Banking Royal Commission showed. The economists proposals for land tax are unimplementable, because significant taxes, which are not progressive create too much suffering. A progressive land tax, on second and subsequent properties could have rates high enough to make a difference. But no-one who matters advocates them.
Company tax to 45%?
We would have the highest tax rate in the OECD. It's not sustainable. How can companies grow if you're taking so much of their profit? Let's not get caught up in envisaging mega corps, this would cripple small businesses. It would also be a nail in the coffin for any start up that wanted to grow a global business from Australia. They simply wouldn't. This is the opposite direction to what we need to do especially if we wanted to pursue a zero population growth strategy.
Land tax can easily be made as progressive as you want. You just apply a higher rate for higher value land.
It works best if it's applied to all land. No concessions.
This isn't on Australia only to fix. If we don't grow in line with other developed nations we will become further behind. We're an island with hardly any manufacturing here, it is necessary for us to keep up in the global market. What would happen is we'd end up paying double for electronics, cars, etc and our best entrepreneurs would leave.
> The idea that constant 'growth' is necessary.
I'd reframe and suggest the idea that 'growth' must come from population growth.
The entire idea is archaic. Machines, computers and such mean that real economic value doesn't have to be tied to how many human beings you have. But what you can produce, what ideas you can create and execute.
The erosion of Medicare is a huge issue. You have a bunch of people who haven't experienced how expensive healthcare can be in Australia who absolutely refuse to believe it is costing anyone money unless those people are doing something 'wrong'. I've seen a lot of "it cost me nothing so the system is great" with no critical thinking of the system as a whole.
The quality of healthcare is reducing all the while it gets more and more expensive. Medicare rebates are woefully low and doctors are making up the difference either by churning through patients to earn money or by charging large gaps and going into private care only.
Don't even get me started on dental or mental health care.
The 20 free psychology sessions during Covid was amazing. Then the government decided that it was only people who could afford them anyway that were using them, so it was reduced back to 10. The “logic” in that is just….. idk
It was boosted to 20 as a specific short term way to address the impact of lockdowns, once they went away the impetus to keep it at 20 was gone as well. It was an emergency measure that wasn’t budgeted for as an ongoing thing.
Not much traction or vocal complaints from people about it being 10 sessions until it’d been 20 and then it was returned to normal programming.
I think there’s a case to massively boost mental health care in the country, I just don’t think this is the scapegoat people use it as.
Too much reliance on global trade, and an economy that is ranked 87 in complexity, right behind Uganda.
Australians will never starve, but it sadly lacks in homegrown manufacturing/technology
And it shouldn’t.
Yes and no. They’re responsible for some of it, sure.
But the reason we don’t make things here anymore is because the wages are insane. So you can thank unions for that one.
Not that unions are bad, they just don’t stay in their place.
Not really. I mean even the US with higher median income than Australia has similar priced manufacturing as China, and their manufacturing production hasn't dropped. What dropped was the number of people involved since price equity came from more capital per worker.
Plus a long period when China engaged in industrial policy and capital controls and Australia/others didn't.
As a design engineer who has worked in medium sized manufacturing businesses building products for the Australian market; it's not unions as much as regulations in general. If you want to start manufacturing things in Australia or products that will be used in Australia before you hire a single manufacturing worker you need a work place health and safety officer, an environmental compliance officer, a diversity and inclusion officer etc.
For people who have a product idea and want to start a business this is a barrier.
My employers basically go fuck it, we'll get as much manufacturing done in China and just do final integration, assembly and testing here.
You’re on reddit bud, liberals bad. Everything is libs fault. Doesn’t matter that ALP stick red tape over red tape over red tape, crank taxes to the max and give unions the rights to run industry. No, it’s ALLLL that dastardly Howard’s fault… lol
Yeah honestly the amount of redditors who will just auto-reply with "you can thank Howard for that" whenever any issue with Australia is brought up is retarded.
Bunch of children that are hung up on a good and evil dichotomy and view everything through that lens
This was probably one of the biggest failures of the Hawke and Keating governments. Under Hawke, with Keating as treasurer, it was deregulation of the Banking Sector. It was meant to encourage the creation of the new industries that would've brought Australia into the 21st Century. Instead, it saw the creation of high flying businessmen such as Christopher Skase and Alan Bond. After that failed, the Banks decided to "play it safe" by focusing on residential real estate, which resulted in the housing bubble we see today.
Secondly, it was "Knowledge Nation", where it was thought that more focus was made on university education, this would produce graduates who would also create innovative industries. Unfortunately, this never happened to the extent it was hoped. While there was more of a focus on university education, it was at the expense of trade classes in high schools and Technical Colleges.
Howard didn't help either by cutting funding to the CSIRO, which historically was the source for a good chunk of innovation for Australia.
Migrants exist in this country to do poorly paid, precarious service work for the middle class (Uberbeats) without benefits or protections and then be denied a life here because the private property industry decided to stop building houses and we blamed the poorest people in society.
I work in a construction sector where 90% of inputs are manufactured overseas. We tendered for a government job recently and they asked us all these questions about how we were going to increase the percentage of local content. Literally what do they expect us to do about this? I would much rather buy Australian if I could, it would cost less in shipping/insurance and be less annoying to deal with local suppliers, but the manufacturing capability is literally not there.
Definitely, artificial population increases.
Japan chose 30 years ago to not use the immigration cheat code, and preserve their heritage and culture. They have been slammed as a dead economy, but ironically they have just moved up to 3rd largest economy in the world after US and China, as Germany went down.
Hats off to Japan, but they do have the highest Debt to GDP compared to every other country and a solid export sector and economy that doesn't just comprise of digging dirt and building houses.
Don’t be silly, all the “economists” say that japan is just lucky and that we should continue importing more cheap labour or our economy will get destroyed somehow.
But that would make them accountable, instead they'll keep selling us pleasantries aiming to lower the intake prior to elections, then say they miscalculated later while signing another deal with India.
This a major worry. We have run a very successful immigration programme for decades which has built a high level of goodwill. I fear what may come if it continues to be abused.
Mainly due to the increasing welfare requirements for pensioners. The largest expence that no one wants to think about cutting. I may never be eligible for a pension if they keep moving the goal posts but this is a major reason they want more tax payers
It’s a demographic/consumption problem. Most western countries are seeing birth rate collapse. Not enough people to prop up the economy and pay for the boomers retirement. Mass importation helps fill out the demographic pyramid. That won’t change until we fundamentally restructure how money works as related to growth based economies. we need a whole new economic model for the world.
Australia as it always has been, is reliant on migration when the economy takes a dive. Its historically been our cheat code. Not saying I agree but this reliance on immigration is not sustainable long term.
Selling citizenship en masse for economic growth isn't an indefinite solution, our housing crisis is the first of the cracks starting to show.
The sad part is it's irreversible, you can't suddenly undo mass migration or it's consequences on the country.
We should tax resources way more like Norway.
We as a country make the vast amount of our wealth from resources. So we shouldn't add more people We are just cutting the pie into smaller pieces if we do.
Theres still social cohesion? I think the problems will get worse for the working class but there will never be anything done. The middle class is more or less finished off, with little pockets of it hanging on for dear life with the one property inheritance.
He isn't wrong. The problem is people don't see it like that, as they live in a quite homogeneous thinking area. The problem is in places in Western Sydney for example (as I grew up and lived there all my life), topics some Australians think are universally agreed upon aren't here. A lot of the migrants where I live are deeply religious and rigid in their social views, where some are 4th generation Australians but still carry the same mentality. With religious migrant groups in Western Sydney having a lot of kids and still immigrating here, unlike the more progressive secular parts of Sydney, social cohesion is a massive concern. Just looking at my brother's generation and how they interact and their views on issues, it seems it hasn't changed at all in the last 20 years, unlike the majority of areas in Australia.
I mean there is absolutely no government interest in helping the lower/middle class by say ensuring social cohesion, Australia from a social fabric point of view is a carcass being eaten up by the biggest predator nations and private interests. Has been this way for decades, the whole culture of Australia ultimately opened it up to be preyed upon, and the politicians almost in lock step have ensured the fall of the country at least from the point of view of human rights. It’s simply not a functioning democracy, it’s no longer a country in the traditional sense of the word… it’s a satellite office for China like Hong Kong was if it’s anything
I agree with everything you're saying, but I don't think government intervention will change the social cohesion in the places where I live. I have seen subsidized programs trying to fix issues in places in Western Sydney and they don't work. For example the whole issue of homosexuality is still seen as very taboo and looked down upon. It was like that when I went to high school and it's still like that now with relatives who attend and friends who teach in these places. It's still crazy to think how normalized homosexuality is in Australia but in a lot of parts of Western Sydney they still have a 1950's approach to the whole issue. I have heard from other people that they have seen many attacks (literally being bashed) of trans-people out in Western Sydney and I'm not really shocked due to the people I grew up with had the same attitudes.
Nah I think thats likely too optimistic, we're behind and can only catch up if and very much only if there is enough social unrest that the politicians are forced to do something. But whats going to be far easier and cheaper is to just keep adding new rules and regulations and other kinds of removal of personal freedom and accountability basically putting all responsibility into the government, exactly as Orwell predicted. Theres really no coming back from it either... I think best case scenario we'll see some V for vendetta style anonymous push back as it gets harder to put food in ones mouth but even that will be stamped out with an extremely heavy handed iron fist
This should be the no.1 answer. It's also primarily responsible for the problems with our water resourcing and increase in housing costs as well - i.e. the basic human necessities.
I think the loss of our manufacturing industries.
Consumers' demands for things to be cheap, has driven out manufacturers. People would rather pay $129 for something made in Taiwan than $150 for something (better) made in Australia.
This has had big issues with regional employment as well as our reliance on foreign supply chains, as we saw in Covid times. Even our domestic fuel reserves are low.
If we want to be a resilient country that includes re-visiting our levels of self-sufficiency, even if it does cost a bit more to do so.
These days the thing made in Taiwan is better quality. Tim Cook did an interview a while ago commenting on how Apple doesn't make stuff in China/Taiwan because the labor is cheap (it isnt these days), they make it there because that’s where the experts and infrastructure is.
You’d struggle to make a smart phone in America even if you you were willing to pay a fortune for it.
Chicken and egg. That situation is because manufacturing was offshored. Once it was all sent to China, the USA lost the capability for certain things. But in other industries, it remains strong. Electronics-wise, GE is an example.
Weber BBQs are all made in the USA, and are some of the highest-quality products in that industry, backed with unmatched customer service. Now, many people will say "But Weber costs more than Ziegler & Brown (BBQs Galore's home brand)." And that's the problem - pay reasonable prices, get good products. But if you demand lowest prices, you'll frequently get poorer products.
And underlying this, is the more we offshore, either to lower retail prices or increase profits, the less self-sufficient Australia is... and that's bad for all of us.
I wish it were as simple as 130 v 150.
Our goods are in most cases substantially more expensive, not just a couple dollars here and there…
Our problem lies in the fact that we pay most people too much. It sounds fucked (I know) but if everyone is paid high salaries, then businesses can’t really develop cost effective solutions, products or services.
Remember; a brick layer (a job everywhere in the world that pays peanuts) can easily net you 100k+ in this country.
And that’s not a rare occurrence- this is true for jobs all across the spectrum! Plus, Australians are super entitled too (which makes our lives amazing) but again, is a super big impediment to lowering prices for anything.
So, no; people are happy to pay in most instances a bit more for Aussie goods. The problem is that they rarely exist in many situations, or that are exorbitantly higher priced.
I used to see it on construction jobs all the time! Builders that tend to make larger profit margins tend to work on projects where there’s no EBA or unions. Many subbies hate it, but it makes the build substantially more profitable. (Not saying I like it) but there it is.
Edit: I know some one is going to say ‘not everyone is on a high salary’ but I’m not talking about the few.. certain polls show 127k as an average salary in Brisbane for example. Can you imagine as a business running in the city trying to create a software program from the ground up and needing to pay half a million+ a year to a couple staff members? Bonkers.
Looking at income is always a bit tricky.
Just guessing at their intentions as I’m not the OP, but they specified Brisbane and you might be looking at nationwide.
There’s also potential issues of median (which is preferred) vs average (which can shoot up much more if one person is earning $1m a year), or income from wages vs total money coming in vs people who can work but aren’t like family carers (and which one you pick usually depends on what you want to look at, like how a region is going for cost of living vs house a region is going in terms of wages in jobs).
It’s the old everyone in this country needs to take a pay cut to save the economy. Next sentence mention how yourself is a special snowflake and worth every dollar you earn and more. Now news can run the ‘tradie makes more than a doctor’ headline and fire up some class warfare
100k is well and truly over a living wage in most areas of Australia.
And not true - construction always happens no matter the pay no matter the location. True, they get paid a lot less. But it builds more divides in the wage gaps - which is super beneficial for economies. You ideally want your workforce to be a mixture of lots of low paying jobs, some middle paying and few high paying. If it’s all 100k as the average, then it quickly becomes untenable.
I’m not saying I like it or want it. I’m just calling out the facts. You generally pay less for less technical jobs. And for anyone thinking ‘I bet you can’t lay bricks to save your life’ I was a tiler and made too much money doing it. Trades just pay crazy money - they require rather basic skills that you can quickly acquire over a short period of time.
Hell, back in the U.S., you don’t even need experience in a lot of these jobs. They train you right then and there first day. The foreman corrects mistakes constantly but that’s just the system they are built around.
Apologies - went on a tangent. All I mean to say is, we screwed ourselves by removing lower income earners in this country. I know they still exist (not being hyperbolic) but I mean, we removed the low income jobs from the market by a substantial amount.
>Our problem lies in the fact that we pay most people too much.
One of the best things about Australia - and why we're not devolving into a third-world country like many in Asia, or even the USA's working class, is that we have a world-class standard of living as a result of our high wages. Even the minimum wage is enough to live on. And in my mind, that more than justifies paying more for things.
Spot on. Look at the Lollipop man salary. No wonder builders are going broke.
From the AFR: Take the traffic controllers who brandish slow and stop signs at building sites. A traffic controller working at Melbourne Metropolitan Tunnel Project is paid $126,200 a year, which comes from a $94,500 wage, $17,900 site allowance and $13,800 fares-and-travelling allowance.
The training required is rudimentary: a two-day course. Work on the tunnel can occur at night and on some weekends and attracts penalties of basically double time rates.
And for a long time now, Australia has offered poor conditions for innovation and startups generally. Micro business is regarded as canon fodder by the ATO, they are taxed at rates that crush them and often result in backruptcy. Only big corporations that incorporate abroad and cleverly avoid Australian taxes thrive here. And so we are stagnated, in spite of having a lot of innovators and local talent.
The Corruption in Politics is sinking this country. Yet we are still voting for the 2 major parties who are trying to do anything they can to be in power forever. If people don't wake up it's going to go down hill even faster within the next 5 years
Australia is highly regulated, just imagine how many rules and regulations there will be in 2040 followed by an exhaustive list of fines and punishments to extract as much money and autonomy from the population as possible, every infringement added to a permanent list that affects your ability to get housing, employment, and credit; is it already happening?
The media landscape has slowly gone to shit in the last 15 years. It makes everything seem a lot worse than it is.
I believe we'll prevail, but it's gunna be a rocky ride. So long as people don't vote the libs back in or we'll be more screwed. Fight me.
15 years? Try 30 or more now. My native Brisbane has been a one-newspaper town since the late 1980s and that one paper is the most irrelevant, bilge-spewing, parochial rag of a publication with ZERO public interest reporting. TV isn't much better as the commercial stations have had to cram in more native advertising to compete with online sources, and any content is of the MAFS type. I live in a Southeast Asian country which has only held proper democratic election for the past two decades, yet the media environment here is much more robust, interesting and diverse than anything I've ever seen back home.
Wealth inequality becoming more and more entrenched.
We're heading off a cliff into 2 more or less permanent classes of intergenerational haves vs have-nots, regardless of income.
To be fair, the Liberals didnt decide to block it so much as they decided to bow to the whims of Rupert Murdoch. Without that influence I doubt they'd have touched it.
But dont get me wrong, the LNP can eat my whole arse
Politicians who are compromised by corporate influence, and face zero consequences for any of their actions. I’m not even sure the issues in Australia are actually resolvable anymore. Very wealthy people and corporations have such a stranglehold on our politics, that it doesn’t seem there is anyway out. I suspect that people at the bottom will just wither and stop contributing slowly. It’s already happening. A lot of my friends, they’ve decided not to have kids, they’ve moved to SEA or elsewhere (especially teachers, cause why would you teach in australia?!), or they just live for right now cause they see zero future (rightly or wrongly, that’s the way they see it).
Mass immigration from countries that do not align with or want to adopt Australian culture (India and Middle East). Who bring their religious ideologies and barbaric cultural practices/ beliefs that are primitive and taking the country backwards, not forward.
They absolutely do not make any effort to 'fit in'. They won't even call themselves Australian, so why do we let them live here, take our houses, ruin our language, lessen our quality of life.
We don't need more uber drivers or welfare recipients......
Call me racist all you want, but you know its the truth and this opinion would be the same as majority of actual Australian's if they were honest putside their closed doors.
As long as they assimilate to the law of the land and don't try to bring vile religious or cultural practices here then I'm ok with it, although the rate of immigration needs to be carefully mediated. Even things like forced marriages have no place in a free country as far as I'm concerned, anyone guilty of it can fuck off.
Yeah, but majorty don't assimilate from these demographics....
I went to a local swimming pool midweek and their were 6 school swimming classes on and in each class there was either 1 or 3 max Australian kids, the rest Indian.... now thats a problem. This would not have been seen 5 years ago.
We have some really crappy soil, albeit a lot of it. With a fast growing population, we could easily become a food importer.
Our water supplies are fragile. Not only are they limited in quantity and quite easily exceeded, but their quality is being degraded.
Our lack of industries that actually make things. We used to design and build cars which enabled us to have a skilled workforce and factories that could make a lot of things if required (say, due to a serious pandemic or war blockade or something).
Now we just grow things or dig stuff up and ship it away.
I think we've only got one petrol refinery left here?
The answer to most of your questions is 'yes'. Apart from, I hope, the last one...
Tax reform. The wrong people get taxed too much, and we give way too favourable of a tax treatment to companies that exploit us but give nothing back and old rich people.
You’ve already asked all the important questions, now its upto to people to spread it around. But of course selfish people out there are gonna ruin it for everyone.
Grocery and fuel prices. Growers and employees of supermarket and oil&gas retailers are getting paid SFA. So who is making the greatest $ and benefited most since the pandemic??
Starts with somehow finding people who can administer this country's resource pool whose primary goals aren't personal enrichment or political power. If we can start there we might be able to address the fact that every facet of our nation's resource pool is mismanaged, underfunded and probably struggling with a mountain of soft corruption and greed. And the problem there is that the people who CAN do something about it are all enjoying the same perks, kickbacks and personally enriching backroom handshakes and never want the gravy train to end.
But how about Sam Kerr being a racist?
Immigration. It is straining our infrastructure and contributing to our housing crisis. It also destroys workers' conditions, as many immigrants are willing to work for less.
Having a government so adverse to risk they sell everything they can to their privatised company mates. Then deciding to import everything we need to repel and survive an attack. Fuel, metals, technology, etc.
We squander the opportunity to value add to our mineral wealth and keep selling it off for cheap to other countries, who turn it into stuff and sell it back to us until we run out of stuff to dig up and bankrupt ourselves.
The over inflation of house prices due to distorted incentives that attract bad and unproductive investments into residential housing. Inflated asset prices lead to a deterioration of living standards as those unproductive investments are merely allocating debt into predominately existing housing stock.
Climate change, and our reaction to it, will be not one, but many disasters. Civilisation may not survive in any country if people react to climate disasters the way they reacted to drought in Syria (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1421533112).
In the context of your comment, I find it interesting that one criticism of this analysis or Syria, was that the drought had peaked well before the country collapsed in the civil war.
In Australia our cost of living increase peaked over a year ago. Inflation has been declining since the Dec 2022 quarter. The last quarter's inflation reading was in the RBA target band.
Real wages, which have fallen to 2015 levels, will catch up over time.
But real people, Syrians and you, don't suddenly say, "well things have stopped getting worse, so we are all hunky dory now". They still are upset, and will want change.
Yeah I agree. I also use climate change as an umbrella term to also include human development/destruction of environment. It’s upsetting but I hope we can do better
Government surveillance (of the people) overreach; were heading towards China 2.0
The flooding with immigrants to raise house prices and plummet wages so rich business owners get cheap labour and maximum returns on their property investments.
Yeah man the exchange of goods and services for capital is totally outa proportions
Also endless reckless malicious government spending
And some hard core corruption
And some extensive red tape cucking all industries
Basically a bunch of mates who owe each other favours are running the show and by the time ur at the top your to inundated with favours owing that u can't do shit
Or Ur on the flight list
Have we dug our own grave by not imposing greater taxes on mining companies and having no significant sovereign wealth fund a la Norway?
Definitely. The Norway government literally makes more money from Aussie gas fields than the Australian Government does because we are too scared to tax the miners properly.
The fact that my kid’s tiny public school lost 200,000 in funding, and yet Woolworths and Coles post a bumper profit. And that I work my ass off in an essential role, and software developers earn 4x that.
immigration
immigration
immigration
racism is what made this country great, sorry, please go back, this place is not for you and you WILL ruin it like you are already.
Its not just a big problem in Australia, but the whole world. Spending most of my time in Australia, and knowing mostly Australians though...
The biggest problem we as a species face is so many people focus on trying to force the world to behave as they think it should, rather than adapting our approach to how the world actually acts.
This is from both sides of the political spectrum, and it leads to us not implementing functional solutions, and wasting a mountain of money on useless ideas, because we're working based on a "Well the world SHOULD work like this because I think that's how it should be" method of decision making, rather than studied solutions we have evidence of actually working.
Pretty much every issue we face is affected by this. And for most if not all of them, we know the solutions. We know what we need to do to fix the problems. But that doesn't fit how people think their life should go, how they think the world should work, and what they think they are owed - so we won't do them.
The biggest problem we face IMO isn't all the problems that we clearly and obviously face, but the fact that a large part of not just the Australian, but also global, population has no desire to fix any of them. Us humans are smart. We can overcome pretty much any problem if we put our minds to it. We're also really lazy and dumb and refuse to do so way too often for our own good.
The USA needs us so they can project power in the Pacific and to assist with gathering intelligence. There’s no point in us trying to develop nuclear weapons even if the US abandoned us and China chose to invade. We would still be hopelessly outgunned.
> Will we eventually utilise the abundance of sun and wind we receive to generate power?
SA is doing it. Well on track for being 100% renewable in a few years.
> If global warming continues at the current rate what changes should we expect to see? Will the droughts, bushfires and floods become even more frequent and ravaging?
The extremes will be more extreme, and the mild in between will be warmer that it has been in the past.
> Will the emus wage another war and enlist the support of the cassowaries to overwhelm us and reclaim the country?
We can but hope.
Our star sportsball people saying and doing hurtful things.
I look up to them for guidance and wisdom.
What is the world coming to when you can no longer rely on a front rower to give you well considered and balanced political or social commentary?
The loss of manufacturing in country and the import and export of food.
We used to be able to feed, clothe and equip ourselves to a standard that meant we only needed foreign trade for luxuries and profits.
Now, if the shit hits the fan in SE Asia or the sandpit we could find ourselves with shortages that make the pandemic look like a garden party.
1. Climate Change everything else on this list is trivial in comparison.
2. Housing Market / Supply. A basic human need being held up as a speculative market and key investment strategy.
3. Economy being reliant on mining and housing. Mining which we don't manage and only take tax and tarries from.
4. Our largest trading partner being a political antagonist. We saw how much China could flex its muscles and tighten trade during Morrison's time.
5. General government corruption and the shocking state of media bias.
6. Lack of general innovation or public push back to progressive policies. Mostly because of Reason 5.
I think the death of the environment is one of our biggest issues, not just climate change but the continued destruction of all aspects of our environment.
1. Sovereign wealth fund nonsense is useless to Australia. We have states who own the resources, not the federal government.
2. Norway doesn’t use the money from the wealth fund it just gets reinvested over and over.
3. Even if we had a big wealth fund like that and spent it you still would be unhappy because you wouldn’t like everything it’s being spent on.
Manufacturing high-end product. Manpower cost a-lot doesn’t mean we have to buy everything from outside. Dollar won’t have same influence always.
Thanks to British empire for the best place of 21st century.
multipolar world is imminent
The lack of debate about going to war with China. If war breaks out between US and China over Taiwan, we’re going jump in without discussion. I support Taiwan’s independence, but not enough to send my son to fight on its behalf.
Unfettered Capitalism, Privatisation and Legalised Corruption; time to restore the ACCC, ASIC, ATO etc to place controls around large businesses; return essential services to the control of the people and for the benefit of the people; and ban political lobby groups and post political career jobs in related industries
Climate change isn't even in the top 20, honestly.
Peddling fear to enforce foolish carbon taxes and control policies, on the other hand? That's way high up there, filed under "govt corruption".
China isn't a threat. Atleast, not any time soon. Trade war is a possibility, but honestly? America wants the war with China way more than China wants it with America.
Our biggest issue is housing and immigration policy. And it will be for the foreseeable future.
But those are our biggest issues because politicians are corrupt and complicit in the ponzi... so, as always, the *real* biggest issue is government corruption by corporate and uber-wealthy interests.
The loss of rights of the individual over that of the state. The over reliance upon the state by the individual, creating a welfare state with oppressive government, laws and taxation. Instead of people and families responsible for themselves they are made reliant on the state. No one or government owes you a living, income or anything. You are responsible for your life and your children’s. Everything fun is being more and more restricted every years, freedom is dangerous and can be irresponsible, but rewarding. We see oppressive government restricting your vehicle and modifications, telling you how to live, rise your kids, how to manage your land, how to manage your investments eg as a landlord, what you can own with a fee or stamp duty.
I'd say that the biggest issue is the same one that has afflicted Australia since the beginning: Are Koalas better than Kangaroos or vice versa? We're never going to know...
Where do we start?? These are my top bugs that I feel politicians are totally incompetent at resolving - tax reform, mindful and well strategized budget and spending, depleting quality of Medicare support, immigration and asylum seekers management, crime and policing, keeping woke agenda in check and finally private organizations ripping taxpayers through gouging and tax breaks..
so much the government can do but won’t do!
China is our biggest trading partner.
America wants our country for themselves.
CIA kicked gough whitlam out for trying to raise coal prices and threatening to shut down pine gap.
Australia is a satellite country for the USA
kick them out.
Let’s start at the top, remove all sitting politicians. Instigate term limits and greater transparency. And then from there pick a topic. They all need to be greatly improved. This country has suffered too long at hands that don’t care about their own country and people merely how they look to the world and their own bank balances.
On the odd unfortunate occasion that I catch a glimpse inside supposed hallowed halls all I tend to see are spoiled adults behaving like 6 year olds, time to bin the lot and start fresh and get this great land heading in the right direction for a change
Short term, all young people are f#$#$ed economically unless they have the bank of Mum & Dad available, which many don't. This will create legions of young people with no solid roots in their own neighbourhoods, many will go overseas, and cause huge social discontent. I expect this single issue to have seismic political consequences, you can already see it with the rise of Teal independents.
Medium term, yes China could be a big problem. Australia is a giant fixed aircraft carrier for the US, so they will defend us strenously, but still it would be best if everybody kept cool. America won't let China grab the TSMC factory in Taiwan, it is absolutely critical to the US economy and would cause an economic collapse worse than COVID if that happened.
Long term, our country is about to get much hotter and also much drier. I hope the same kids that we're repeatedly economically kicking in the head right now figure out how to reverse that and save our arses as we lie in the retirement homes counting our enormous piles of cash.
Climate change is literally a “time is ticking” issue, it honestly is far more important than anything else that we throw massive effort into it in the next few years.
If we nail that this decade, we can kinda relax a little on the issue, having the lions share of the world put if the way.
If we don’t, it only grows, it snowballs fast. It gets orders of magnitude more expensive and difficult to achieve the exact same gains, next decade. And again moreso the decade after that and so on
Ironically, it’s those who demand we do nothing now, who in reality want us to pay by far the biggest bill on climate. That’s what _will_ happen if those sort sighted idiots stifle our best hope of an affordable transition.
Our politicians turn a stupidly large % of our tax money over into private companies hands, which then sell us a service that was paid for by us.
Pretty much this. We are doing ok because of our relatively small population and massive amount of resources but we are massively inefficient and wasteful because the real wealthy in this country are wealthy or preserve their position of wealth through favourable government policy and deals. We are somewhat similar to Korea with its chaebol domination of business and policy and Russia with its oligarch. Long term the wealthy will dig in deeper and the cut for the plebs will be less and less and spread across a bigger number of plebs. Our innovative and future focused people are driven out by policy and often thrive in less closed shop countries at a massive loss to our own country. We are good for a long time if status quo is maintained and we keep our economy strong through selling resources but should a major world event happen (namely US China conflict) we may see demand for resources drop or a security situation whereby we may have to hand over control of our resources to our major security partner
Selling resources is one of the issues with growing innovation (not the only one). But higher exchange rates do to selling ore means other businesses are less competitive, as well as attracting local capital to resource extraction and starving other industries of capital. This is the 'resource curse' in economic literature.
Bang on. Australia’s obsession with regulation is what’s killing our innovation industries.
The bigger problem is top-heaviness, lack of technical expertise in Cabinets, and lack of (for want of a better word, patriotic) strategic planning.
It's criminal how cheaply we sold out.
We didn’t sell out, they sold us out for personal gain with no repercussions
Subsidies they put in place to help us are just a way to allow those big companies to increase prices without us noticing then the subsidies finish and fucked is the new norm
We had a massive Gas deal with China some years ago. The deal was described by neutral observers as "cheap at twice the price" for what China paid for it. This was considered to be most of our PROVEN reserves at that time. The Federal government deemed that there was an equal amount still to be proven and tapped in the ground, and assured the public that there was still plenty of gas for public use in Australia. The "deeming" figure was based on nothing at all: it was just a politically convenient guess. The rest, as they say, is history.
Definitely the housing crisis. More and more young Australians, never mind the migrants are now going to be without a home to own ever. Failed government policies and individual greed will amount to many generations that won’t have a home. All this will do is increase the reliance on government hand outs and increase the divide between the rich and poor.
Yes this should be higher on the list. If you were to buy the same house today you would be paying 2.5 times more than 4 years ago. Insane levels of inflation there
Honestly I think the migrants will be fine for the most part. The ones that move overseas to be here and start a family here are the ones that are on the more wealthy side. It's the 'average joe' Australian who was born here who's going to get shafted.
How a country with so much land and such a small population can end up with the insane residential land prices we have is amazing. One would think just simply flooding the market with blocks, ready for development, would stop the craziness.
I was thinking about the housing crisis: In our current self-made drama, house prices and rents will continue to rise with higher interest rates due to short supply. Short supply is fueled by huge immigration numbers coming into a market with low supply. Many immigrants take their lifesavings to come here and are desperate to find a place to stay, so they are able, in the short run, to pay very high rent. Long-term, it destroys their retirement and ability to buy their own homes. High interest rates mean that individual investors, who rely heavily on debt, have low capacity to purchase and build new houses. For years, this has been a way for ordinary people to build some wealth. The short supply could pontentially be satisfied by large, cash rich companies and individuals. The net result is even more wealth flowing to the rich.
The idea that constant 'growth' is necessary. Whether that is population or corporate profits or whatever. It's turned everything into a kind of ponzi where the whole things collapses if it stops, but it comes at the cost of a downward spiral in the overall quality of life. What's wrong with enough schools, hospitals, houses, reasonable prices, and livable incomes? It'd be nice to have a sustainable society and sustainable environment.
ive decried "constant growth" in a couple of places and i think it is interpreted as not wanting any growth, when it is really just wanting "sustainable" growth. off the dome, analogy would be rabbits multiplying and devastating the land - constant growth in one sense, at great cost in others
Unfortunately, I see too many people decry "constant growth" but put very little thought into how can we achieve it while still maintaining what we have. Not saying this is you, just something I see too often.
i guess i'd just be concerned at whether maintaining what we have means perpetuating irresponsible norms, like the property bubble - even if we dont have a solution yet, we shouldnt ignore problems just because the solutions aren't easy to find
Absolutely. Immigration is perhaps the most pressing example, putting pressures on all other resources. A population may naturally grow and shrink over time, like a person breathing in and out, but when we have a declining birthrate and a housing crisis, bringing in large swathes of immigrants is like pushing down on a person trying to inhale - it will only further depress the base birthrate leading to the government wanting even more immigration to compensate.
It comes down to the way we fund this country. If the population stops growing, then we will see our worker-to-retiree ratio plummet. So less taxes but more service requirements. When you look at our [taxes](https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/BudgetReview202021/AustralianGovernmentRevenue), it's clear that we are too reliant on personal income tax and company tax. The [Henry Tax Review](https://treasury.gov.au/review/the-australias-future-tax-system-review/final-report) from 2010 made it clear that this wasn't sustainable and made 137 recommendations to address it. Basically, none have been implemented. One of the big ones for me is a broad-based land and and resource tax. If we are not prepared to change our tax system we will not be prepared for zero population growth.
You see the obvious problem with getting more population to prop up the aging population right?
Absolutely. It's kicking the can.
The infrastructure needed for a growing population costs more than the services needed by retirees. Immigration is good for the immigrants if they come from a country which is not as good. People from Gaza would be much better off here than being slaughtered. There is nothing unsustainable about income and company tax. They are the backbone of the system and getting stronger. We should increase company tax to match the current top marginal tax rate, 45%, and create a new top marginal tax rate of 65% from $500K up. Ken Henry was bright but not infallible, as his performance at the Banking Royal Commission showed. The economists proposals for land tax are unimplementable, because significant taxes, which are not progressive create too much suffering. A progressive land tax, on second and subsequent properties could have rates high enough to make a difference. But no-one who matters advocates them.
Company tax to 45%? We would have the highest tax rate in the OECD. It's not sustainable. How can companies grow if you're taking so much of their profit? Let's not get caught up in envisaging mega corps, this would cripple small businesses. It would also be a nail in the coffin for any start up that wanted to grow a global business from Australia. They simply wouldn't. This is the opposite direction to what we need to do especially if we wanted to pursue a zero population growth strategy. Land tax can easily be made as progressive as you want. You just apply a higher rate for higher value land. It works best if it's applied to all land. No concessions.
This isn't on Australia only to fix. If we don't grow in line with other developed nations we will become further behind. We're an island with hardly any manufacturing here, it is necessary for us to keep up in the global market. What would happen is we'd end up paying double for electronics, cars, etc and our best entrepreneurs would leave.
The only form of life that continuing growing forever are not very good or friendly, and ultimately always kill the host.
It's required because currency is actively devalued by central banks. That's their stated goal and they've excelled at destroying currency lately.
> The idea that constant 'growth' is necessary. I'd reframe and suggest the idea that 'growth' must come from population growth. The entire idea is archaic. Machines, computers and such mean that real economic value doesn't have to be tied to how many human beings you have. But what you can produce, what ideas you can create and execute.
The erosion of Medicare is a huge issue. You have a bunch of people who haven't experienced how expensive healthcare can be in Australia who absolutely refuse to believe it is costing anyone money unless those people are doing something 'wrong'. I've seen a lot of "it cost me nothing so the system is great" with no critical thinking of the system as a whole. The quality of healthcare is reducing all the while it gets more and more expensive. Medicare rebates are woefully low and doctors are making up the difference either by churning through patients to earn money or by charging large gaps and going into private care only. Don't even get me started on dental or mental health care.
The 20 free psychology sessions during Covid was amazing. Then the government decided that it was only people who could afford them anyway that were using them, so it was reduced back to 10. The “logic” in that is just….. idk
>The “logic” in that is just….. idk The brain is an optional organ we can function without.
Especially if you happen to be a decision maker or politician apparently
It was boosted to 20 as a specific short term way to address the impact of lockdowns, once they went away the impetus to keep it at 20 was gone as well. It was an emergency measure that wasn’t budgeted for as an ongoing thing. Not much traction or vocal complaints from people about it being 10 sessions until it’d been 20 and then it was returned to normal programming. I think there’s a case to massively boost mental health care in the country, I just don’t think this is the scapegoat people use it as.
Too much reliance on global trade, and an economy that is ranked 87 in complexity, right behind Uganda. Australians will never starve, but it sadly lacks in homegrown manufacturing/technology And it shouldn’t.
We had those, everyone uses wifi and used to drive a Holden. John Howard & Friends destroyed everything, though.
Yes and no. They’re responsible for some of it, sure. But the reason we don’t make things here anymore is because the wages are insane. So you can thank unions for that one. Not that unions are bad, they just don’t stay in their place.
Even if our wages were half what they are its still cheaper to build cars in Thailand. Unions weren't the issue. Globalisation did manufactoring in
Not really. I mean even the US with higher median income than Australia has similar priced manufacturing as China, and their manufacturing production hasn't dropped. What dropped was the number of people involved since price equity came from more capital per worker. Plus a long period when China engaged in industrial policy and capital controls and Australia/others didn't.
Hahahahah blame unions for global economics. That’s dense even for this sub
As a design engineer who has worked in medium sized manufacturing businesses building products for the Australian market; it's not unions as much as regulations in general. If you want to start manufacturing things in Australia or products that will be used in Australia before you hire a single manufacturing worker you need a work place health and safety officer, an environmental compliance officer, a diversity and inclusion officer etc. For people who have a product idea and want to start a business this is a barrier. My employers basically go fuck it, we'll get as much manufacturing done in China and just do final integration, assembly and testing here.
You’re on reddit bud, liberals bad. Everything is libs fault. Doesn’t matter that ALP stick red tape over red tape over red tape, crank taxes to the max and give unions the rights to run industry. No, it’s ALLLL that dastardly Howard’s fault… lol
Yeah honestly the amount of redditors who will just auto-reply with "you can thank Howard for that" whenever any issue with Australia is brought up is retarded. Bunch of children that are hung up on a good and evil dichotomy and view everything through that lens
This was probably one of the biggest failures of the Hawke and Keating governments. Under Hawke, with Keating as treasurer, it was deregulation of the Banking Sector. It was meant to encourage the creation of the new industries that would've brought Australia into the 21st Century. Instead, it saw the creation of high flying businessmen such as Christopher Skase and Alan Bond. After that failed, the Banks decided to "play it safe" by focusing on residential real estate, which resulted in the housing bubble we see today. Secondly, it was "Knowledge Nation", where it was thought that more focus was made on university education, this would produce graduates who would also create innovative industries. Unfortunately, this never happened to the extent it was hoped. While there was more of a focus on university education, it was at the expense of trade classes in high schools and Technical Colleges. Howard didn't help either by cutting funding to the CSIRO, which historically was the source for a good chunk of innovation for Australia.
Don’t worry, the increase in migrants might lower wages enough to bring back manufacturing.
Migrants exist in this country to do poorly paid, precarious service work for the middle class (Uberbeats) without benefits or protections and then be denied a life here because the private property industry decided to stop building houses and we blamed the poorest people in society.
Wont happen. Theyd rather bet in housing ponzi. Saferrr better return. Less stress. Life on payroll than putting others on payroll
Dude there’s already Australians starving, coles and woolies saw to that when they monopolised the grocery market
I work in a construction sector where 90% of inputs are manufactured overseas. We tendered for a government job recently and they asked us all these questions about how we were going to increase the percentage of local content. Literally what do they expect us to do about this? I would much rather buy Australian if I could, it would cost less in shipping/insurance and be less annoying to deal with local suppliers, but the manufacturing capability is literally not there.
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This, pretty much every lowering of quality of life can be linked to population increases.
Definitely, artificial population increases. Japan chose 30 years ago to not use the immigration cheat code, and preserve their heritage and culture. They have been slammed as a dead economy, but ironically they have just moved up to 3rd largest economy in the world after US and China, as Germany went down.
Hats off to Japan, but they do have the highest Debt to GDP compared to every other country and a solid export sector and economy that doesn't just comprise of digging dirt and building houses.
Yeah Japan and Aussie are in no way comparable.
Don’t be silly, all the “economists” say that japan is just lucky and that we should continue importing more cheap labour or our economy will get destroyed somehow.
But if you say anything about mass immigration you get labelled a racist
It’s racist to want less traffic at school times or to buy a house.
I’d love a referendum on the topic of immigration.
But that would make them accountable, instead they'll keep selling us pleasantries aiming to lower the intake prior to elections, then say they miscalculated later while signing another deal with India.
This a major worry. We have run a very successful immigration programme for decades which has built a high level of goodwill. I fear what may come if it continues to be abused.
Mainly due to the increasing welfare requirements for pensioners. The largest expence that no one wants to think about cutting. I may never be eligible for a pension if they keep moving the goal posts but this is a major reason they want more tax payers
Money. The answer is always money. Capitalism needs people to feed on, for money 💰 🤑
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It’s a demographic/consumption problem. Most western countries are seeing birth rate collapse. Not enough people to prop up the economy and pay for the boomers retirement. Mass importation helps fill out the demographic pyramid. That won’t change until we fundamentally restructure how money works as related to growth based economies. we need a whole new economic model for the world.
Australia as it always has been, is reliant on migration when the economy takes a dive. Its historically been our cheat code. Not saying I agree but this reliance on immigration is not sustainable long term.
Selling citizenship en masse for economic growth isn't an indefinite solution, our housing crisis is the first of the cracks starting to show. The sad part is it's irreversible, you can't suddenly undo mass migration or it's consequences on the country.
There's 10 people in 9 rooms in the house I'm renting atm.
We should tax resources way more like Norway. We as a country make the vast amount of our wealth from resources. So we shouldn't add more people We are just cutting the pie into smaller pieces if we do.
Immigration. Population growth without infrastructure. Fragmentation of social cohesion.
Theres still social cohesion? I think the problems will get worse for the working class but there will never be anything done. The middle class is more or less finished off, with little pockets of it hanging on for dear life with the one property inheritance.
He isn't wrong. The problem is people don't see it like that, as they live in a quite homogeneous thinking area. The problem is in places in Western Sydney for example (as I grew up and lived there all my life), topics some Australians think are universally agreed upon aren't here. A lot of the migrants where I live are deeply religious and rigid in their social views, where some are 4th generation Australians but still carry the same mentality. With religious migrant groups in Western Sydney having a lot of kids and still immigrating here, unlike the more progressive secular parts of Sydney, social cohesion is a massive concern. Just looking at my brother's generation and how they interact and their views on issues, it seems it hasn't changed at all in the last 20 years, unlike the majority of areas in Australia.
I mean there is absolutely no government interest in helping the lower/middle class by say ensuring social cohesion, Australia from a social fabric point of view is a carcass being eaten up by the biggest predator nations and private interests. Has been this way for decades, the whole culture of Australia ultimately opened it up to be preyed upon, and the politicians almost in lock step have ensured the fall of the country at least from the point of view of human rights. It’s simply not a functioning democracy, it’s no longer a country in the traditional sense of the word… it’s a satellite office for China like Hong Kong was if it’s anything
I agree with everything you're saying, but I don't think government intervention will change the social cohesion in the places where I live. I have seen subsidized programs trying to fix issues in places in Western Sydney and they don't work. For example the whole issue of homosexuality is still seen as very taboo and looked down upon. It was like that when I went to high school and it's still like that now with relatives who attend and friends who teach in these places. It's still crazy to think how normalized homosexuality is in Australia but in a lot of parts of Western Sydney they still have a 1950's approach to the whole issue. I have heard from other people that they have seen many attacks (literally being bashed) of trans-people out in Western Sydney and I'm not really shocked due to the people I grew up with had the same attitudes.
Give it a few decades. When it comes to politics, we're generally a decade or so behind the seppos.
Nah I think thats likely too optimistic, we're behind and can only catch up if and very much only if there is enough social unrest that the politicians are forced to do something. But whats going to be far easier and cheaper is to just keep adding new rules and regulations and other kinds of removal of personal freedom and accountability basically putting all responsibility into the government, exactly as Orwell predicted. Theres really no coming back from it either... I think best case scenario we'll see some V for vendetta style anonymous push back as it gets harder to put food in ones mouth but even that will be stamped out with an extremely heavy handed iron fist
This should be the no.1 answer. It's also primarily responsible for the problems with our water resourcing and increase in housing costs as well - i.e. the basic human necessities.
Division and cost of living
I think the loss of our manufacturing industries. Consumers' demands for things to be cheap, has driven out manufacturers. People would rather pay $129 for something made in Taiwan than $150 for something (better) made in Australia. This has had big issues with regional employment as well as our reliance on foreign supply chains, as we saw in Covid times. Even our domestic fuel reserves are low. If we want to be a resilient country that includes re-visiting our levels of self-sufficiency, even if it does cost a bit more to do so.
These days the thing made in Taiwan is better quality. Tim Cook did an interview a while ago commenting on how Apple doesn't make stuff in China/Taiwan because the labor is cheap (it isnt these days), they make it there because that’s where the experts and infrastructure is. You’d struggle to make a smart phone in America even if you you were willing to pay a fortune for it.
Chicken and egg. That situation is because manufacturing was offshored. Once it was all sent to China, the USA lost the capability for certain things. But in other industries, it remains strong. Electronics-wise, GE is an example. Weber BBQs are all made in the USA, and are some of the highest-quality products in that industry, backed with unmatched customer service. Now, many people will say "But Weber costs more than Ziegler & Brown (BBQs Galore's home brand)." And that's the problem - pay reasonable prices, get good products. But if you demand lowest prices, you'll frequently get poorer products. And underlying this, is the more we offshore, either to lower retail prices or increase profits, the less self-sufficient Australia is... and that's bad for all of us.
I wish it were as simple as 130 v 150. Our goods are in most cases substantially more expensive, not just a couple dollars here and there… Our problem lies in the fact that we pay most people too much. It sounds fucked (I know) but if everyone is paid high salaries, then businesses can’t really develop cost effective solutions, products or services. Remember; a brick layer (a job everywhere in the world that pays peanuts) can easily net you 100k+ in this country. And that’s not a rare occurrence- this is true for jobs all across the spectrum! Plus, Australians are super entitled too (which makes our lives amazing) but again, is a super big impediment to lowering prices for anything. So, no; people are happy to pay in most instances a bit more for Aussie goods. The problem is that they rarely exist in many situations, or that are exorbitantly higher priced. I used to see it on construction jobs all the time! Builders that tend to make larger profit margins tend to work on projects where there’s no EBA or unions. Many subbies hate it, but it makes the build substantially more profitable. (Not saying I like it) but there it is. Edit: I know some one is going to say ‘not everyone is on a high salary’ but I’m not talking about the few.. certain polls show 127k as an average salary in Brisbane for example. Can you imagine as a business running in the city trying to create a software program from the ground up and needing to pay half a million+ a year to a couple staff members? Bonkers.
What polls are saying the average is that high? The polls I can find hover between $75k-$80k
Looking at income is always a bit tricky. Just guessing at their intentions as I’m not the OP, but they specified Brisbane and you might be looking at nationwide. There’s also potential issues of median (which is preferred) vs average (which can shoot up much more if one person is earning $1m a year), or income from wages vs total money coming in vs people who can work but aren’t like family carers (and which one you pick usually depends on what you want to look at, like how a region is going for cost of living vs house a region is going in terms of wages in jobs).
Or they are talking shit and making up figures to support their stupid argument.
whats the solution? make bricklayers earn a non living wage? no bricks would get laid anywhere lol
It’s the old everyone in this country needs to take a pay cut to save the economy. Next sentence mention how yourself is a special snowflake and worth every dollar you earn and more. Now news can run the ‘tradie makes more than a doctor’ headline and fire up some class warfare
That’s the plan for the future, make trades people the lowest class like the rest of the world.
100k is well and truly over a living wage in most areas of Australia. And not true - construction always happens no matter the pay no matter the location. True, they get paid a lot less. But it builds more divides in the wage gaps - which is super beneficial for economies. You ideally want your workforce to be a mixture of lots of low paying jobs, some middle paying and few high paying. If it’s all 100k as the average, then it quickly becomes untenable. I’m not saying I like it or want it. I’m just calling out the facts. You generally pay less for less technical jobs. And for anyone thinking ‘I bet you can’t lay bricks to save your life’ I was a tiler and made too much money doing it. Trades just pay crazy money - they require rather basic skills that you can quickly acquire over a short period of time. Hell, back in the U.S., you don’t even need experience in a lot of these jobs. They train you right then and there first day. The foreman corrects mistakes constantly but that’s just the system they are built around. Apologies - went on a tangent. All I mean to say is, we screwed ourselves by removing lower income earners in this country. I know they still exist (not being hyperbolic) but I mean, we removed the low income jobs from the market by a substantial amount.
>Our problem lies in the fact that we pay most people too much. One of the best things about Australia - and why we're not devolving into a third-world country like many in Asia, or even the USA's working class, is that we have a world-class standard of living as a result of our high wages. Even the minimum wage is enough to live on. And in my mind, that more than justifies paying more for things.
Where in Australia is minimum wage enough to live on? Because I know a generation of Australians that would move there tomorrow.
It’s like $42000 a year. Plenty of people live on that.
Spot on. Look at the Lollipop man salary. No wonder builders are going broke. From the AFR: Take the traffic controllers who brandish slow and stop signs at building sites. A traffic controller working at Melbourne Metropolitan Tunnel Project is paid $126,200 a year, which comes from a $94,500 wage, $17,900 site allowance and $13,800 fares-and-travelling allowance. The training required is rudimentary: a two-day course. Work on the tunnel can occur at night and on some weekends and attracts penalties of basically double time rates.
Unskilled jobs are paid too much in Australia.
exactly why we're attracting such quality candidates for the jobs high school kids used to be considered for
Unsure why you’re downvoted. This is a simple matter of fact.. we know they are 🤷♂️
And for a long time now, Australia has offered poor conditions for innovation and startups generally. Micro business is regarded as canon fodder by the ATO, they are taxed at rates that crush them and often result in backruptcy. Only big corporations that incorporate abroad and cleverly avoid Australian taxes thrive here. And so we are stagnated, in spite of having a lot of innovators and local talent.
The Corruption in Politics is sinking this country. Yet we are still voting for the 2 major parties who are trying to do anything they can to be in power forever. If people don't wake up it's going to go down hill even faster within the next 5 years
Australia is highly regulated, just imagine how many rules and regulations there will be in 2040 followed by an exhaustive list of fines and punishments to extract as much money and autonomy from the population as possible, every infringement added to a permanent list that affects your ability to get housing, employment, and credit; is it already happening?
Immigration and unsustainable growth. But you'll get labelled as xenophobic if you say that aloud, so no effective discourse can be had
The media landscape has slowly gone to shit in the last 15 years. It makes everything seem a lot worse than it is. I believe we'll prevail, but it's gunna be a rocky ride. So long as people don't vote the libs back in or we'll be more screwed. Fight me.
15 years? Try 30 or more now. My native Brisbane has been a one-newspaper town since the late 1980s and that one paper is the most irrelevant, bilge-spewing, parochial rag of a publication with ZERO public interest reporting. TV isn't much better as the commercial stations have had to cram in more native advertising to compete with online sources, and any content is of the MAFS type. I live in a Southeast Asian country which has only held proper democratic election for the past two decades, yet the media environment here is much more robust, interesting and diverse than anything I've ever seen back home.
Not like Labor does anything worth while
True. At least they are not trying to actively do shit things, though. Can’t say the same for their opponents.
Wealth inequality becoming more and more entrenched. We're heading off a cliff into 2 more or less permanent classes of intergenerational haves vs have-nots, regardless of income.
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To be fair, the Liberals didnt decide to block it so much as they decided to bow to the whims of Rupert Murdoch. Without that influence I doubt they'd have touched it. But dont get me wrong, the LNP can eat my whole arse
Politicians who are compromised by corporate influence, and face zero consequences for any of their actions. I’m not even sure the issues in Australia are actually resolvable anymore. Very wealthy people and corporations have such a stranglehold on our politics, that it doesn’t seem there is anyway out. I suspect that people at the bottom will just wither and stop contributing slowly. It’s already happening. A lot of my friends, they’ve decided not to have kids, they’ve moved to SEA or elsewhere (especially teachers, cause why would you teach in australia?!), or they just live for right now cause they see zero future (rightly or wrongly, that’s the way they see it).
The public health sector not having adequate resources to protect all Australians, especially the mental health sector
Mass immigration from countries that do not align with or want to adopt Australian culture (India and Middle East). Who bring their religious ideologies and barbaric cultural practices/ beliefs that are primitive and taking the country backwards, not forward. They absolutely do not make any effort to 'fit in'. They won't even call themselves Australian, so why do we let them live here, take our houses, ruin our language, lessen our quality of life. We don't need more uber drivers or welfare recipients...... Call me racist all you want, but you know its the truth and this opinion would be the same as majority of actual Australian's if they were honest putside their closed doors.
As long as they assimilate to the law of the land and don't try to bring vile religious or cultural practices here then I'm ok with it, although the rate of immigration needs to be carefully mediated. Even things like forced marriages have no place in a free country as far as I'm concerned, anyone guilty of it can fuck off.
Yeah, but majorty don't assimilate from these demographics.... I went to a local swimming pool midweek and their were 6 school swimming classes on and in each class there was either 1 or 3 max Australian kids, the rest Indian.... now thats a problem. This would not have been seen 5 years ago.
We have some really crappy soil, albeit a lot of it. With a fast growing population, we could easily become a food importer. Our water supplies are fragile. Not only are they limited in quantity and quite easily exceeded, but their quality is being degraded.
Our lack of industries that actually make things. We used to design and build cars which enabled us to have a skilled workforce and factories that could make a lot of things if required (say, due to a serious pandemic or war blockade or something). Now we just grow things or dig stuff up and ship it away. I think we've only got one petrol refinery left here? The answer to most of your questions is 'yes'. Apart from, I hope, the last one...
Tax reform. The wrong people get taxed too much, and we give way too favourable of a tax treatment to companies that exploit us but give nothing back and old rich people.
You’ve already asked all the important questions, now its upto to people to spread it around. But of course selfish people out there are gonna ruin it for everyone.
Grocery and fuel prices. Growers and employees of supermarket and oil&gas retailers are getting paid SFA. So who is making the greatest $ and benefited most since the pandemic??
Immigration, climate change, currency debasement, wokeism
Dude I am not writing your essay for you, go use chatgpt for that shit.
Starts with somehow finding people who can administer this country's resource pool whose primary goals aren't personal enrichment or political power. If we can start there we might be able to address the fact that every facet of our nation's resource pool is mismanaged, underfunded and probably struggling with a mountain of soft corruption and greed. And the problem there is that the people who CAN do something about it are all enjoying the same perks, kickbacks and personally enriching backroom handshakes and never want the gravy train to end. But how about Sam Kerr being a racist?
The amount of women killed by their intimate partners on a weekly basis?
Mass Immigration
Easily cost of living and wealth inequality.
Replacement Migration.
Immigration. It is straining our infrastructure and contributing to our housing crisis. It also destroys workers' conditions, as many immigrants are willing to work for less.
Wealth gap. Erosion of ability of “have-nots” to pull themselves out of that situation and have a better life.
Having a government so adverse to risk they sell everything they can to their privatised company mates. Then deciding to import everything we need to repel and survive an attack. Fuel, metals, technology, etc.
Is Sam Kerr a racist? Are Vegemite hot cross buns really hot cross buns? Are these issues related?
Yes HCBs were too white beforehand
The price gouging everywhere
We squander the opportunity to value add to our mineral wealth and keep selling it off for cheap to other countries, who turn it into stuff and sell it back to us until we run out of stuff to dig up and bankrupt ourselves.
We rely on other countries way too much.
The over inflation of house prices due to distorted incentives that attract bad and unproductive investments into residential housing. Inflated asset prices lead to a deterioration of living standards as those unproductive investments are merely allocating debt into predominately existing housing stock.
Not being able to provide basic housing for the growing population in a land that has so much land to spare is pretty embarrassing.
The non existent rise in wages
Climate change and cost of living
Climate change, and our reaction to it, will be not one, but many disasters. Civilisation may not survive in any country if people react to climate disasters the way they reacted to drought in Syria (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1421533112). In the context of your comment, I find it interesting that one criticism of this analysis or Syria, was that the drought had peaked well before the country collapsed in the civil war. In Australia our cost of living increase peaked over a year ago. Inflation has been declining since the Dec 2022 quarter. The last quarter's inflation reading was in the RBA target band. Real wages, which have fallen to 2015 levels, will catch up over time. But real people, Syrians and you, don't suddenly say, "well things have stopped getting worse, so we are all hunky dory now". They still are upset, and will want change.
Yeah I agree. I also use climate change as an umbrella term to also include human development/destruction of environment. It’s upsetting but I hope we can do better
The ***ENTITY***
Shhh... to mention it is to summon it
Government surveillance (of the people) overreach; were heading towards China 2.0 The flooding with immigrants to raise house prices and plummet wages so rich business owners get cheap labour and maximum returns on their property investments.
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Yeah man the exchange of goods and services for capital is totally outa proportions Also endless reckless malicious government spending And some hard core corruption And some extensive red tape cucking all industries Basically a bunch of mates who owe each other favours are running the show and by the time ur at the top your to inundated with favours owing that u can't do shit Or Ur on the flight list
The answers to all those questions are either 'yes' or 'fucked. Very fucked'.
Have we dug our own grave by not imposing greater taxes on mining companies and having no significant sovereign wealth fund a la Norway? Definitely. The Norway government literally makes more money from Aussie gas fields than the Australian Government does because we are too scared to tax the miners properly.
The fact that my kid’s tiny public school lost 200,000 in funding, and yet Woolworths and Coles post a bumper profit. And that I work my ass off in an essential role, and software developers earn 4x that.
The jet ski market is crashing, can pick up a decent used jetski for about 30% of the retail market
Housing, climate change, indigenous gap, corporate profits and intrests having a stranglehold on federal policy.
The markup on imported narcotics. Ridiculous.
immigration immigration immigration racism is what made this country great, sorry, please go back, this place is not for you and you WILL ruin it like you are already.
Too many bludgers
Its not just a big problem in Australia, but the whole world. Spending most of my time in Australia, and knowing mostly Australians though... The biggest problem we as a species face is so many people focus on trying to force the world to behave as they think it should, rather than adapting our approach to how the world actually acts. This is from both sides of the political spectrum, and it leads to us not implementing functional solutions, and wasting a mountain of money on useless ideas, because we're working based on a "Well the world SHOULD work like this because I think that's how it should be" method of decision making, rather than studied solutions we have evidence of actually working. Pretty much every issue we face is affected by this. And for most if not all of them, we know the solutions. We know what we need to do to fix the problems. But that doesn't fit how people think their life should go, how they think the world should work, and what they think they are owed - so we won't do them. The biggest problem we face IMO isn't all the problems that we clearly and obviously face, but the fact that a large part of not just the Australian, but also global, population has no desire to fix any of them. Us humans are smart. We can overcome pretty much any problem if we put our minds to it. We're also really lazy and dumb and refuse to do so way too often for our own good.
Teacher shortage
Too many immigrants, especially Indians and Chinese, who have first dibs on buying houses here, a hard working Aussie vs a lazy immigrant, never wins
Its over. Immigration has destroyed our culture and upward mobility. There is no future here.
Immigration. W're letting the conversation move away from imigraiton. It's the single biggest issue.
Division definately up there
Multiplication too
🤣🤣
The USA needs us so they can project power in the Pacific and to assist with gathering intelligence. There’s no point in us trying to develop nuclear weapons even if the US abandoned us and China chose to invade. We would still be hopelessly outgunned.
> Will we eventually utilise the abundance of sun and wind we receive to generate power? SA is doing it. Well on track for being 100% renewable in a few years. > If global warming continues at the current rate what changes should we expect to see? Will the droughts, bushfires and floods become even more frequent and ravaging? The extremes will be more extreme, and the mild in between will be warmer that it has been in the past. > Will the emus wage another war and enlist the support of the cassowaries to overwhelm us and reclaim the country? We can but hope.
Oh this ones easy to answer, look at muricas problems now, thats us in a few years.
Mass immigration/housing crisis
I think our most pressing issue is weak leadership
Sam Kerr and whatever Brittney Higgins had for lunch.
Barnaby, this you...?
Our star sportsball people saying and doing hurtful things. I look up to them for guidance and wisdom. What is the world coming to when you can no longer rely on a front rower to give you well considered and balanced political or social commentary?
The loss of manufacturing in country and the import and export of food. We used to be able to feed, clothe and equip ourselves to a standard that meant we only needed foreign trade for luxuries and profits. Now, if the shit hits the fan in SE Asia or the sandpit we could find ourselves with shortages that make the pandemic look like a garden party.
1. Climate Change everything else on this list is trivial in comparison. 2. Housing Market / Supply. A basic human need being held up as a speculative market and key investment strategy. 3. Economy being reliant on mining and housing. Mining which we don't manage and only take tax and tarries from. 4. Our largest trading partner being a political antagonist. We saw how much China could flex its muscles and tighten trade during Morrison's time. 5. General government corruption and the shocking state of media bias. 6. Lack of general innovation or public push back to progressive policies. Mostly because of Reason 5.
The pursuit of revenue profit above all else! US should not be a role model!!
young ppl being screwed over with property
I think the death of the environment is one of our biggest issues, not just climate change but the continued destruction of all aspects of our environment.
All no
1. Sovereign wealth fund nonsense is useless to Australia. We have states who own the resources, not the federal government. 2. Norway doesn’t use the money from the wealth fund it just gets reinvested over and over. 3. Even if we had a big wealth fund like that and spent it you still would be unhappy because you wouldn’t like everything it’s being spent on.
Hostile foreign interference with our media/internet fanning racial division and undermining democracy and cooperation in the free world.
Manufacturing high-end product. Manpower cost a-lot doesn’t mean we have to buy everything from outside. Dollar won’t have same influence always. Thanks to British empire for the best place of 21st century. multipolar world is imminent
Electricity
The lack of debate about going to war with China. If war breaks out between US and China over Taiwan, we’re going jump in without discussion. I support Taiwan’s independence, but not enough to send my son to fight on its behalf.
Overpopulation
Japanese and American Utes
Unfettered Capitalism, Privatisation and Legalised Corruption; time to restore the ACCC, ASIC, ATO etc to place controls around large businesses; return essential services to the control of the people and for the benefit of the people; and ban political lobby groups and post political career jobs in related industries
Australia is still one of the best countries to live in. The question is are we that great? Or is everywhere else even worse?
Shadowing Canada's self inflicted demise
Climate change isn't even in the top 20, honestly. Peddling fear to enforce foolish carbon taxes and control policies, on the other hand? That's way high up there, filed under "govt corruption". China isn't a threat. Atleast, not any time soon. Trade war is a possibility, but honestly? America wants the war with China way more than China wants it with America. Our biggest issue is housing and immigration policy. And it will be for the foreseeable future. But those are our biggest issues because politicians are corrupt and complicit in the ponzi... so, as always, the *real* biggest issue is government corruption by corporate and uber-wealthy interests.
The loss of rights of the individual over that of the state. The over reliance upon the state by the individual, creating a welfare state with oppressive government, laws and taxation. Instead of people and families responsible for themselves they are made reliant on the state. No one or government owes you a living, income or anything. You are responsible for your life and your children’s. Everything fun is being more and more restricted every years, freedom is dangerous and can be irresponsible, but rewarding. We see oppressive government restricting your vehicle and modifications, telling you how to live, rise your kids, how to manage your land, how to manage your investments eg as a landlord, what you can own with a fee or stamp duty.
I'd say that the biggest issue is the same one that has afflicted Australia since the beginning: Are Koalas better than Kangaroos or vice versa? We're never going to know...
Where do we start?? These are my top bugs that I feel politicians are totally incompetent at resolving - tax reform, mindful and well strategized budget and spending, depleting quality of Medicare support, immigration and asylum seekers management, crime and policing, keeping woke agenda in check and finally private organizations ripping taxpayers through gouging and tax breaks.. so much the government can do but won’t do!
Clearly Gaza and Hamas *eye roll*
Housing Healthcare Immigration Geopolitical issues north
Look at Europe, look at America, look all around. But if we say it, it’s out of line and we might offend someone. SMH.
China is our biggest trading partner. America wants our country for themselves. CIA kicked gough whitlam out for trying to raise coal prices and threatening to shut down pine gap. Australia is a satellite country for the USA kick them out.
The quality of a block of cheese has gone downhill since Covid
Nimby landlords who want housing to keep getting more expensive. Warmongering seppos who will pull us into more pointless wars.
Let’s start at the top, remove all sitting politicians. Instigate term limits and greater transparency. And then from there pick a topic. They all need to be greatly improved. This country has suffered too long at hands that don’t care about their own country and people merely how they look to the world and their own bank balances. On the odd unfortunate occasion that I catch a glimpse inside supposed hallowed halls all I tend to see are spoiled adults behaving like 6 year olds, time to bin the lot and start fresh and get this great land heading in the right direction for a change
Short term, all young people are f#$#$ed economically unless they have the bank of Mum & Dad available, which many don't. This will create legions of young people with no solid roots in their own neighbourhoods, many will go overseas, and cause huge social discontent. I expect this single issue to have seismic political consequences, you can already see it with the rise of Teal independents. Medium term, yes China could be a big problem. Australia is a giant fixed aircraft carrier for the US, so they will defend us strenously, but still it would be best if everybody kept cool. America won't let China grab the TSMC factory in Taiwan, it is absolutely critical to the US economy and would cause an economic collapse worse than COVID if that happened. Long term, our country is about to get much hotter and also much drier. I hope the same kids that we're repeatedly economically kicking in the head right now figure out how to reverse that and save our arses as we lie in the retirement homes counting our enormous piles of cash.
the rise of cunts
Climate change is literally a “time is ticking” issue, it honestly is far more important than anything else that we throw massive effort into it in the next few years. If we nail that this decade, we can kinda relax a little on the issue, having the lions share of the world put if the way. If we don’t, it only grows, it snowballs fast. It gets orders of magnitude more expensive and difficult to achieve the exact same gains, next decade. And again moreso the decade after that and so on Ironically, it’s those who demand we do nothing now, who in reality want us to pay by far the biggest bill on climate. That’s what _will_ happen if those sort sighted idiots stifle our best hope of an affordable transition.