Monday, November 15, 2010

OECD Economic Survey

There has been and will continue to be a lot of nonsense written about the recently released OECD Economic Survey of Australia. Most people won't get to read the detail for themselves and will have to make do with having it presented to them through the *filter* of our "high quality" media ;-)

There are lots to digest and most of it is top notch. Chapter 3 focuses on infrastructure - and as some of us will be aware various Australian governments have underfunded the national infrastructure for decades.

Nothing illustrates this more than "Figure 3.4 Commonwealth spending on road and rail infrastructure" - sorry but I can't show it or point to it here.

But the numbers are telling - during the last 5 years of the Howard/Costello government spending was at an average of a little more than $2 billion each year. The first five years of the Rudd/Gillard/Swan government (actual and projected) has spending at an average of a little more than $5 billion each year. A 2.5 times increase!

That well illustrates the scale of the problem that was created by the conservatives - and which now needs to be addressed by our national government. But you probably won't see that discussed in the main stream media.

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