Turn around in economy in April...boom time.

[Guest BurgessFamily]

"Sales in April were at their highest since May 2009, led by a strong performance for department store sales and by the Easter holiday season which suggests second quarter growth is on track."

 

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/markets/retail-sales-bounce-back-strongly-in-april-official-data-shows/story-e6frg926-1226067829545

[jim and adel]

It was only yesterday that it was announced that the Aus economy had suffered its biggest quarterly drop in 20 years. Penny Wong was smugly dismissing it on the radio this morning as simply a result of the Qld floods until it was pointed out that SA suffered a bigger decline in the period than Qld ... she didn't have much of an answer apart from 'yes, I saw that'.

 

Jim

[Guest BurgessFamily]

I know, but you can't beat a bit of spruiking, and just because it was better than last year doesn't mean it's good.

 

I'm sure it will pick up, and if not, we'll all be down the mines.

 

 

....

QANTAS has offered voluntary redundancies to all 7000 of its cabin crew in response to high fuel prices.

[jim and adel]

I'm sure it will pick up, and if not, we'll all be down the mines.

 

Well given that there are two thousand fewer people working in the resources sector in SA now than five years ago, and SA has just 0.2% of Australia's mining (the lowest of all mainland states), I wouldn't bank on those mines being in SA.

 

ABS figures last week showed that less than 1% of mining capital expenditure is earmarked for SA. Access Economics produced a report a week earlier warning that SA was being left further behind WA and Qld (the sector suffered a $31m cut in wages in SA last year).

 

I'm not sure how long you can be on a cusp of somethiing (kept there by massive taxpayer incentives for companies to carry out exploration in SA), but we've been on it a long time. I'm no expert on resources booms, but ours looks far more like political hype than reality.

 

Jim