Monday, March 14, 2005

150 tonnes of iron ore = 1 plasma TV

Australia has been led down the garden path. For too long we have been content to be the world's farm and quarry. Despite the highest export prices in a generation we have just recorded the highest current account deficit in our history.

Our politicians seem content for us to dig up rocks, transport them around the world where they are turned into complex manufactured goods, and then buy them back with money borrowed from overseas. The result is that we now owe the world nearly $21,000 for every man, woman and child in Australia. In 2003 we had to export 150 tonnes of iron ore to buy one plasma television.

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