Global slowdowns in growth, hints of an impending meltdown in markets due to fears over the Chinese economy, business confidence declining, inflation not picking up... and here in Australia all we get from politicians is bullshit, vote buying and blame games. Our economy will be hit hard, but maybe it's the crash we have to have.
It belies belief, but you are so right; the incompetence of both parties has them only working together on policy - digging the hole that we find ourselves in.
Bonus: it's now being reported that the current El Nio weather event could be amongst the strongest ever recorded. If it leads to a correspongyly bad drought in Australia (no one really knows for sure at this stage) then farmers could be hit hard and food prices may skyrocket.
The energy glut is leading to excess corn in lots of places (less ethanol being used), there will be plenty of food for years even if half the crops fail...as long as you like corn syrup.
Actually stacking the local wines that will mature well when they are newer and cheaper might not be a bad idea. More extreme weather events that will happen more often will mean fewer good years, great vintages will become rarer. I live right near the Barossa and I grew up there, I've seen the things they are doing to try and mitigate weather effects, it's probably saved several years over the last decade, but overall the number of perfect growing years from the traditional wine regions will be getting smaller, not bigger. This would be especially true of Californian wine as well but South Australian wines would be neatly as plagued. Look for good years/brands at general house contents and estate auctions or similar sales, you'll get really good prices there vs buying from a shop. There's loads of great reviews on pretty much every good wine made online with very detailed price histories.
Plenty of things, and many have probably been discussed on the forum. But primarily, governments need to show some leadership and integrity, and make decisions based on the future economic well being of Australia rather than on the next election. Chances of that happening: zero.
I'm going to assume that by plenty of things you probably don't mean reduce taxes, reduce red tape and reduce government spending?
Your good at making completely stupid and unfounded assumptions. Maybe you should run for government? You'd fit right in. Business have been reporting recently that red tape has been increasing under the current government. That's one of the first things that should be removed.
Of course it is increasing, how else can they justify their own existence? If they just stayed out of the way then they wouldn't be able to tax and spend 1/3 of the GDP. When talking about how we need our government to fix our problems, it implies that you think that they can and therefore that you think they should mess with our economy further. The government usually makes things worse by trying to "fix" things.
Simply cutting back on things isn't helpful if the processes themselves are inefficient. Case in point: I'm currently trying to re-paint a heritage listed building (exactly the same colour that it is now). I understand the heritage aspect and I'm more than happy to ensure the work is done sensitively and the structure is preserved properly for future generations but the process of getting the approvals (or exemptions) is arduous. There does need to be a process to ensure people (including me) don't screw things up, but this one is just designed very badly i.e. it starts from the premise that somebody wants to demolish the building. The majority of people who'll just take it for granted that you can't do that need a process that starts with how to maintain and repair the building. A new coat of paint is basic maintenance and it needs to be done on a semi-regular basis so the process should be designed to make that easy. Tip the whole thing upside-down and you get exactly the same amount of red tape, but it's infinitely easier for more people to navigate their way through and the building still gets preserved. This is what Australia sucks at: putting things in the "too hard" basket and dumping them rather than just sitting down and figuring out how to do them well.
Everything is ok people, the big man has spoken. Keeps spending. http://www.msn.com/en-au/money/news...thias-cormann/ar-AAdSQCF?li=AAabC8j&ocid=iehp