Poor growth due to cautiousness
Poor house price performance is the result of cautious ‘attitudes’ from the Australian public, according to treasurer Wayne Swan.
Despite poor performance in sentiment surveys across the board, treasurer Wayne Swan recently noted that Australian’s should be looking positively at their current situation.
Mentioning interest rate cuts in his ‘Treasurer’s economic note’ yesterday, Mr Swan said that while Australia has not been immune to global economic turbulence, households are currently doing well.
“Australians on a $300,000 mortgage are now paying around $4,000 less repayments per year than they were when Labor came to office,” Mr Swan wrote.
However, he pointed to the current poor property value situation as a result of “more cautious attitudes towards debt that have contributed to the softness,” and also pointed to poor superannuation performance as an area where negativity is obvious.
But, overall, he believed the picture is a positive one, with the population now a 'more equal society than we went in' as a result of the GFC.
"We have an economy that's growing solidly, an investment pipeline in resources worth half a trillion dollars, healthy consumption growth, low unemployment plus contained inflation," he said.