A new report highlights that Australia’s economic challenges are home-grown and says more needs to be done to address weak growth, stagnant wages and unemployment.
 
In its latest Business Outlook, Deloitte Access Economics forecasts below-trend growth of 2.2 per cent in 2019-20, well below the Morrison Government’s Budget forecasts.
 
According to Deloitte, “the pain in our economy has been homegrown” and we are unlikely “to see wages accelerate or to see unemployment fall much over the coming year”.
 
Australians do not trust Scott Morrison or Josh Frydenberg to address the economic slowdown, wage stagnation or rising costs, with families and businesses having “lost confidence in the ability of political leaders to govern wisely”.
 
The report also highlights that the RBA has been doing all the heavy lifting, and faces an increasingly difficult balancing act of trying to support the economy while preserving flexibility should global downside risks materialise.
 
Australians know there is a problem because their wages are stagnating, they can’t get enough work, and the cost of essentials like childcare have skyrocketed.
 
The only people who don’t know that there is a problem are the out of touch Liberals.
 
Collapsing confidence and weak growth are the inevitable consequence of a Liberal Government which has a political strategy but not an economic policy.
 
Right when Australians need and expect a plan from the Morrison Government to get the economy going again all they get instead is finger-pointing, blame-shifting and wedge politics.
 
It is time Josh Frydenberg and Scott Morrison brought forward a budget update to fix their forecasts and properly outline an economic plan that supports the floundering economy and better safeguards Australians from global turbulence.

MONDAY, 14 OCTOBER 2019