Australian Left Review
Article Title
Economic Notes
Abstract
It’s three years since the current recession hit Australia. No post-war economic downturn has been so severe or lasted so long. Perhaps for this reason, but also because no-one likes to be too pessimistic, economic debate in Australia at the moment mainly consists o f pious wishes rather than hardheaded analysis . Politicians , businessmen and economists are hard at work trying to talk the economy into a recovery but so far with little success. One reason, of course, is that Australia is plugged into the still depressed world economy. Economic debate in Australia has traditionally ignored this simple fact. It has been thought that keeping the economy humming is the main job of the government of the day; conversely, if anything goes drastically wrong, it must be the government’s fault.