Poor Wayne Swan is just not getting any appreciation according to Reuters. Despite seeming to hold the Australian economy from global crisis, Australian voters look set to punish the incumbent Labour party at the September federal election:
Around 400,000 first-time voters go into Australia's September elections with no idea of economic hardship, adding to Treasurer Wayne Swan's mounting problems as he delivers what is shaping up as his last, and most difficult, budget on Tuesday.
Swan is confronted by a slowing economy, a mining boom which is nearing its peak, falling tax revenue and a political promise to rein in spending, leaving him with no money to spend on pre-election handouts.(here)As notedelsewhere the obsession with surplus is a bit fanciful given the global macroeconomics and ultimately in a possibly soon crisis or contagion, will not help much (see the previous post about Australia's currency peashooter). But while having sympathy for Wayne's position we feel it slightly ambitious to seek to blame the high AUD as the cause. Immediate cause yes, but in global terms the high AUD is the symptom of a larger imbalance, which Wayne and his team have not addressed and will ultimately lead to their undoing.
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