Labor luminary and former ACTU boss Bill Kelty has slammed the quality of economic management in Australia, saying taxes and spending are too high, and there is “something really wrong” when living standards are falling at the same time commodity prices are booming.
The Northern Territory is poised at the edge of a resources boom but the opportunity will pass by without dedicated efforts to make it happen, according to industry leaders.
Why does the Northern Territory remain reliant on federal taxpayer funding, and given the record and increasing government debt, combined with the lack of importance for territory votes that federal parties outside the territory have, how long can it rely on the extent of such taxpayer funding?
The Territory’s largest private investor Gina Rinehart has backed the Finocchiaro government’s call to the Albanese Government that it needs to unlock northern Australia’s dormant potential through Special Economic Zones.
Picture a part of your own country so full of promise it could lift the living standards of every working household from Darwin to Alice, Townsville and Cairns, to Carnarvon and Kununurra — and yet our north sits three quarters dormant, its potential smothered under rules written by people who have never worked there.
Many people are caught in the costly slipstream of financial changes.
Our national debt is projected by Treasury to exceed $1 trillion this year. We are all responsible for the interest on that debt and the Treasurer admits there will be deficits and increasing debt well into the future. Is this a legacy we wish to leave our children? Most of the states are on a similar dangerous trajectory.
The Albanese Government’s failure to adequately think through possible consequences of its Budget has left significant problems unresolved. One of those revolves around the future of mineral exploration.
Former NSW premier and now senior BHP executive Dominic Perrottet has warned Australia’s critical mineral industry that countries such as Argentina are becoming increasingly attractive for an Australian company such as BHP to invest in.
Australia’s national debt has been projected to exceed $1 trillion as falling productivity, punitive taxes and unreliable energy are crippling agriculture and future generations.
