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The Australian economy has avoided recession and is "through the worst" of the global financial crisis, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data. The ABS reported that the economy grew by 0.4 percent in the first three months of 2009, defying international trends and debunking Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's April prediction that a recession was "inevitable". Speaking after the release of the data, Mr Rudd said the economy is "not out of the woods yet", but welcomed the figures as "good news for the Australian economy". A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. The economy shrank by 0.5 percent in the final quarter of 2008. Economists said the result showed that government spending had supported the economy and that the weaker Australian dollar in Q1 had supported strong export growth. "It is an encouraging sign," Riki Polygenis, economist at ANZ told ninemsn. "It shows that the economy has been responding to fiscal stimulus and lower interest rates." Australia is the only industrialised country in the world except South Korea to record economic growth in the first three months of this year. Treasurer Wayne Swan claimed that the result was due in part to the government's stimulus strategy, which, he said, had saved "thousands" of jobs. "The government's economic stimulus strategy is clearly helping to cushion Australia from the worst impacts of the global recession and ensure we are well placed to seize the opportunities presented by the global recovery when it arrives," he said. The unexpected result means that Australia may now be "through the worst" of the financial crisis that has caused huge slumps in economic growth across the world
Originally posted by eldard
Don't get complacent for too long. Higher taxes mean higher cost of resources for China.
Originally posted by rogue1
Originally posted by eldard
That being said, it wasn't what the government did in the last year, it's what Howard did in his 11 years of power. He left Labour with an extremely stable and robust economy, which as usual they'll wreck. Imagine if Labour had been at the helm during the Asian Economic Crisis.
Other economies were also strong prior to the global meltdown, so yes Costello was a very good treasurer, but the Labour Government has managed something different to the rest of the world that has kept our economy in growth. A recession isnt how much you had in the kitty previously, a recession is 2 quarters of no economic growth, and this stability was managed on Rudds watch.
I'm interested if we can work out why we stayed afloat when other countries could not.