Charlie Nelson
director foreseechange
July 2002
Tim Colebatch, economics editor of The Age, points out that Australia’s performance on unemployment is poor relative other OECD economies, despite 20 years of above-average economic growth (The Age July 23, 2002, page 11).
The government has bragged about our strong economic growth and low interest-rate environment. There is a mis-match between this boasting the priority of Australians.
Based on over 40,000 interviews by Nielsen Media Research over the year to March 2002, unemployment is the most important social issue and is a much more important issue than economic growth or interest rates. Survey respondents were asked to indicate their first, second, and third priorities from a list of issues. Unemployment was the most frequently ranked first and was in the top three most often. Economic growth was the second most frequently ranked first, but the fifth issue in terms of being ranked in the top three.
But it is not just the government that has its priorities wrong. A search of The Age’s internet site (articles in The Age only in the last month) reveals 42 articles on unemployment, compared with 71 on interest rates, 177 on the environment, 141 on education and over 200 on health.
Clearly The Age has too many articles on interest rates and too few on unemployment.
Australia’s performance on unemployment is not only bad relative to other advanced economies. It is also bad by the standards required by Australians.