Chris Richardson, director of Australia’s largest economic consultancy firm, Access Economics, has come out claiming that the Government’s stimulus handouts were not a waste of money, and have saved our economy from a recession.
Richardson was on board at the launch of the BankSA and Access Economics ‘Trends’ economic bulletin yesterday and offered his opinion on how Australia is on track to emerge from the Global Financial Crisis in a better position than many advanced economies.
The bulletin stated that the Australia was “running at speed” when the crisis hit with national population growth at a high and the pipeline of engineering and commercial construction work also at record levels.
Combining this with the countries strong banking sector, cuts in interest rates and the stimulus package, the bulletin outlined Australia should expect a smaller crisis than many comparable nations.
Richardson was adamant that it was the work of policy makers in cutting interest rates and delivering large stimulus packages, was what saved us from recession.
“The stimulus packages are often regarded as a waste of money by the business community, but this is short sighted,” he said.
“While economists would have liked more targeted spending, the Federal Governments package is far better than it s US equivalent and was a much faster response. This has helped to slow the downturn here in Australia rather than just ramp up the recovery.”
But despite the good news Richardson was still wary of the future.
“This is going to be a year when people spend less, and it will take 12 months to see the true impact of the Government’s response,” he said.