Gold star for the Australian economy

In coming weeks it shall be interesting to see how the Opposition's Abbott and Hockey work a negative political spin on the International Monetary Fund and the Reserve Bank of Australia's consistently positive view of the national economy.

International Monetary Fund's Australia—2010 Article IV Consultation Concluding Statement September 15, 2010:

This statement contains our preliminary policy recommendations following discussions with the Australian authorities and a range of private sector institutions. The discussions focused on the pace of exit from macro stimulus, managing the mining boom, and addressing vulnerabilities related to high household and external debt.

1. Despite growth slowing due to the global financial crisis, Australia was one of the few advanced economies to escape recession in 2009. This reflected strong demand for commodities from China, a prompt and significant macro policy response, a healthy banking sector, and a flexible exchange rate. With a mining boom now driving the recovery and dissipating spare capacity, policy stimulus is appropriately being withdrawn.
2. Australia’s growing integration with emerging Asia also underpins its favorable medium-term growth prospects. However, it brings with it vulnerabilities to which policy will need to respond. The impact on Australia’s terms of trade from industrialization and urbanization in China and the rest of emerging Asia is expected to be long lived. Careful macroeconomic management of the mining boom could permanently raise household incomes in Australia. However, shifting resources to the mining sector without giving rise to inflationary pressures will be challenging. Moreover, the growing dependence on mining may amplify the business cycle, as the economy will be more vulnerable to swings in the terms of trade.

Reserve Bank's 30 September 2010 Financial Stability Review :

The Australian financial system remains in relatively strong condition, as does the broader economy. The effects of the global crisis on the Australian economy and financial system were quite mild, and economic growth has now broadly returned to trend. This performance reflects several factors including the greater scope that existed for macroeconomic policy action in Australia to moderate the impact of the crisis, the comparatively strong balance sheets of the domestic banks in the period leading into the crisis, and the high exposure of the Australian economy to trade with the Asian region.
Indicators of the financial strength of Australian banks have generally continued to improve recently.
In aggregate, Australia’s banking system remained profitable during the crisis period, and profits have increased further in the latest half year. The flow of bad debt charges has generally peaked, while the stock of non-performing assets on banks’ balance sheets appears to be stabilising at a level that remains low in comparison with previous cyclical experience. Loan impairments and losses have been concentrated mainly in lending to businesses, particularly for commercial property. There has been some upward drift in arrears rates on the housing portfolio, though these remain fairly low overall......

The financial position of the household and business sectors in Australia remains sound. Household incomes have been growing at a solid pace and unemployment has been declining. Households continue to exhibit a somewhat more cautious approach to debt than prior to the crisis, with welcome signs that the recent housing market strength led by first-home buyers has cooled.
Notwithstanding recent cyclical variations, housing prices have shown little net change as a ratio to incomes over several years, following an earlier structural increase in this ratio associated with financial deregulation and the shift to a low inflation environment. Within the national housing market, there has been some significant regional variation, with market conditions particularly strong recently in Victoria.

In the business sector, there has been considerable deleveraging in the post-crisis period, bringing average debt-to-equity and interest-payment ratios to levels close to their lowest in three decades.
Businesses have made use of both new equity issuance and strong internal funding during this process. While this shift in business funding was in part demand-driven, there was also a notable tightening of supply in 2008 and 2009; the availability of debt funding to businesses now appears to be improving, though credit availability for some sectors, including commercial property, remains quite constrained.....