Australia has its largest current account deficit in six years

Australia's economy growing at slowest pace since 1990s recession, as households cut back on spending.

Transcript

00:00The last of the curtain raisers for the quarterly GDP came out today.

00:06It's the current account, that is exports and imports and money moving in and out of

00:09the country.

00:10It was the second current account deficit in a row and the biggest in six years.

00:14So net exports will be a bit of a drag on June quarter GDP.

00:19The nation's economic forecasters keyed the latest numbers into their spreadsheets today

00:22to see what the Excel god would give them for tomorrow.

00:26And the answer, on average, is 0.2% growth for the quarter, 0.9% for the year.

00:31So we'll see how they go tomorrow.

00:34With population growth of 0.65% for the three months, that means per capita GDP is another

00:39big negative for the sixth consecutive quarter.

00:42And that's three recessions on the trot, per person that is.

00:46Without population growth, it would be 1991 and 1982 rolled into one.

00:51Here's a chart of annual GDP growth since 1961.

00:550.9% will be well below the average of 3.4% growth per year and would fit with the long-term

01:02downtrend.

01:03Ever since the Reserve Bank got independence and started targeting 2-3% inflation, we haven't

01:08had any recessions apart from COVID.

01:11Although as discussed, the past 18 months would have been all recession without a boom

01:16in migration.

01:18The Aussie dollar drifted lower today in anticipation of weak GDP tomorrow.

01:22The share market also drifted lower with banks up, miners down and coals and woolies both

01:27paying dividends.

01:28Here's why the miners fell today.

01:29Iron ore dropped 4%.

01:32And Wall Street was closed for Labor Day, so Asian markets were rudderless.

01:37And that's finance.