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Striking parallels: divergent paths

By Saul Eslake - posted Thursday, 11 May 2006


But I have to confess that I genuinely struggle to think of anything of lasting value that has been done with it.

And yet the suggestion that the government should have “saved” (that is, added to the surplus) a large proportion of these windfall gains, or at least should have used them in a way that contributed positively to the Australian economy’s longer-term growth potential, is hardly either novel or radical.

Indeed, the idea that “20 per cent of the produce of the land during the seven plenteous years [should be] laid up … as a reserve for the land against the seven years of famine which are to befall the land … so that the land may not perish through the famine” Genesis 41: 34-36 was originally put forward by someone who could perhaps be regarded as the first proponent of counter-cyclical fiscal policy, the biblical prophet Joseph, as recorded in a source that the treasurer (for one) would presumably regard as impeccable.

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Since the present government is making only one of the three mistakes that previous governments have made at the corresponding stage of previous business cycles, there are good grounds for optimism that the current cycle will not end as miserably as the four previous cycles have done.

I mean no disrespect to say that from an economic perspective (if not a literary or a culinary one) I’d rather be in Britain than, say, France or Italy; but that (again from the same perspective) I’d also rather be in Australia than Britain.

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This is an edited version of a talk to a luncheon hosted by the
Australia-Britain Chamber of Commerce in Sydney on April 27, 2006. The full transcript is available here (pdf file 64KB).



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About the Author

Saul Eslake is a Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Tasmania.

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