People have spoken about the 'mining boom' which Australia has alleged to have experienced during the first decade of the 21st century, in particular during the coalition government's term.

Yet there is no evidence of that.

Mining exports, as a percentage of GDP, were not dissimilar to what they had always been.

Yet since the coalition lost office and the ALP took the wrecking ball to the economy mining exports have increased as a proportion of GDP until we now have an untenable situation.

In 2007, the final year of the coalition's terms in office Australia’s total value of trade in goods and services was $454 billion in an expanding economy.

In 2009, the figure was $506.8 billion in a shrinking market.

Worse still for us was the balance of exports.

In 2007 we traded with China, Japan and the USA on an almost equal footing with $58 billion, $55 billion and $48 billion respectively. China's share was about 13%

In 2009 the ALP had swung towards China so quickly we are now in thrall to that nation. The trade was China $85.1 billion, Japan $59.2 billion and the United States $47.6 billion.

We are now heavily reliant on a single nation for our future.




We are now relying on a mining boom in a two speed economy. Our budget is now structurally deficient as it is built on returning to surplus only if the trade of another nation continues to grow at the same pace.

But it isn't.





The ALP have done awful things to our future and not all of them are immediately visible. One needs to look deeply inside the economy to see how terrible our prospects really are.

You can't blame this solely on Labor. The coalition was very reliant on China and Japan as well. Who was responsible for initiating the FTA with China? Who was responsible for signing us up to the Nuclear Waste dump in the NT?

I haven't looked at the trade figures for the last couple of years, but for the first few months Labor was in office our exports improved considerably and our deficit decreased.

I don't agree with us relying completely on China to buy our minerals and this is where Rudd broke his promises as far as us becoming an innovative country and exporting technology, but I don't expect the Coalition would do any better. They are elitist and Australia has gone beyond that. They also support the massive profits the miners make from exploiting our country.

Abbott hasn't a clue what he's talking about half the time and his heart isn't in his job. One moment he's spruiking about spending cuts of $50 billion, then in the next breath swearing to spend twice that amount getting rid of the boat people.

In fact both parties are pathetic, but people are hoping that Gillard will improve when she is PM in her own right, but know that Abbott won't.

I'm sick of both the major parties and their agendas.

The coalition is responsible for Kev putting so much reliance on China's economy?

If, as was shown by the figures, China was one of the trading partners amongst many, representing only 13% of the total trade at the end of the coalition's entire term, how did they become responsible for Labor's almost total embrace of them?

How did Johnny, in your opinion, cause Kev to allow this to become so imbalanced?

And as a proportion of GDP, mining was always relative to other sections of the economy - education, financial services, manufacturing, tourism and hospitality etc - but now we are heavily reliant on digging holes in the ground and selling Australia by the tonne.

The path to this current situation began almost immediately with the ALP throwing Australia away. This has been discussed ad nauseum so I am surprised you still think Johnny was a part of Kev's sell off.

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What do you think of Jules's back flip on the GBT? You seem to still be supportive of her despite her brazen sell out to Big Mining.

You say "they (the coalition) also support the massive profits the miners make from exploiting our country" and seem to be ignorant of the fact that much of the exploitation has been since the ALP focussed their thinking on supporting the miners rather than supporting our once cohesive society.

What about the latest from Jules (and you can't blame Kev for this). Jules has sucked all the funds out of the promised 'low cost homes' program in the cities (which they didn't deliver anyway) and has promised to build houses in mining towns if elected.

What do you think of the GALP's abandonment of the lower socio-economic groups for the miners you abhor? It's all Jules.




Welcome back by the way, thought you'd gone into hiding since the election was called

I'm never gone entirely, but this election campaign is turning out to be very boring.

As far as mining goes - obviously it has helped our trade figures which were pretty abysmal under the coalition. I'll have to look them up to see if the increase in mining has helped the figures in the long term.

Export education has been a disaster - we've got an influx of hairdressers and cooks and so many of those dodgy colleges have closed their doors and ripped foreigners off. Our universities were in a mess also, and disadvantaged young Australians by limiting their opportunity of a reasonably priced education.

You have also got to remember that other countries have been affected drastically by the recession and purchase power is nowhere near as strong as it was under the Coalition.

Of course I don't agree with mining, but while it is quickly expanding - the Coalition would not support the proposed mining tax. You would think that if they wanted to use this revenue to slow down mining - they would have been behind Labor. Obviously the coalition is quite happy to see most of Australia dug up also.

If this graph is correct - then our exports have improved considerably over the last couple of years, regardless of how we achieved it. If nothing else, mining exports did help us keep our head above water. We couldn't keep going with those huge deficits incurred under the coalition.



http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/

I'm not sure what your argument is.

In one post you oppose mining;




And




Then you appear to be defending the enormous push by the GALP to get China to rip up the nation and ship it overseas.





So do you support the GALP's open door policy with China or are you against it?


Either way my opinion having such a heavy reliance on one country and one source of export dollars is amazingly short sighted.

Only the GALP would do it to us by the way, those figures I posted earlier prove it. We are now in an (in my opinion) unsustainable mining boom with a budget built on hope.

I agree, but other nations aren't in the same position as China now to buy our exports.



Have you forgotten this?





Was it an enormous push or just the results of deals done by the Coalition and continued by the ALP? As our export figures have certainly improved over the past couple of years - I would have thought you might credit this to the opposition who opened up negotiations with China. Abbott certainly doesn't want to slow down mining.

I am not opposed to Free Trade Agreements, just opposed to such a heavy reliance on one nation.

And no, it is not the resut of anything the coalition did. In 2006 two way trade with China was just under $50b. In 2007 it was just under $60b.

Two years later with all the deals Kev did the two way trade is $85b.

From 13% of total trade, it now represents 23% of just exports. That represents an increase of exports to China in one single year (2008 - 2009) of nearly 30%.

That is what the GALP has done to us. And that is what is called structural deficit. It is a budget built on hope. China farts and we go down the toilet.