State of the States

How are Australia’s states and territories performing?

Each quarter CommSec attempts to find out by analysing eight key indicators: economic growth; retail spending; equipment investment; unemployment, construction work done; population growth; housing finance and dwelling commencements.

Just as the Reserve Bank uses decade averages to determine the level of “normal” interest rates; we have done the same with the economic indicators.

For each state and territory, latest readings for the key indicators were compared with decade averages – that is, against the “normal” performance.

There are two stand-out territories: Western Australia & the Northern Territory. Western Australia still is the best performing economy in the nation but the gap has closed to second-placed Northern Territory.

Western Australia comes out top on four of the eight criteria: retail trade, equipment investment, construction work done and population growth. Western Australia is still second on two of the eight indicators, third on another and fifth on dwelling starts.

The Northern Territory is ahead of the ACT, and then there is a gap to Queensland, Victoria and NSW with little to separate then. Then there is a sizeable break to South Australia followed by Tasmania.

Looking ahead, CommSec expects little change in the rankings but the Northern Territory has the greatest scope for further improvement. Some rebuilding work will provide a boost to the Tasmanian economy.

To read the report, click here.

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