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.
- The stand-out result is that two economies are out-performing: Western Australia and the Northern Territory. And two economies are under-performing: Tasmania and South Australia. Arguably the size of the gap between Western Australia and Tasmania can’t get any greater.
- Western Australia comes out top on three of the eight criteria – actually a slippage from last quarter when it came top on four of the eight indicators. Western Australia is still second on three of the eight indicators, third on another, and fifth on dwelling starts.
- The Northern Territory is next placed, ahead of the ACT which has largely re-joined the grouping of NSW, Victoria and Queensland. Then there is a widening gap to South Australia and then to Tasmania.
- Looking ahead, CommSec expects the three-speed nature of the economy to become even more apparent.
To read the report, click here.