Tiny Tasmania has moved ahead of NSW in economic performance, according to the latest ‘State of the States’ economic report from CommSec, says the Urban Taskforce.
‘Victoria has retained its top position as Australia’s best performing economy. However, Tasmania has moved ahead of NSW due to its strong performance in building and home financing into second place.’ says Urban Taskforce CEO Chris Johnson. ‘NSW’s declining housing financing rate, brought on due to a lack of confidence in the planning system, has contributed to the fall to third position on the overall economic performance rankings.’
‘Victoria has benefited from solid population growth and a very strong job market, pushing well ahead of New South Wales. NSW dwelling start’s in the last quarter have dropped off.’
‘Victoria also ranks first on economic growth, retail trade, the job market and construction work done. Tasmania is ranked first on relative population growth, dwelling starts and equipment investment and is in second position on housing finance.”
‘On dwelling commencements Tasmania is 14.5 percent above its decade average, while Victoria is 1.4 percent above and New South Wales is 10.4 percent above the decade average. On actual commencements, Victoria, which has a smaller population than New South Wales, had 15,234 dwelling commencements in the quarter while NSW had 14,384 commencements. Clearly New South Wales needs to boost dwelling commencements to regain the top spot as the best performing state.”
“On housing finance, Tasmania is 12.9 percent above the decade average with Victoria being above by 7.3 percent, but NSW is -1.7 percent below the decade average.”
“The CommSec approach is to measure current quarterly performance against the decade average performance, which is really measuring the trend rather than actual results. The trend however is an important measure and states need to respond to, particularly if a trend is downward.”
“The Urban Taskforce is concerned that New South Wales is trending downwards on economic performance and that much of this seems to relate to the slowdown in new housing. The NSW Government must begin to lift housing supply by improving the planning system which the NSW Productivity Commission recently said took twice as long as other states in Australia to get an approval.”
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