Australia IS a relatively expensive place to live.
The main trade off is that we are also a high wage country. There is a reason why India is the cheapest country for many products - wages are very low in India.
so how many of you are moving to India ?
High wages are a cost to business that must be passed on to customers as higher prices. Businesses in Australia also pay high commercial rents thanks to planning restrictions and the high cost of land.
Hmmmm Customers pay the wages, did anyone know that ?
And the tyranny of distance has not gone away - it is more expensive to ship goods to Australia and then to transport them around this vast land of ours.
I guess that has a lot to do with parity pricing and Government taxes, wow what a wise move that was !
Still, it could be worse.
The pace of price inflation has, in fact, slowed since the global financial crisis.
The higher dollar has helped us to import cheaper goods, putting a lid on prices. Prices have gone up a lot on some domestically produced items, like electricity and gas. And anything that is made by Australians, like education services, health care, hair cuts and restaurant meals are more expensive because of wage rises.
Being a high wage, high cost country is not a bad thing. When you pay a high price, you're paying the wages of someone who will go off and buy something that pays the wages of someone else, maybe even yours. And so the economy goes round and round.
