Ummm...I think voters have a short memory here. Look at what the Liberal government did, which caused great monetary problems-not only for Australia but other countries who are struggling for sovereign survival ATM. He sold our GOLD reserves at the lowest market price; look at the price today...the GOLD reserves that were sold, would have been valued at just over $10B today.
NO PROPHET: Cossie's multi-billion dollar gold blunder By VEXNEWS ⋅ May 7, 2009 Peter Costello left the federal government coffers full after nearly a decade of responsible economic management, paying down Labor's debt and fending off the lustfully big-spending ways of the deceitful PM who promised to make way but reneged. That's Cossie's narrative. He hopes it will lead him to The Lodge after these partly self-imposed Wilderness Years. But one decision made early in his Treasurer ship might leave him looking not so brilliant. GOLD EXPORTS UNDERMINED Despite concerns from the Australian gold industry at the time, in 1997 the government announced the Reserve Bank was to sell off most of its gold reserves. Because Australia is a gold exporter, it helped punch a hole in the price of gold, keeping the price artificially low. Other central banks-mainly in Europe-took note of what Australia did and followed suit. VERY EXPENSIVE COSSIE The decision made on Costello's watch has cost the nations many billions of dollars. On July 3, 1997, the RBA announced,"Over the past six months, the Reserve Bank has sold 167 tons of gold, reducing its holdings from 247 tons to 80 tons." The approximate cost of that decision to taxpayers here is -at this stage-is at least $4 billion in direct terms and was as high as $5 billion earlier this year. The gold industry says it cost them billions more as the decision undermined confidence in gold as a store of value and prompted other central banks to sell off their reserves. Indeed, looked at globally, Cossie's contagious anti-gold move has prompted losses to European taxpayers of some $40 billion USD according to a recent report in the Financial Times.
