Economic crisis : How is Australia affected?

Hello everybody !

Today's article is about the economic crisis and how it affects Australia. These two articles is the second part of writings strongly suggested by our school, first about the university and then this one. I sorry in advance if you find reading these articles not very interesting, I will try nonetheless to add some personal insight.

Economic crisis you say? Wide subject. Hard to know where to start. You don't see a lot of homeless people in Australia. Except for a large group of Indigenous Australian we spotted in Sydney few days ago, I am surprised compared to Europe. Talking about it with native, they say it has always been this way, not really crisis related. Soit, choux-blanc donc. Micro-economic approach, as more in "my point of view approach" is very limited. I live with foreign students and working-holiday visa holders. Although I really enjoy reading newspaper when I'm in France (Libération, Courrier International and Time magazine), budget constraint don't allow me to reproduce this behaviour here in Australia. I have to deal with very dubious Mx, Australian free newspaper equivalent of 20 Minutes. On about 30 pages, I would say 25 deserve to be thrown in trash straight away, 2 stuffed in the journalist throat, and maybe (and I underline maybe) 3 will be worth a quick glance.
All that to pinpoint that it's difficult to collect the Australian point of view about all this.

Back on subject, economic crisis in Australia indeed exists. Being a western-style economy, its organisation directly derivated from United Kingdom, it was struck by the crisis quite hard. Kevin Rudd promoted a 10,4A$ billlion (1% of GDP) stimulus package in 2009 which was quite successful and help the economy to recover, with GDP growth of about 3% on this particular year.
However, right now, March 2011, the GDP (Gross domestic product)  is expected to contract 1% on first quarter of the year. That is, macro-economically speaking, huge. U.S and Europe are already having positive GDP.
I also need to remind that while the country is hit by the "normal" economic crisis, the big 2007 one, it is also affected in 2011 by :

• Floods, mainly on Queensland (31 deaths, 30A$ billion GDP reduction)
• Cyclone Yasi (23 deaths, 800A$ millions direct losses)
• Regular fires causing important damages to Australian forest and environment

Adding up ask a lot of  money to rebuild and relaunch the economy, both in the regions affected and for Australia as a whole. This takes place thanks to governments recovery plans, promoted by Jullia Gillard, the current Prime minister, in the Australian Labor Party. (Center-left sided)

The Australia Reserve Bank expects a bounce back before the end of the year, but it is still getting ready to play with interest rates if inflation goes wrong or economy needs liquidity.

3 tourists relaunching the economy

References :
http://www.theage.com.au/national/economy-hits-a-wall-as-shoppers-stop-buying-20110505-1eahx.html
Herald Sun paper version
CIA Factbook 2010