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Westpac managing director Gail Kelly says compound growth in house prices are over for good
- Compound growth in house prices "over for good"
Aussies rejecting the high levels of debt - Gail Kelly
AUSTRALIA is unlikely to ever see the housing boom that sparked a massive rise in personal wealth across the country in the past decade, Westpac managing director Gail Kelly told the economic forum in Brisbane yesterday.
In a closed session, Ms Kelly told business leaders that the years of compound growth in house prices were over for good.
She also said Australians were rejecting the high levels of debt that allowed them to borrow vast sums against the equity in their house.
Her comments were backed by Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens, who pointed out to business leaders that one of the main reasons Australians were so "grumpy'' was because of the dramatic change in the economy since the glory days of the housing boom.
It follows his comments that recent interest rate cuts were not directed towards sparking another housing boom.
Australians were also far more willing to save their money now than they were 10 years ago.
Ms Kelly has said that the current environment was a return to old-fashioned banking and the days of massive borrowing by Australians were over.
Unions have warned the Government and business that workers' wages and conditions are not up for grabs in the push to improve Australia's productivity.
And even some business leaders have backed them, saying that threatening wages was not the way forward and would never work.
But while charities acknowledged there may be benefits from the mining boom, they also said there were deep pockets of despair in those communities.
Reserve Bank board member Heather Ridout said reducing wages and conditions was not the way to solve the problems of a first-world country such as Australia.
Maritime Union of Australia secretary Paddy Crumlin said that there were business people who wanted to cut wages as a short cut to their goals but ``they are idealogues and that's class warfare''.
``Workers won't be hammered into it,'' he said. ``We can't be bullied into productivity.''
ACTU president Dave Oliver said bargaining was the only way to achieve improvements in productivity.
``The union movement has always been ready to engage in a sensible and mature discussion about productivity (but) not about this dressed-up campaign about attacking workers' conditions by running the argument that industrial relations laws are a barrier to productivity.''
Uniting Care, the charity branch of the Uniting Church, said it was imperative that in the push for greater wealth no one was left behind.
``The issue that needs to be discussed more broadly is uneven benefits of the mining boom,'' Uniting Care managing director Lin Hatfield Dodds said.
``In communities that are doing well out of the mining boom there are still deep pockets of people that have been very negatively affected.''
Bron:news.com.au
http://www.news.com.au/money/money-...re-over-for-good/story-e6frfmd9-1226395093277