Originally Posted by
FenceFurniture
What those European countries wanted for was a land full of resources that China wanted. Costello was lucky and lazy. Any idiot with a pulse and an abacus could have balanced the books in those years. There was a tourism filip after the Olympics, where tourism was almost 4% of GDP. They were sought and won by the NSW Govt (no doubt with Fed assistance) long before Costello was Treasurer. Then there was that little thing called the mining boom that was delivering enormous amounts of money for Costello to play with. So they bought off the electorate with three rounds of tax cuts, when only the first was justified. What they could have done was try and keep our manufacturing industry smart and alive, with some very prudent investment, but no, bribing the electorate so they could stay in power was more important.