Yesterday I had an enjoyable chat with Steve Austin on his 612 ABC Brisbane Drive program about the latest ABS Labour Force estimates, which, as I reported in yesterday’s post, revealed Queensland is the only state with an unemployment rate of 6% or more.  You can hear our discussion, in which I comment on various regulatory and policy settings, as well as the loss in the 2000s of Queensland’s previous status as the low tax state, from 2:02:55:

Drive Thursday 15 November 2018

While Queensland’s unemployment rate is typically higher than the national rate (see chart below), the current 1.1 percentage point difference between the rates is currently above the 40-year average of 0.4 percentage points. If the current difference were due solely to a surge in workforce participation related to strong jobs growth I wouldn’t be concerned. Alas, it isn’t. Queensland’s rate of jobs growth is less than half the national average. The Queensland economy continues to under-perform.