We are still growing - GDP up 0.2% in September 09

The ABS released their most recent National Accounts and once again, the Australian economy is growing. Woo -hoo. 0.2% seasonally adjusted. Once again, Kudos to the Rudd Government for keeping the economy in the black during a pretty difficult economic climate.

Drilling down into the figures released by the ABS, we have the major contributors to growth being:-
Government Final Consumer Expenditure (GFCE) : +0.1%
Household Final Consumer Expenditure (HFCE) : +0.4%
Private Gross Fixed Capital Expenditure (GFCE-Private) : -0.3% (+0.3 housing, -0.3 investment housing, -0.3 machinery/equipment)
Public Gross Fixed Capital Expenditure (GFCE - Public) : +0.3%
Inventories : +0.8%
GNE (without Net Exports) = 1.4%
Exports: -0.5%
Imports: +1.1%
Net exports = -1.6%
GDP growth = 1.4-1.6 = -0.2% (without Statistical Discrepancy of 0.4%)
GDP growth with statistical discrepancy = 0.2%

So what can we read from these figures. Firstly, its the house hold consumption, housing and Inventories that are saving us. Also Government investment in infrastructure (so there should be less commentary from the Liberal Party regarding stopping this infrastructure spending. There are a few dangers in this release however. The fact that our dollar is so high is making imports more competitive compared to Australian products. This is why our inventories are so high (and investment in private sector equipment is low). Domestically produced products are not being sold either here or overseas. We need the dollar to go down soon to get this balance right.
The thing that also concerns me is the statistical discrepancy. According to the ABS, this is the difference between calculating the GDP using Income measures (salaries/wages/surpluses), Expenditure measures (payments/rents etc) and Production Measures (Gross Values added by Industry). But it doesn't appear to be standard...for example, GDP using the income measure results in GDP growth of 0.9% (with no statistical discrepancy). GDP using the Production measure results in GDP growth of 0.2% (with a statistical discrepancy of -0.4%). Need more information about this as its value appears to determine whether our economy is growing or shrinking.