Interesting quote from Professor Ross Garnaut in the AFR:
He [Professor Garnaut] said Australia’s terms of trade, or income from exports, would be hit by three “mutually reinforcing negatives” under way in China.
The first was a shift in China’s economy away from a focus on heavy industrial investment and exports, which have driven metals and energy demand. The second was a wave of internal reforms including the move towards lower carbon emissions that would cruel demand for Australian thermal coal. The third was the current “cyclical” downturn that was likely to continue.
“It’s an accident they’re coming all at once, but they are,” Professor Garnaut said
From Leith van Onselen at Garnaut’s bitter pill must be swallowed | | MacroBusiness.
and yet the Communist government of Australia refuses to believe that the money will stop flowing into its coffers. What total unmitigated lunacy drives them.