Q. Can you give an overview of the Australian economic climate – what are the main pressure points in the market?
A: Australia is seeing a continued period of economic growth and unemployment is down. In the coming year we expect to see more of the same. Across the housing markets there has been a sustained period of prices going up but we are starting to see this fall now, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne. There is a long way to go for them to return to sustainable levels. There has been an increase in infrastructure spending at a government level – this is needed after 10 years of seeing very little investment. It will take time for the benefits of this to be seen as there is a lot to catch up on.
