Given all of that, why on Earth can’t we break even and start to pay our own way in the world without having our hand out like a poor nation. So I think we’ve got to get our savings up. One way to do that of course would be to get government budgets back to a balanced budget and into surplus as soon as possible.
Because we’re going to build up, according to the Rudd/Swan government, around about $250 to $300 billion of more debt and we don’t need that. And we shouldn’t take to the year 2020 to pay that back either. I find that just absolutely unacceptable to me anyway.
The second thing we must do is boost our savings for households. Because households are the ones that normally produce most of the savings for any country and of course it’s been a terrible shame that we don’t save anything. We get the 9% superannuation levy and go and spend it on bigger houses by taking out more debts.
AG: Where do you think this broadband might take us?
PR: Well I think that’s absolutely critical. You probably know how vociferous I’ve been about the lack of broadband in Australia because I don’t regard ADSL2+ as anything else but a phony express form of transmission, because we simply can’t function on ADSL2+. We’ve got to get it up to 100Mbps speed and that really is into the fibre optics territory, or else very fast wireless and working on 100Mbps speeds for wireless as well. It’s absolutely critical.
70% of our economy is now in the service industries and the service industries more than anybody depend on broadband in this day and age and particularly in our area of business services.
Because business services are now the biggest single industry in Australia, it’s bigger than manufacturing and anything else, and not to have really effective broadband is crazy.
Another thing, not to have it into the homes is equally crazy because how can a home buy stuff if it hasn’t got the capacity to suck it in. And you can’t pull in movies at the moment, you can’t pull in medical help, you can’t pull in a whole heap of things, proper education, so we are truly almost bordering on a third world country when it comes to telecommunications. It has to be fixed and full marks to the Rudd government for seeing that for what it is and that’s a great big hole in our future if we don’t fix it.
AG: And if we do fix it, what does it look like? Where are we sitting in the world?
PR: Well the first thing I think broadband does is to, in a sense, remove the tyranny of distance problems for Australia as well. We take another giant step forward into the borderless world by being able to communicate not only with ourselves, which is important because 80% of our economy is generated locally, but the other 20% is very important – let alone the information you can pull in from the rest of the world on things like best practice and all sorts of thing.
So that’s a giant step and if we could fix that and our savings, then in a sense we’re well on our way to having the sort of future we’ve been developing anyway. I mean my prediction a long time ago Amanda is that Australia would enter a new golden age of prosperity of around about 2007.
While you might say “well blow me down” when you look at the slowdown, but a golden age doesn’t have to be free of recessions and slowdowns. It just means your average growth is much higher than at any other period. And my forecast is from now until right through to the 2030’s, perhaps well into the 2040’s, we’re in for quite a spectacular golden age. And the thing that also contributes to a golden age is higher immigration, which of course we’ve been getting over that period, particularly since 2007. So when you’ve got a vibrant, new, growing community because of immigration – and that always does make you more vibrant – and you’ve got with it things like balanced budgets, even productivity which I must say hasn’t been all that brilliant over the last couple of years, I think that will be restored if only because of the tremendous capital expenditure we’ve been spending over the last four or five years. No, I think we’re in for a golden age.
AG: And where are the opportunities there? If you were a young entrepreneur, where would you be looking?
PR: Well I can answer two ways. First of all, in terms of what sort of work do you want to do and secondly, where do you want to live? If you’re young enough, I’d head north for a start because the fastest growing areas of Australia are Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. So in a sense, instead of saying “go west young man”, I’d say go north because you could start any number of businesses up there with a population growing so much faster than the south.
You’ve got opportunities galore, particularly in the service industries, which I’ve always said don’t require as much capital anyway as getting into things like goods industries like agriculture and mining and manufacturing.
If you want to stay in the really smart, high skilled industries, well you’re going to have to stay in Sydney or Melbourne. In terms of industries though, number one, look to a service industry every time. There’s no doubt that there are some great opportunities in the old and bold industries but not as many and not as long lasting as they are in the service industries. The services industries are still exploding. One of the fastest growing industries 15 years ago would be household services, and of course that’s a huge industry now worth over $220 billion. It’s a massive, massive industry and just continues to grow because we’ve still only outsourced about a third of household work that could be outsourced. Whether it be cleaning and painting and lawn mowing and car washing and meal preparation.
AG: I love the way you encourage us to outsource. I quote you to my husband.
PR: People often forget sloth is one of the most underrated virtues. If you can resort to sloth, you’re doing the world a favour because you’re creating so many new jobs. One should never feel guilty about sloth, particularly if you’re a two-income earning family where you haven’t got much time when you get home anyway, but that’s one industry anyway. And of course businesses are still outsourcing like crazy as well and one of the fast growing industries is facilities management.
In other words, all these people who own property, high rise buildings, all sorts of things, factories and warehouses, etc and are outsourcing the complete management of that. Whether it be utilities, whether it be its maintenance or its safety, or whatever. That’s becoming a very large industry. So servicing companies who are outsourcing is also a very fast growing area for people, so really there are jobs, opportunities and investment opportunities galore out there. And I’m just so grateful, as I’ve always said, this is only a practice run because when I come back there are several other industries I want to start up.
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