Geelong now a ‘growth attractor’, says economist

John Van Klavern
LEADING Australian economic commentator Robert Gottliebsen has a secret love of the Geelong region – he has a property in Anglesea.
But he also knows that regional Australia is becoming a key growth attractor, he told a Geelong Chamber of Commerce breakfast this week.
“Geelong is an attractive place to live – it has land, geography, good communications and sense of community and is close to a major market,” Mr Gottliebsen told the breakfast.
Mr Gottliebsen said southern Australia was driving economic growth.
“Victoria has had better governments than Queensland or NSW, therefore Melbourne and Geelong are more prosperous than our northern neighbours.”
Mr Gottliebsen believed property prices would remain stable despite a “pent up” demand.
“The world economy and, more importantly for Australia, the Chinese economy are slowing, share markets are down and our interest rate is above the level required for the housing sector,” he said.
“Real estate in this region was threatened by the mining tax,” he said.
“We were riding on the mining boom and therefore had a flow of international loan money to our banks but housing finance would have tightened considerably had the mining tax gone through.”
Mr Gottliebsen said the country still faced challenges formulating an emissions trading scheme.