9 December

Why Australia should already be by far the richest country in the world per person, but isn't. See that tiny proportion of world oil production that Norway has? It turned that into a sovereign wealth fund worth about $2 trillion, or about $350,000 per Norwegian. That makes it in the top 5 richest countries in the world. Australia barely makes the top 20. Australia on the graphs has a much greater share of other key world resources than Norway has. Far, far more, across multiple resources. Australia’s share of the production of iron ore, coking coal, lithium and bauxite alone is almost as big as is ALL 13 OPEC countries' dominance of world oil production. So why hasn't this made us the richest country in the world? Because Tony Abbott took a lot of money from big mining donors, including Gina Reinhardt (iron ore is her fortune) and did a deal with Clive Palmer (mining billionaire) and got rid of the mining tax. It would have made us rich beyond imagining. Instead all of that money flowed to Gina, Clive, foreign companies and foreign governments instead.