Australian Economy

Australia went 28 years without a recession. From 1991 until COVID, shut the country in 2020, gross domestic product grew every single year. No developed economy had ever managed this stretch. The Netherlands held the previous record at 26 years. Australia broke it quietly. The engine was China. As Beijing industrialized, it consumed iron ore, coke and coal, and liquefied natural gas in volumes no other nation could deliver. Australia sat on the deposits and shipped them from Port Headland and Gladstone. When the global financial crisis hit in 2008, American housing collapsed and European banks froze. Chinese steel mills kept buying. Australian exports climbed while the Atlantic sank. The second lever was population. Australia absorbed over 200,000 migrants annually, pushing population growth to 1.