How did Australia become so expensive ?

Guys, guys, guys, most of the points made here are generic, nothing special to Australia.

Big houses, greed, world economy, immigration, pop growth, taking vacations. The same happened in all developed countries, yet Australia has passed the same countries for cost of living in the last 20 years. I find Americans and Canadians have bigger houses on the whole than Aussies. And yeah, right, there is no greed in Europe and N.A, only in Australia...

I sort of see the link between the 17% interest rates during the Hawke era and the subsequent rush to over-commit for over-sized houses. But that cannot explain the whole picture. For instance rates were high in North America at the time as well.

Plus people being strapped into mortgages would not spend as much on other goods, so the prices should not have gone up in other areas.

Perhaps some sort of a coincidence thing between the housing scam and disastrous relaxation related to foreign investments, leading to monopolies, etc.
Not sure.

A doc once said to me "the world is full of dickheads, idiots and arseholes" pretty close to the truth, good people are a dieing breed! natural selection has changed with mans evolution.

Mine only cost $12.oo on ebay

It's expensive because we are used to it. That's it. That's your answer.

I can order anything over the web, get it shipped to me across the world as an individual package, for half the price I can buy it in a shop here, or less. I've ordered a part from Hong Kong that got sent to me for a grand total of 50c, shipping and all. That's cheaper than sending an empty envelope next door.

If I owned a shop here and could sell it for double I would. And they do. They're mad not to if we'll keep on buying it, and we do.

I've watched my local Farmers' Markets go from being really cheap to expensive as it became more popular. Because it could.

Don't go blaming the latest electro gadgets, they are cheap. A TV is still the same price it was in the 80's (could you even buy a 46"?), and we earn a lot more nowadays.

The only reason things are expensive here is because we are used to it, it's what we'll pay, and the business owner is obliged to make as much profit as they can, that's what businesses are for, remember.

I suspect the internet will drastically change things over the next 5 years, as it was supposed to since the mid 90's.

This is a perfect example. There is no excuse for the price difference. Nothing.

Albums on iTunes for Australians: $17
For Americans: $10

Solution:

Sign out of your iTunes shop account (Store > Sign Out)
Setup a new account with your address in America.

You can switch back and forth between the accounts. You won't lose anything.



pro tip: you can even use the same gmail account; joe.bloggs@gmail.com = joebloggs@gmail.com = j.o.e.bloggs@gmail.com, gmail ignores the dot.

Subsided first homes, booming prices on oil and minerals.



Combine that with a government that wont stop grant mining and drilling permissions until whole Australia looks like a Swiss cheese and the coastline is covered with oil and u have a pretty fast running economy that depends on China.


Australia is pretty much like Norway, everything is expensive but it does not matter since everybody earns ****loads and many of the lower paid jobs are done by immigrants.

IMO there's heaps of reasons above why the overall cost of living has risen, inflation etc, but I do really hate that nowdays there's people that own 5+ negatively geared houses and others who cant afford 1 area of living space to live in.

It's just plain greedy!

Another reason could be that we allow all our assets to be flogged off and we "locals" get the scraps. On 6PR talkback yesterday they had the head of the farmers federation explaining why we are paying so much for local produce and why these costs will skyrocket in the near future. The government, in their wisdom, allows any foreign purchase of land under $231 million (per purchase) virtually unregulated so any country can buy Ozzy farms freehold, put in their own workers, plant crops, harvest and send the produce back to their country for nothing. This is happening all over Oz and farms are being purchased at an alarming rate. Can't blame the battling Oz farmer who has been taxed and regulated out of business and takes the money and retires. In a very short time we will have a lot of our farmland sending good produce overseas for next to nothing and the demand increasing here which will send the prices through the roof.