Economic growth over the past year wasn't bad, but no one is going to build a statue to commemorate it.
The quarterly rise in gross domestic product of 0.9 per cent reported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday was strong, but it was boosted by a one-off bounce back in exports following a fall that dragged GDP growth in the previous quarter down to just 0.3 per cent.
The average for the two quarters, a plodding 0.6 per cent, consistent with the unimpressive annual growth rate of 2.5 per cent, tells the real story.
The annual growth rate was not just unimpressive, it was also exactly the same as the previous year's expansion.
Growth in the past two years was better than the 2.0 per cent the economy managed in the year before that, ending September 2013.
But the improvement has been small.
And if the economy is continuing to gather pace the figures are hiding it well.
That's likely to be the way it goes for a year or two yet as the economy responds to the Australian dollar's belated adjustment to the commodity price slump now entering its fifth year.
It was only a little over two years ago that the exchange rate finally locked in its fall below parity with the US dollar, and just over a year since the fall below 90 US cents was sustained.
A lower exchange rate boosts economic activity, by redirecting the spending of businesses, governments and households, both domestic and foreign, toward the local market.
And in economic textbooks, economies respond to shifts in exchange rates instantaneously.
But things are a lot different in real life.
Share
