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Household wealth boost for Aussies

New Treasury data shows average household wealth jumped by greater than 20 per cent between 2004 and 2010.

Treasurer Wayne Swan has linked the rise to the government’s stimulus in line with the worldwide financial crisis.

In comparison, median household wealth within the Country declined by greater than 30 per cent within the same period.

“Contributing to this was our stimulus response to the GFC, which protected millions of jobs, in addition to our decent social safety net and government policies that spread opportunity,” Mr Swan wrote in his economic note released Sunday.

Mr Swan said Australia, like any countries, had not been immune from the impact of world turbulence these days.

“This was clear within the Budget papers in May, which showed $150 billion wiped from government revenues for the reason that onset of the worldwide financial crisis,” he said.

“Australians have also seen the impact on their household wealth.

“It really is obvious not just inside the performance of people’s superannuation accounts in recent times, however the more cautious attitudes towards debt which have contributed to the softness in house prices.”

Opposition finance spokesman Andrew Robb attacked the govt. for taking the main optimistic forecasts available to develop its budget.

“The budget was predicated on everything going well world wide,” Mr Robb told Network Ten on Sunday.

“In fact even the budget papers indicated that for each four per cent change within the terms of trade you’re talking a few $7 billion increase within the budget deficit.”

Our terms of trade were 50 per cent higher than average compared with the 1980s and 1990s and commodity prices were coming off way over anticipated, Mr Robb said.

He pointed to BHP Billiton considering shelving its Olympic Dam expansion and Royal Dutch Shell throwing $17 billion worth of LNG projects into doubt.

“Half the pipeline that Mr Swan brags about has not reached Final Investment Decision and doubtless won’t,” he said.