![Illustration: Glen Le Lievre.](/web/20170204114549im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/5/3/y/9/image.related.landscape.460x307.gu4r5l.png/1486128700241.jpg)
Mining's economic contribution not as big as you might think
With Malcolm Turnbull desperate to keep burning coal for electricity, just how important is the mining industry to our economy?
Ross Gittins is economics editor of the SMH and an economic columnist for The Age. His books include Gittins' Guide to Economics, Gittinomics and The Happy Economist.
With Malcolm Turnbull desperate to keep burning coal for electricity, just how important is the mining industry to our economy?
With Our Glad Berejiklian - the archetypal girl who works harder than the boys - replacing pin-up boy Mike Baird as premier of NSW, should the citizens of other states be envious? Don't be too sure.
It's the last (unofficial) holiday weekend of summer before the new year really gets down to business on Monday. So let's have some fun. Try yourself on this simple quiz.
Human contact is an important part of health and our prosperity.
One of the small pleasures of my year was watching the deft political manoeuvrings of Thomas Cromwell in the TV miniseries of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall.
Some economists worry the world economy isn't growing fast enough. It's slowing down and reaching the point of "secular stagnation".
Our politicians on both sides have terrible trouble working out how supply works.
It is possible to make sense of what's happening in the labour market, but only if you follow a few rules.
Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen is right: One of the Abbott-Turnbull government's various acts of economic vandalism is its politicisation of the once-proud federal Treasury.
What would economic race-calling be without its little excitements? As you may possibly have heard, this week's news is that the economy has contracted - shrunk, gone backwards - by 0.5 per cent.
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