Gittins: Finally some good news, we just need to get businesses spending

Gittins: Finally some good news, we just need to get businesses spending. Last week's national accounts show the economy is speeding up and starting its ''transition'' away from being driven largely by mining investment. The economy's ''trend'' rate of growth in real GDP is thought to be 3% per-annum. This isn't enough to stop unemployment rising, and we really need a period of growth well above 3% to get the jobless rate heading back down to its own trend level of about 5%. After a few quarters of weakness, consumer spending grew by 0.8 per cent in the quarter. Most of the growth was offset by a sharp fall in business investment spending, which dropped by 3.6 per cent. Although most of the fall in total business investment is explained by mining, it's clear spending in the non-mining sector also fell - which is not what the doctor ordered. (VIEW LINK)