It all seems to add up to a good- if desperate – idea.

Like thousands of other Australians, this global economic crisis has left you strapped for cash.

But there are still bills to pay.

And there is that pot of gold, that’s just sitting there, tied up in  your super.

Besides, as recent events have shown, you couldn’t do any worse at managing your super than that damned fund you are in.

It all seems so reasonable.

Why not cash it out early, take a bit out to tide you over these bad times, and put the rest into a self managed super fund, to provide for your retirement?

You could hardly do worse than those, so-called professionals, who are managing your super now  could you?

Well, actually, yes.

There are problems with these ideas.  Big ones.  In many cases, taking early access to you super is simply illegal.  Then there are the tax complicati0ns.  These, too,  are serious.

But this adviser is telling me that he can guide me through all that.  So what’s the problem?

One, is that he won’t be doing it for free.  The commissions charged, in setting up a self managed fund, this way, can be very large.

There is also the risk of outright theft, of your super, as your superannuation money is being moved.

So where can you go, for good advice on all this?

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission has some excellent advice on its consumer website, called Fido.  (Go first to www.asic.gov.au, then follow the prompts).

The fifteen minutes this will cost you could well be the best investment you make this week.

It’s all in simple language.

“Sometimes, when you are in financial trouble, it might seem like a solution to access your super,” Fido says.

“But, depending on your situati0n, this may not be the best way to help you out of your financial trouble,” it adds.

Fido says you might do better to make an application for a hardship variation.

What’s that?

A trip to the website, to find out, might well be a very good idea, indeed.

We should get a better picture of the Australian economy this week.

The June quarter national accounts, which the Statistician is planning to release on Wednesday, will be particularly important.

Americans learnt last week that the US economy shrank by 1 per cent, in that quarter.

Even that figure was welcomed, as most economists had expected an even worse result.

Australia’s growth is expected to be stronger than that.

However, Wayne Swan is still urging caution.

The Australian Treasurer warns that the nation’s road to recovery will still be “long and very bumpy.”

In his weekly economic note (www.treasurer.gov.au) Mr Swan describes the June quarter national accounts as “all important.”

There is no risk, though, of these figures tipping Australia into a technical recession.

That requires two successive quarters of negative growth.

And the March quarter National Accounts showed that the Australian economy grew by an admittedly glacial 0.4 per cent earlier this year.

The national accounts, though, won’t be the only important figures to be released this week.

The Bureau is also planning to release its business indicators for the June quarter today and its balance of payments figures, for the same period tomorrow, along with its building approval statistics for July.

It will also publish its international trade figures for July on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Wayne Swan will be travelling to London this week, for a G20 Finance Ministers’ meeting.

He said those attending that meeting would be working to ensure they are doing all they can to keep the world out of global recession.

The Federal government does not accept that its stimulus measures are being “swamped” by the global credit crisis.

Its response to that charge, made by building industry leaders, is set out in a report published yesterday.

The government report covered the first quarter of the government’s $42 billion nation building economic stimulus plan.

It concludes that while the plan is still “far from complete” there has been “significant progress.”

Some 33,000 projects have already been approved under the plan.

These are worth more than $18 billion.

“Some elements of the plan are achieving their objectives at lower than the expected costs,” the report says.

Others have been doing so faster than anticipated.

“…other elements have experienced exceptional demand.”

The report said these included work on the Primary School program, which is part of the plan.

It said the government had already made strategic adjustments to the plan in reponse to emerging issues.

And it conceded that there are risks with the plan, including possible inflationary pressures.

The report said these, too, need to be managed.

“A particular challenge will be to manage industry capacity and supply constraint risks,” the report said.

There was independent confirmation, too, yesterday that the government’s stimulus plans are working.

The Roy Morgan organisation, for example,  reported that consumer confidence in Australia rose by 1.1 points, in its latest survey, to 123.7 points.  That was its highest level since December 2007.

Australia’s building and construction industries have had a tough year, despite the Federal government’s stimulus packages.

Figures just released by the Bureau of Statistics show that these industries suffered a 5.7 per cent downturn in the June quarter -and an 8.5 per cent fall over the year -= on  seasonally adjusted comparisons.

The residential sector suffered a 2.6 per cent fall in the quarter and a 7.6 per cent fall over the year.

The non-residential sector saw a 9.5 per cent fall in the quarter and a 9.8 per cent fall over the year.

The chief economist of the Master Builders Federation, Peter Jones, said the boost the non residential construction sector had received from the government sector had been swamped by a major fall in private sector work.

“Commercial builders are being choked by tough lending criteria imposed by financial institutions,” Mr Jones said.

Softening market conditions are also leaving a significant hole in activity, he said.

The Federal government has tried to boost the non residential building sector with a bold program of school library construction.

That was a prominent part of the second stage of its stimulus package

Mr Jones and the Housing Industry Association’s chief economist, Harley Dale, agree that the housing sector is likely to pick up next year.

Mr Dale warned, though, that home building work is getting bogged down in the approvals stage.

Home building approvals are lagging well behind the present strong surge in lending for new homes.

“That suggests that the new home building recovery will b e very modest to begin with and will not show up in earnest for construction work done until 2010,” Mr Dale said.

The bureau had better news, though, for the engineering construction sector.  It saw a 5.7 per cent rise in the June quarter and a 22.7 per cent rise, in a year on year comparison.  That happened as new resource projects were launched, despite the global economic crisis.

Australians who fall on hard times may soon be eligible for greater protection under the nation’s personal bankruptcy laws.

The Attorney-General, Robert McClelland has just announced proposed changes to those laws.

“Increasingly, bankruptcies tend to involve people who have simply fallen on hard times rather than unscrupulous debtors trying to avoid paying their debts,” Mr McClelland said.

He was speaking as he  released the Government’s proposed reforms to Australia’s personal bankruptcy laws for public consultation.

Mr McClelland said the Bankruptcy Legislation Amendment Bill 2009,  is meant to modernise personal insolvency arrangements.

He said it would do this by recognising that the majority of bankruptcies relate to consumer debts and involve people with relatively few assets and little income.

In a statement accompanying his announcement, Mr McClelland also said the proposed changes would give hard-pressed Australians a more realistic opportunity to consider their options, reorganise their affairs and where possible, avoid bankruptcy, by:-

• increasing the minimum debt for which a creditor can petition for bankruptcy from $2,000 to $10,000
• increasing the stay period from when a declaration of intent to file a debtor’s petition is filed to when a creditor may commence action to recover debts from seven to 28 days and
• increasing the income, asset and debt thresholds to allow more people in financial distress to enter into voluntary debt agreements.

He said though that the draft bill  also proposes to strengthen the penalties for some offences, particularly those involving fraud.

This would appropriately reflect the seriousness of the conduct and ensure the penalties align with similar offences in other Commonwealth, State and Territory legislation, Mr McClelland said.

It also strengthens powers for the Inspector-General in Bankruptcy to investigate possible offences.

“The Government is committed to ensuring our bankruptcy laws are able to deal with personal insolvency issues quickly and efficiently so that people can get back on their feet as soon as possible,” he added in the statement

“These reforms aim to ensure those in financial difficulty have the opportunity and the ability to obtain advice and information about their options and possible alternative solutions before entering bankruptcy.”

He said the draft Bill would be open for public comment until  September 14.

The draft Bill and accompanying Explanatory Memorandum are available on the Attorney-General’s Department website at http://www.ag.gov.au/.

Older Australians, who lose their jobs, are finding it hard to get a new one.

A study, just published by the Bureau of Statistics shows that, on average, it takes men aged 55 and over four months to either find a new job, or leave the nation’s workforce.

Women of the same age are typically waiting even longer.  The average, for them is four and a half months.

The situation facing Australia’s older workers may already be even worse than these figures suggest.

That’s because the calculations, on which these findings are based were for 12 months to February this year.

With the global economic crisis still hitting Australia’s job market very hard, the already grim situation facing Australia’s older workers may well have deteriorated since then.

Predictably, Australia’s employers were more eager to take on younger workers, who they could reasonably expect would stay longer in their jobs.

The bureau reported that, on average, 15-19 year olds had the shortest waits, when they were looking for new jobs.

They spent an average of just 13 weeks, waiting for work.

The average wait, for Australians of all ages, was 16 weeks.

That wait was the same for both men and women.

The bureau also reported that 1.7 million Australians had looked for work at some time during the 12 month period.

It noted too, that 117,700, or 7 per cent of these people. had spent the whole year looking for work, without finding it.

Almost 3 million Australian pensioners can look forward to a small, but significant improvement in their living standards from next month.

That’s because the Federal government is changing the basis on which pension rates are calculated.

The Federal Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin,  announced two basic changes yesterday.

One is the calculation of a new index, called the Pensioner and Beneficiary Living Cost Index.  This index, ordered by the Federal government, was calculated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Ms Macklin recalled that, before the last election, Labor had promised that pensions would  be set on a measure that reflected their costs more closely than the Consumer Price Index.

She said pensioners’ costs are often different from those of other Australians.

Age pensioners, for example, are estimated to spend 21.1 per cent of their income on food, on average.

That compares with 15.4 per cent for other families.

Ms Macklin said that to keep pensions in line with community standards, they will also be adjusted against a new wage benchmark.  That would be 27.7 per cent of the male total average weekly earnings measure, which the bureau also calculates.

She said the base pension rate would be adjusted twice a year in future, each March and September.

“These new indexation arrangements will help provide a more liveable pension for Australia’s pensioners,” Ms Macklin said.

So what will all this mean, in terms of cold, hard cash?

The precise calculations haven’t been done yet.

But Ms Macklin said the new rates would be published soon.

Pensioners’ costs, measured on the new index, rose by 0.9 per cent in the March quarter and 0.1 per cent in the June quarter.

The CPI rose by 0.1 per cent in the March quarter and 0.5 per cent in the  June quarter.

Better news could outweigh local blues on Australia’s share markets this week.

Worries about bad debts, particularly at Westpac, dampened the local market last week, causing the All Ordinaries to fall by 3.6 per cent, over that time.

But the New York stock exchange, was moving upwards  again towards the end of last week.  It chalked up a rise of 155.91 points on Friday, to reach to a new high of 9,505.96.

That development was based, largely, on reports that the global economy may now be coming out of its worst recession since World War II.

Bloomberg, for example, reports that sales of established homes in the US jumped in July to the highest level since July 2007.

“There is no question that the global economy is healing and emerging from recession,” Harvard economist and former chief IMF economist, Kenneth Rogoff said in a Bloomberg television interview.

Australia’s economic news, over the past few days, has also been mostly good.

As the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, points out in his weekly economic note Australia has just signed its biggest resource export deal ever.

That is for the sale of liquefied natural gas from Western Australia’s Gorgon project.  That sale, to Petrochina, is likely to be worth some $50 billion over the next 20 years.

Mr Swan says, also, that Gorgon, itself, will be the biggest single investment ever made in Australia.

This announcement is particularly significant, as it came while the global economic crisis still gripped Australia, at a time when investors, particularly, are extraordinarily cautious.

However, Mr Swan also noted that this caution might be easing. He cited the respected Dun and Bradstreet survey, which rated Australia as one of the safest places in the world to invest.

Australia’s rich families have more than four times as much to spend each week  as the nation’s poor.

They also have more than twice as much as middle income Australians.

These facts – and many more – emerge from a study of household income and income distribution just published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The bureau studied income patterns for 2007-08  -  and its  report predates the onset of the global economic crisis last September.

It reported, for example, that Australian households – or families – in the nation’s top 20 per cent income bracket had an average of $1,646 to spend each week, at that time.

That compares with  averages of $692 a week for middle income families – and just $409 a week, for those in the lowest 20 per cent.

The average – over all income groups – was $811 a week at that time.

After adjustment for inflation – and statistical factors – this was 13 per cent higher than the average for 2005-06.

It was also 50 per cent higher than the 1994-95 average.

In all cases, these amounts represented incomes, after tax had been paid.

As always, where you live has a lot to do with how rich you are likely to be.

The bureau reports that Australia’s highest average incomes are to be found in the Australian Capital Territory, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

The Northern Territory figure excluded what the bureau called the Territory’s “remote areas.”

Incomes in Australia’s most populous State, New South Wales, were just 1 per cent above the national average.

Capital city incomes, in both New South Wales and Queensland, were well above those of the rest of these States.

But incomes in  both South Australia and Tasmania were well below the national average.

Single parent families had an average income of $520 a week.

That was similar to those of older families, at $558 a week.

Older people, though, generally had lower housing costs, as most had paid off their homes.

Younger couples, without children, had higher average incomes, though, at $1,155 a week.

The Federal government is increasing emergency relief for Australians who have been hit hard by the financial crisis.

The Minister for Families, Housing, Community  Services  and Indigeneus Affairs Jenny Macklin  spelt out the changes in parliament yesterday. (see aph.gov.au then go to hansard).

She said a new report showed that 65 per cent of Australia’s community organisations have seen an increase in demand for their services, since the crisis struck.

Many Australian families had  been hit hard.

“Suddenly, more than half their income is consumed by rent or mortgage payments,” Ms Macklin said.

That doesn’t leave much to pay the regular bills, she said.

“We have doubled emergency relief funding and provided more funding for financial counsellors.

“From March 1 2009 until June 2011, current funding to the emergency relief program was doubled.

“That’s an increase of more than $80.4 million,” Ms Macklin said.

She said the government wanted to equip community organisations to take early relief action.

“Which is why we are funding 50 new financial counselling positions for the next two years.”

Ms Macklin said this would help to break the cycle of financial crisis.

“This brings the total number of government funded financial counselling positions to 121 across Australia,” Ms Macklin said.

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, says new announcements on major gas developments reflect growing  investor confidence in Australia’s   longer term economic prospects.

He   was commenting in Federal parliament on two major resource  announcements.  These were the Gorgon partners’ confirmation of a $50 billion gas  sale to PetroChina and Woodside’s announcement that construction work will start soon on its Pluto gas project.

Government Ministers also told parliament that these huge gas developments, in Western Australia, would be accompanied by another, based near Gladstone in Queensland.

Mr Rudd said Gorgon’s gas sale is biggest resource deal in Australia’s history.

“This announcement brings the Gorgon project to the brink of reality,” Mr Rudd said, although he added that some approval processes still have to be completed.

However he said the Gorgon project would create 6,000 new jobs at the peak of its construction phase and  3,500 new permanent jobs.

The long term challenge for the government, in these developments, was to work out  how it should  partner with private industry, for the benefit of the entire Australian economy.

“It is good to see this investment,which represents confidence in the Australian economy and its long term future,” Mr Rudd said.

The issue dominated question time in parliament yesterday.

But the government’s optimistic replies brought an angry interjection from  the Federal  Liberal member for the electorate of Kalgoorlie,  Barry Haase.

He said said he is “sick” of hearing government ministers speaking as if the government is “creating” Australia’s mineral wealth.

Mr Haase said the reality is that this wealth is being created by people in his own electorate, which covers a vast area in the North of Western Australia. The Kalgoorlie electorate is said to be the biggest, by area, anywhere in the world.

His protest led, eventually, to Mr Haase being expelled from Parliament, for 24 hours, for  being disorderly.

Six Opposiiton MPs, led by a fellow West Australian Liberal MP, Wilson Tuckey, then staged a  brief walk-out from Parliament, in protest.

Don’t expect an early improvement in Australia’s job market.

A new survey, by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, shows that small business people are still in a “contractionary” mood, when it comes to hiring intentions.

And economies, ordered by the Federal government, are also restricting job opportunities, in the Commonwealth sector as well.

The ACCI survey showed a small improvement in small business conditions in the June quarter of this year.

However it also revealed, that sentiment in this sector is still negative, overall.

Other reports too suggest that it might well be some time yet  before new jobs start appearing in substantial numbers.

Figures produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, for example, reveal that thousands of employers have reacted to the global economic crisis by putting valuable staff on short hours, rather than sacking them.

And the Roy Morgan organisation, which has been making a close study of Australia’s job market, has found that Australians worked some 56 million fewer hours in June this year than they did in the same month last year

All this suggests that Australian employers -  big and small business alike – are likely to increase the hours their own staff work each week, before they start hiring fresh, full time employees.

Other aspects of the ACCI survey also tend to confirm that.

They show, for example, that small business owners generally expect Australia’s economic growth to “remain weak” over the coming year.

The respondents generally also expect no more than modest growth in their own sales, revenues and profits over the next three months.

That ís not the kind of situation in which they are likely to be hiring new staff.

The Federal government was, understandably, anxious yesterday to point out the assistance its stimulus packages have been giving the nation’s labour market.

The Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, made this point at question time yesterday, by holding up a photograph of a newly completed school library in regional Queensland.

She said this project had helped to provide jobs for “tradies” in the Dawson electorate in Queensland.

The ACCI survey also showed that Australia’s small business owners are still finding it hard to get the finance they need, to run their operations efficiently.

The chamber’s acting chief executive, Greg Evans, said tight credit seems likely to restrict the nation’s small business sector, for some time yet.

He said this suggests that the Reserve Bank should not think of raising interest rates for a long time.

Will Australia’s recovery be choked by a shortage of equity capital?

With big projects close to approval -and world capital markets still in shock, that’s a reasonable question.

And it has clearly been worrying the Treasury Secretary, Ken Henry.

Perhaps surprisingly, though, Mr Henry is optimistic on this issue.

He made that clear, in a speech he gave to industry leaders in Canberra yesterday.

Mr Henry noted that while the prices Australia is  now receiving for its major commodity exports, like iron ore and coal, have eased from recent boom levels, they are still above long term averages.

“Though our terms of trade have been negatively affected by the global downturn, they are still well above their longer term average,” the Treasury chief said.

He noted, also, that a consensus which is now emerging, suggests that an upcoming recovery might not be as favourable to the world’s industrialised countries, as previous recoveries had been.

So where might that leave Australia?

Reasonably well placed, if Mr Henry is right.

“…it seems quite likely, to me at least, that the Australian economy might attract an even greater share of capital flows,” Mr Henry said.

“And quite possibly even larger capital flows in aggregate,” he added.

Why?

Mr Henry didn’t put it quite so bluntly, but he did suggest that China  – and other Asian countries which run large surpluses – might  be more cautious  in future about funding the big debts, that Americans run up on their credit cards.

And they might look for more solid returns, after the shocks that came with the global economic crisis.

So where would that leave Australia?

Mr Henry says Australia now offers an “abundance”  of real investment opportunities “usually found only in the developing world.”

“That is to say the Australian economy may be seen as offering the best of both worlds,” the Treasury Secretary said.

see www.treasury.gov.au

Australia’s job market is not as strong as many  believe.

Even at 5.8 per cent , the nation’s unemployment rate has lifted spirits.  That’s  because it has been surprisingly steady.

It is all too easy, though,  to overlook the hidden realities that lie behind this admittedly encouraging figure.

These include  the grim path Australians usually take, when they leave the nation’s unemployment lists.

They are much more likely to move onto welfare than to get a new job.

And the rate at which Australians are dropping out of the nation’s workforce has risen sharply since the global economic crisis struck, last September

Surprisingly strong advances, in both business  and consumer confidence, have also reinforced a common, but misleading perception that the worst of the crisis has  passed.

Even the Reserve Bank Governor, Glenn Stevens, has been sounding optimistic recently, even though cheerfulness was once thought to be  a mortal sin for central bankers.

He said last week that the present global economic crisis might well produce no more than “one of the shallower recessions” that Australia has experienced.

This resurgence of confidence is understandable and, indeed, welcome.  Green shoots are always a great sight, particularly after a long, cold winter.

But thousands of Australians are still suffering badly, as a direct result of the present crisis.

That  includes many who were moved to short working weeks, as the crisis struck.

That has left thousands of families with less money, each week, to pay their food, housing, electricity and heating bills. Many are struggling to keep their homes.

Many more, who lost their jobs altogether, have been hit even harder.

Thousands of older Australians, who have reached retiring age over the past few months, are also struggling to adjust to reduced prospects, because their superannuation payments will be much smaller than they had expected.

Welfare workers are also warning of new waves of unemployment.

A senior policy officer of the Australian Council of Social Service, Peter Davidson, says these could last several years.

Social servicc payments, too, are notoriously inadequate.

“The reality is that Australia lags comparable countries on social welfare expenditure,” St. Vincent de Paul’s chief executive, John Falzon said.

None of this will come as a surprise to the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd.

He has been warning consistently that Australia still faces a rough road on the way to recovery.

The Reserve Bank governor, Glenn Stevens, delivered an upbeat assessment of Australia’s prospects today, saying the global economic crisis may produce “one of the shallower recessions” the nation has experienced.”

But Mr Stevens also warned the House of Representatives Economic Committee, at a hearing in Sydney, that the time would come when his bank would start raising interest rates again.

He signaled, though, that those rises would not be immediate, saying Australia’s inflation still seems to be falling.

Mr Stevens said that even the cuts in working hours, that have been experienced in the current downturn, while larger than those in 2001, are not as big as those seen in 1991.

“In fact, that is probably a reasonably good characterisation of this downturn in general,” Mr Stevens said.

He said Australia’s exports had been “remarkably strong” as the Chinese economy, in particular, had picked up.

Domestic demand had also picked up “pretty well” Mr Stevens said.

“On the basis of information to hand at present, this may well turn out to be one of the shallower recessions Australia has experienced,” he added.

He warned, though, that if the recovery continued to gather strength, the time would come when “the exceptional monetary stimulus in place at present will no longer be required.”

“It will then be appropriate for the board to do what it has done on past such occasions.

Namely to start adjusting interest rates back towards normal levels.”

But Mr Stevens said the timing and pace of such adjustments – “if and when they come” – “will be a matter of careful consideration…..”