Key Findings
This research note assesses the performance of each Australian state across ten key economic measures, to develop a state economic scorecard. The measures use the most recently available data across a variety of macroeconomic metrics, and finds:
- Western Australia is the nation’s overall best performing state. It leads the nation in having the highest wage growth, lowest tax burden, and lowest energy price growth.
- South Australia was the overall second best performing state, leading the nation in per capita state economic growth, productivity growth, and business investment. Tasmania was third best performing state, having the nation’s lowest rental costs and leading the nation in retail trade growth, followed by Queensland—which has the lowest debt burden—and New South Wales, whose key strength areas were in economic and productivity growth.
- Victoria is the worst overall performing state in the nation, and was ranked last in three metrics for highest tax burden, highest debt burden, and greatest energy price increases. In addition to being ranked last in three metrics, Victoria is also ranked second last in per capita state economic growth, wages growth, retail trade, and productivity growth.
Table A: Relative strengths and weaknesses of Australian states in key economic measures
