Welcome to Edition 3, 2009 of Abode.

It is at times like these, when surrounded by so much doom and gloom, that I often reflect on my younger years. I remember, as if it were yesterday, that the only real interest my fellow Australians had in budgets and fiscal matters was whether the price of beer and cigarettes would go up and whether we would still need to pay a radio licence fee.

Alas, it was a simple life growing up in the 50s, 60s and 70s. There was much less stress and core social values were greatly respected. Our governments were generally prudent and our social fabric was more closely knit as most households had a single income earner as mum stayed home to raise the kids.

The 70s brought great change. Some of our readers will remember Gough Whitlam’s now infamous march to power on the back of the jingle, “It’s Time”. The Whitlam years started social reform in Australia (whether good or bad) and awoke a sleepy nation to overseas borrowings and big spending budgets. Since the 70s, we have had a series of Labor governments led by Hawk, Keating and now Rudd. Interspersed between the big spending Labor governments have been some moderation and sound fiscal management by the conservative side of government - the longest serving being the Howard coalition. To their great credit, they paid down almost $100 million in debt and left the incoming Rudd government with money in the bank.

Kevin Rudd, in the lead-up to the last Federal election portrayed himself as an economic conservative and many of the Australian public took comfort from those statements. Now two odd years on, it seems that the economic conservative has become the biggest spending Prime Minister in our nation’s history and a resultant legacy to our children and their children’s children of some $300 billion in debt.

The sad part of the whole equation is that it now doesn’t matter how frugal we are in terms of our savings, spending patterns and future plans, the national debt will unfortunately impact on our lives as never before. The only real level of security we can afford ourselves is to invest in property and quality property at that. The pages of abode offer such opportunities and they should not be missed.

Features this month include:

– ABU DHABI: Destination of the Future
– Whitehaven at Beachside
– Project Inspiration
– Fire in her belly
- LATEST PROPERTY NEWS
- UPCOMING EVENTS

Queensland's, Best Luxury Abodes:

- SLICE OF BALI
- ISLAND HOME


Until next month,
Peter Scott
Publisher