Peter Martin, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
All sorts of transactions are “two-way value exchanges” in which it isn’t clear in which direction the money should flow. The proposed media bargaining code is one of them.
Yes, the bank would effectively pay you to borrow money. But negative interest rates won’t please savers, nor will they meet the big challenges of economic recovery.
With a relatively low debt to GDP ratio, Australia was never at risk of becoming Greece. But Germany, with negative interest rates and scant prospects for economic growth, is an open question.
While Australia faces its greatest economic challenges in a generation, we are still waiting for the greatest economic reformers in a generation to arrive.