DECEMBER KEY FIGURES

		% change Sep qtr 08 to Dec qtr 08	% change Dec qtr 07 to Dec qtr 08
GDP (Chain volume measure)
	Trend	-0.1	0.6
	Seasonally adjusted	-0.5	0.3
Final consumption expenditure (Chain volume measure)
	Trend	0.1	1.2
	Seasonally adjusted	0.1	1.0
Gross fixed capital formation (Chain volume measure)
	Trend	0.7	7.0
	Seasonally adjusted	0.1	6.7
GDP chain price index
	Original	0.4	8.5
Terms of trade
	Seasonally adjusted	-2.8	16.5
Real net national disposable income
	Trend	1.0	6.4
	Seasonally adjusted	-1.6	4.8

GDP growth rates, Volume measures, quarterly change

Contributions to GDP growth, Expenditure: Seasonally adjusted

DECEMBER KEY POINTS


KEY AGGREGATES

• In trend terms, GDP decreased 0.1% and Non-farm GDP decreased by 0.3%. GDP per hour worked in the market sector fell 0.2% and the Household saving ratio was 6.6.
• In seasonally adjusted terms, GDP decreased by 0.5% in the December quarter. Non-farm GDP decreased by 0.8%. The Terms of trade fell 2.8% and Real gross domestic income fell 1.2%.

EXPENDITURE ON GDP

• In seasonally adjusted terms, the largest negative contribution was from Inventories (-1.6 percentage points), offset by positive contributions from Imports (1.7 percentage points) and Private business investment (0.2 percentage points).

INDUSTRY GROSS VALUE ADDED

• In seasonally adjusted terms, the main contributors to the fall in GDP were Manufacturing (-0.5 percentage points), Property and business services (-0.3 percentage points), and Wholesale trade (-0.2 percentage points). This fall was partly offset by a positive contribution from Agriculture, forestry and fishing (0.2 percentage points).

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE (QUARTER)	Release Date
March 2009	3 June 2009
June 2009	2 September 2009

REVISIONS IN THIS ISSUE

Revisions have been made to a number of aggregates as follows:

• the normal quarterly revisions due to the incorporation of more up-to-date source data and concurrent seasonal adjustment. Overall these revisions have not changed growth in the seasonally adjusted volume measure of GDP for the September quarter 2008.

SIGNIFICANT EVENTS

Treatment of economic stimulus package

In December 2008 the Federal Government made payments to households as part of the Economic Security Strategy package. In this December Quarter 2008 release of the quarterly national accounts these payments have been recorded as a transfer (Social Assistance Benefits) from the Government to the Household sector in the Income Accounts.

The proportion of the package spent by households contributed to GDP calculated from the expenditure side as Household Final Consumption, and contributed to Value Added for those industries whose outputs were purchased. The remainder of the package contributed to Net Savings for the Household sector.

Australian Government Guarantee Scheme for Large Deposits and Wholesale Funding

The first payments arising from the Australian Government Guarantee Scheme for Large Deposits and Wholesale Funding were made during the December quarter 2008. These payments have been treated in the national accounts as a fee for a service, paid by financial corporations to the government. On the expenditure side of the national accounts these payments have been recorded as an offset to Government Final Consumption. On the income and production sides, they have been recorded as an expense of the paying financial corporation, and hence have reduced the Value Added of financial corporations.

This treatment does not result in the creation of financial asset or liability positions, so does not affect the Financial Accounts (cat. no. 5232.0) to be released on March 27.


UPCOMING CHANGES

The ABS will introduce revised international standards into the National Accounts, Balance of Payments and related series with the September quarter 2009 releases. To enable series to be compiled and validated according to the new standards, the September quarter 2009 issue of this publication will be delayed. Revised release dates are described in 'Recent and upcoming releases' (page 16).


INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070 or Michael Smedes on Canberra (02) 6252 7092, email <national.accounts@ abs.gov.au>.