# Australian Floods - is there a positive side?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-floods-is-there-a-positive-side/566251>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 3, 2011, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-floods-is-there-a-positive-side/566251 "2011-01-03T19:39:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\
**Post date:** [January 6, 2011, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-floods-is-there-a-positive-side/566251/21 "2011-01-06T07:14:16Z")

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> [@ecseas](#):
>
> Actually, that’s bad for the economy. People are buying online, because with our dollars being more or less equal to the american dollar, products online a much cheaper, as they don’t have GST on them. Myers, David Jones and a few other big Australian retailers are throwing a hissy about this.

The lack of GST has _nothing_- I repeat, **NOTHING** to do with the reasons stuff from overseas is cheaper. The real reasons are a combination of “Economies of Scale” (buying stuff from places like the US with larger population bases), “Higher costs (rent, wages, etc) to operate in Australia”, and “Greedy Retailers” with, IMHO, an emphasis on the latter.

GST is only 10%. A book purchased from somewhere like The Book Depository in the UK is quite likely to be _50_% cheaper than the same book from one of the major retailers here. Even if GST was introduced on online purchases (and I shall be vigorously opposing such a move), the fact is that it’s still going to be vastly cheaper to buy stuff from overseas than it is to get it here.

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