Four Corners

The Perfect Storm (2009x1)

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Last year Australians watched in disbelief as the financial markets of Europe and America faltered and collapsed. What started as a credit crunch on Wall Street spread round the world, plunging economies into recession, destroying trillions of dollars of wealth and putting millions of people out of work. Now it's finally hit home in Australia. For months we were told it couldn't happen here, that China's hunger for our coal, iron ore and nickel would shield us from the worst of the financial storm. But now we know that China's economy is in deep trouble too — its steel industry cutting back, its factories closing. And our resources boom has gone bust. In the last six months, prices for the metals Australia exports to the world have fallen by half. Suddenly, being linked to China looks like a minus not a plus. Against this backdrop, business reporter and author, Paul Barry travels to Queensland, a state which has been growing as fast as the Asian Tiger economies, to see what's happening at the coal face.