Turn it around, Turnbull

AUSTRALIA'S new prime minister has inherited a bust, a boom and a problem. Surging real estate partly offsets a slump in mining. But Malcolm Turnbull still confronts the vexing challenge of fading economic growth, which depresses everything from wages to profits. Embracing higher public deficits may be the only remedy, even though that's hard for a conservative politician.

Sputtering Chinese demand for iron ore has seen mining investment in Australia crash by almost 2.5 percentage points of GDP over three years. However, housing has compensated for about two-fifths of this drop. Investment in construction and alteration of residential property has soared as cheap credit and foreign buying have pushed home prices in Sydney and Melbourne into bubble territory.

And yet, the broader economy looks sickly, at least by the standards of a country that hasn't known a recession since the early 1990s. Disposable incomes are rising excruciatingly slowly. Growth in nominal GDP - the current value of all goods and services produced in the country - is plunging.