Nationals feeling the Chinese burn

Well, this is just ugly (h/t Peter Martin):

“I’m worried about when big chunks of money turn up in one fell swoop just before Christmas, because a couple of weeks later you see a lot of Australia’s $10 billion scattered around the floor with Made in China on the back,” Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce said of the initial package. Nationals leader Warren Truss, in arguing against the Rudd Government’s latest round of $950 payouts, said many of the payouts from its $10.4 billion stimulus package had been wasted on goods supplied by “Chinese trinket traders”...

As columnist Shane Wright goes on to point out, Truss used to be the minister responsible for negotiating Australia's FTA with China.

The latest economic statistics from China show exports falling 17.5% in January compared to the same month in 2008, meaning we may not have to worry about those trinkets for much longer. There is something of a quid pro quo, however, mainly for our mining sector: China's imports are down a jaw-dropping 43.1%.

Nb: I edited the last para to remove my own bit of ugliness.