Should probably have called the programme 'Gloom'! I agree that there are plenty of negatives in the economy. Yappy/folksy economists (such as Lee and Williams) seem to revel in this. As he admitted they didn't predict the tiger, but they are doing their best to predict the bust, and, of course, they will be right one day (but its taking a long long time for them to do the 'I told you so' dance, which must really irritate them, as well as undermine their credibility to properly diagnose the economy, or indeed, predict direction of interest rates for 2004/5 - which is a 50% bet). Personally, I dont think this programme was particularly enlightening, and was simply applying some basic undergraduate economics to some economic indicators, with a few interviews thrown in. A bit lazy really! Macroeconomics is a spoofers game!
Incidentally, there seems to be an unending stream of reports and initiatives since 2000, but not much else, exhorting us to move up the 'value added chain' and become a 'niche knowledge economy'. Some political accountability for this would be nice. All we produce are property billionaires and not knowledge billionaires a la Bill Gates, and our economic infrastructure still remains below par.
Also, strange how we have moved away again from last years fashionable argument that, as a mature economy, we will become more of a services economy (a bit like the US and UK).