How good are official economic modelling and forecasts in Australia are?

I came to this article in the Australian Financial Review on 11 March 2010. It is interesting timing and very timely indeed.

The article in in the Features section and on page 61, with a full page and some interesting pictures, featuring the forecasts by RBA and Treasury amd four key people: RBA assistant govenor Phil Love, Treasury head Ken Henry, Director of Outlook Economics Peter Downes and ANU professor Warwick Mckibbin.

Peter Downes says "there's a lot of problems in the forecasting area. We are tlaking about faorecasting errors that statistically should occur only every thousand years."

Warwick Mckibbin says "they didn't have a model that looked at how things added up in the end."

There is digital deition available online from AFR, but it requires charges vis membership subscription. But if you querry by the article name, it should come up for login.