The Federal Opposition’s unspoken hope is that Australia will fall on hard times and John Howard might therefore lose an election. The latest NAB business survey confirms NSW is indeed falling behind the rest of the country – too bad there’s no discernable opposition running against the Dilemma government to benefit from it.

The NAB today adds to its long-running business survey with a separate small to medium enterprise exercise that has two clear-cut findings: the outlook for SMEs in NSW is by far the worst in the nation while South Australian small business seems to be running on happy juice.

Even though Victoria and South Australia scored lower on the overall business survey, NSW SMEs lag well behind their southern cousins, while Queensland and West Australian SMEs are of course raging bulls. As various politicians sometime remind us, SMEs are rather important employers. NSW scores just eight on the NAB SME index while Victoria managed 15, WA and SA 19 and Queensland a sunny 22. The SA score is a mystery.

It’s not all gloom for NSW though. That eight was still on the positive side of the ledger with half of the firms surveyed expecting improved profit over the next 12 months – but it was for the June quarter, before the August interest rate rise and the latest petrol price peak.

Meanwhile, the NAB itself might be ordering up big on RM Williams clobber if John Stewart was serious in an interview with Bob Gottliebsen about where the bank’s future might lie – its agricultural expertise is to be exported to the world. Never mind that, as Stewart sort of admits, most of the rest of the world’s agricultural wealth comes from government subsidies that might require somewhat different banking management than Australia’s relatively free market.