The Sydney-Melbourne rivalry has been a century in the making. In the 26 years after Australia’s Federation in 1901, the Commonwealth Government was temporarily housed in Melbourne. But after intense competition between the two cities for national-capital status, Canberra had to be built as a compromise to quell both cities. Since then, snide barbs have
By Leith van Onselen The Turnbull Government has launched a new scare campaign, using spurious “research” from liberal-aligned lobby group, The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), to scare that 31,000 jobs are at risk in Victoria if Labor are elected. From The Guardian: The conservative thinktank has labelled its own calculations of “low to medium”
By Leith van Onselen The ABS released its Australian demographic statistics for the December quarter of 2015, which revealed that Australia’s overall population growth rate accelerated slightly, with rebounding growth in New South Wales and Victoria offsetting plummeting growth in Western Australia and South Australia. According to the ABS, Australia’s population rebounded to 1.38% in
Fortescue is out with some more good news today: Fortescue has continued its program of debt reduction, wiping $US500 million from a 2019 secured loan and reaping interest savings of $US21m as a result. The move is the latest of several by the iron ore miner (FMG) to address its debt load within an iron
By Leith van Onselen Late last year, Liberal Democratic Senator, David Leyonhjelm, truly ‘jumped the shark’, appealing to the National Rifle Association (NRA) in America not to follow Australia’s lead and implement greater gun control. In the interview (above), Leyonhjelm argued that tighter gun restrictions in Australia made absolutely no difference to firearms violence: “I
From the WSJ: A block south of Central Park in Manhattan, construction crews are working on the base of what is poised to be the tallest apartment building in the country and the latest condominium tower to cater to the super rich. It is also poised to be the latest skyscraper to benefit from a
By Leith van Onselen The New Zealand National Government has released a joint report with Auckland Council setting-out preliminary views on improving Auckland’s transport system. From Interest.co.nz: The report marks the completion of the second of three stages that make up the Auckland Transport Alignment Project (ATAP), a joint project between the Government and Council
From Macquarie: Our latest survey shows a moderating copper market but not a contracting one: Our latest China survey shows a moderating copper market, but importantly not a contracting one. End-user demand continues to grow, but now very slowly, while fabricators have slightly lifted their capacity utilisation rate, yet it remains lower YoY. Traders’
From Domainfax: The first chief executive of the National Broadband Network has weighed into the election debate on broadband policy to declare the Coalition’s multi-technology rollout a “colossal mistake” and back Labor’s plan to increase the use of fibre directly to the home. In a rare public intervention, Mike Quigley told the University of Melbourne
By Leith van Onselen Chris Murphy, the Independent Economics economist commissioned by The Treasury to model the Turnbull Government’s company tax cut, has hit back at critics, sticking to his position that a company tax cut would deliver huge benefits to consumers. From The AFR: …for every $1 of cost to the government budget, the
by Chris Becker Hesitation is the name of the game on risk markets overnight, with stocks hesistant to believe that all is well just before the Brexit referendum, even though Pound Sterling and Euro broke out to new highs against the USD. Weekly DOE oil inventories were less than expected which sent WTI down and Brent
I don’t mean to pick on Jessica Irvine but her recent output aimed at generating sympathy for the Reserve Bank of Australia has left me so agog that it’s time we pan back and survey the state of truth itself in Australian discourse. For those that missed it, yesterday Ms Irvine slapped down a slurping pile
The US dollar was soft: Euro and yen firmer: Commodity currencies split with anything oil related down and anything metals related up: Gold was soft: Oil softer: Base metals yawned again: Miners were firm: EM and US high yield ignored oil oddly: Not much to add today. If Brexit happens, markets are not prepared. If
By Dr Gavin r Putland, cross-posted from the Land Values Research Group: The formerly respected SQM Research, in its report called “Labor’s Negative Gearing Policy — A Market Viewpoint” (22 June 2016), has joined the conga line claiming that requiring future negative-gearers to invest in new homes would somehow raise rents. That claim is first made
By Leith van Onselen Residex has released its house and unit price results for May, which unlike RP Data’s shows absolutely no surge in Sydney home values. According to Residex, house values nationally rose by 0.52% over the month to be up by 6.06% over the year. Australian unit values rose 0.87% in May to
If you can be bothered with more lies.
Iron ore charts for June 22, 2016: Everything up with Tianjin spot 2% to $51.70, though steel very unconvincing. From Reuters: “Investors have raised hopes that downside risk for prices is small after a big slump in May while steel mills’ orders unexpectedly picked up and market inventories did not pile up,” said Zhao Chaoyue,
The Brent oil price fell sharply last night to $49.80 as I write. The Henry Hub rocket flamed out at 2.67mmBtu: Driving oil down was bearish US DOE inventory data. Crude stocks are not falling anywhere near as fast as last year, from John Kemp Petrol stocks are high: And diesel: All of this despite
Global Macro / Markets / Investing: Can Capitalism Be Redeemed? – HBR Robots may cut off the path to prosperity in the developing world – FT Robots Are Learning Complex Tasks Just by Watching Humans Do Them – HBR Yield Curve Nearing Cycle Lows – Bespoke Premium Global risks of Brexit dwarf the likely direct impact – FT Americas: Donald
By Leith van Onselen A new poll by the Lowy Institute has revealed that Australians have become increasingly opposed to selling agricultural land to foreigners. From The ABC: The poll showed that 87 per cent of respondents were against the Federal Government allowing foreign companies to buy Australian agricultural land — six percentage points higher
From The Australian: The Labor Party has presented the media with their own ‘real tradie’ who lost his house as a result of dodgy financial advice, as they campaign for a royal commission into the banks. Mark Hadley, 50, from Oakhurst in Sydney’s Blacktown, used to work extruding copper pipes and as a machine operator
Cross-posted from Independent Australia: Negative gearing mainly benefits the rich — the suggestion that it doesn’t borders on hallucinatory ideology or deceit, writes John Haly. IN FACT WE have just bypassed Denmark (the previous first placeholder) to hold the prize for the single largest ratio of household debt to GDP. Our government net deficit is minuscule by comparison at only
From Investing in Chinese Stocks. It took until November 2015 for China to see as much capital outflow through the banking system as it has seen through May. This number shows excess of payments for imports/foreign investments versus receipts through the banking system, which isn’t a pure estimate of the outflow (Chinese data being what
From the Economic Society of Australia survey of 31 economists when asked: Australia will receive a bigger economic growth dividend in the long-run by spending on education than offering an equivalent amount of money on a tax cut to business. 1 in 5 favour the benefits tax cuts.
It makes no sense at all but big iron is up today is Dalian rises 3%. Why is a mystery given fundamentals are clearly pointing the other way. BHP is flat, RIO 1.3% and FMG 0.3% FMG’s chart is strong and it looks like it wants to charge higher, which makes about as much sense
By Leith van Onselen Following the RBNZ’s warning on Auckland housing last month, the New Zealand Treasury Secretary, Gabriel Makhlouf, has entered the fray in a speech delivered yesterday: Infrastructure – in particular infrastructure investment – is another issue where Auckland is experiencing growing pains. There is no doubt that Auckland’s growth has created pressure
