Australian Economy

Westpac with the note: The Leading Index continues to slow but is still consistent with above trend growth over the next 3 to 9 months.

From Gareth Aird, head of Australian economics at CBA New daily COVID‑19 cases will surge in NSW once Greater Sydney exits its lockdown.

The ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence index rebounded 2.5% over the weekend after Queensland exited its latest hard lockdown.

Another day, another story about how the collapse in immigration is driving up wages and conditions for domestic workers that no longer have to compete for jobs with foreigners.

The latest internal migration data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed that thousands more Australians had left Sydney and Melbourne and moved to Queensland.

Toowoomba businessman John Wagner has called on Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce to stand firm on the proposed route for the $15 billion Inland Rail project from Melbourne to Brisbane.

The Victorian Government has extended Melbourne’s lockdown for another two weeks and imposed a raft of new restrictions.

Analysis of 800 jobs by the National Skills Commission (NSC) claims that one in five occupations in Australia is suffering from skill shortages.

Revenue from international students has tanked by 28% to $26.7 billion for the 2020-21 financial year and on current trends revenue will have dived to $20 billion by the end of the year, around half what it was worth at its peak in 2019.

RMIT public policy professor David Hayward has analysed unemployment and immigration data over the pandemic and estimates that Victoria’s unemployment rate would have exceeded 7% if regular immigration flows had continued.

Melbourne’s two-week hard lockdown, which was scheduled to finish at midnight Thursday, is set to be extended after another 22 local COVID cases were recorded over the past 24 hours, which follows 21 cases on Saturday and 25 cases on Sunday.

COVID apartheid is here.

As we enter COVID apartheid with the NSW leper colony razor-wired off from the rest of Australia, and the nation is locked into a genuine two-quarter double-dip recession, you could be forgiven for thinking that things are about as bad they can get.

Australia is set to resume negotiations with India with regard to a free-trade agreement (FTA).

Morgans Stanley with the note: More risk than reward entering late cycle.

Independent senator Rex Patrick is one of the few Australian politicians with integrity.

For the better part of six months, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has stated continuously that it is committed to driving unemployment below 4.5% because lower unemployment is needed to drive wage growth above its current historically low level.

From CBA’s head of Australian economics, Gareth Aird: Key Points Next week the ABS will publish the Q2 Wage Price Index (18/8)and the July labour force survey (19/8).