Unconventional Economist

Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also Chief Economist and co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.

The economic week ahead

By Lucinda Jerogin, Associate Economist at CBA It was a quiet week domestically with the ABS Monthly Household Spending Indicator surprised to the downside, rising by 0.5% in June to be 4.8% higher annually.

Homebuyers hit pause ahead of RBA rate cuts

After months of strong results, Australia’s auction market has experienced a loss of momentum alongside a stalling of price growth.

Weekend reading and MB media appearances

International Reading: Trump 2.0 is “Hoover 3.0.” GDP growth under Trump 1 was the worst since Hoover.

UN climate-czar abuses Australia, cossets leviathan China

By Stephen Saunders Despite July’s highly aggressive return-visit from UNFCCC bovver-boy Simon Stiell, the Coalition seems unlikely to seriously challenge Labor’s net zero cult. Albanese Labor enjoys a masochistic relationship with the pro-China United Nations. Following UN open-borders precepts, massive immigration induces 75-80% of our (unnecessary) population growth.

Hands off the PBS, President Trump

One of the negative side effects of the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA), which took effect in 2005, was that it increased patent and copyright terms, raising the price of drugs and copyrighted products.

Labor lies again on immigration

In the lead-up to the 2022 federal election, Labor promised to run a smaller immigration policy if elected.

Australians aren’t as rich as they think

The 2025 UBS Global Wealth Report was released this week, which once again showed that the median Australian is among the wealthiest in the world.

Australia faces surge in unemployment

I have warned repeatedly that Australia’s labour market has been living in a ‘fool’s paradise’. The nation’s unemployment rate remains historically low at 4.3% and the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) expects unemployment to remain at this low level.

Soaring land costs stoke Australia’s housing crisis

Exorbitant land costs are the primary driver of Australia’s high home prices. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), residential land values, which underpin the housing market, increased by 8.8% between 2023 and 2024, reaching $7.7 trillion.

New Zealand’s ‘slow motion’ house price crash

The latest data from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) showed that house prices nationally have fallen by 16.4% over 44 months, with all major centres experiencing heavy declines.

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