By Leith van Onselen Statistics New Zealand has today released national accounts figures for the June quarter of 2017, with Gross domestic product (GDP) rising by 0.8% over the quarter to be up 2.5% year-on-year. GDP per capita rose by 0.3% in the June quarter and by 0.6% year-on-year. The main movements by industry are
By Leith van Onselen It seems Australia’s latest export growth industry – selling university degrees to international students – is under threat as the Chinese realise they are being short-changed. From The Brisbane Times: The plight of a Chinese student whose parents sold their home to pay for an Australian university education but only found
By Leith van Onselen You can’t keep the money grubbing rent-seeker down. From The Australian: The billionaire has opened up about his tax affairs as he faces an even heavier tax burden this year. His main customers, foreign property investors, are also being slugged with higher fees and taxes in NSW that are forecast to
In our last report on the Brisbane property market, released in March 2015, I argued that investment fundamentals and valuations in Brisbane property were sound relative to the other major capitals, but that the economic outlook was mixed, thus posing some risks to potential investors. With Sydney’s and Melbourne’s housing markets continuing their bull runs
By Leith van Onselen For years the growth lobby has argued that Australia needs to run high levels of immigration in order to alleviate so-called skills shortages and to mitigate an ageing population, despite the Department of Employment showing that Australia’s skills shortage “remains low by historical standards” and Australia’s labour underutilisation rate tracking at
By Leith van Onselen It’s been years in the making, but in just one month’s time, Australia’s automotive assembly industry will shutter for good. Toyota is scheduled to cease operations at its Altona Plant on 3 October, whereas Holden is scheduled to close on 20 October. On Holden, ABC News published the following last night:
By Leith van Onselen With the New Zealand National Government’s single-minded focus on solving Auckland’s housing crisis by boosting supply failing dismally, and it facing possible election defeat as the nation hits the polls on Saturday, Prime Minister Bill English has defended the Government’s housing record. From Interest.co.nz: Prime Minister Bill English has defended his
Global Macro / Markets / Investing: Government spending (% GDP) – Our World in Data Hidden cracks are forming in the record-breaking stock market – Business Insider Google’s AI Boss Blasts Musk’s Scare Tactics on Machine Takeover – Bloomberg Flattest Curve in Developed World Tells the Bond Market’s Tale – Bloomberg The price of bitcoin
By Leith van Onselen If you get a chance today, make sure that you head over to NewsHub to watch The AM Show host, Duncan Garner, demolish New Zealand’s National Government and Auckland Council over their epic housing policy failures. Garner holds nothing back and gives National both barrels in a sustained verbal assault. Below
By Leith van Onselen A decade ago, Melbourne was gripped in drought. Water storages had fallen to below 30% and widespread water restrictions were in place across the city: Several years of strong rainfall followed and today Melbourne’s dam storages sit at a healthier 69%. However, today The ABC reports that Southern Australia is getting
By Leith van Onselen Heather Shearer, a research fellow at Griffith University’s Cities Research Centre, is the latest to jump on the Tiny Houses fad, claiming they represent a solution to Australia’s housing affordability crisis. From The Conversation: Tiny houses are now so popular that someone was charged with stealing one last week… My research
By Leith van Onselen Australia has again taken the silver medal for having the world’s second most indebted households according to the latest data from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). The next table shows the ratios of household debt to GDP as at the March quarter of 2017. As you can see, Switzerland (129%)
By Leith van Onselen In this week’s SQM Research rental vacancies report, managing director Louis Christopher noted how rental supply would remain under pressure despite the recent record high dwelling construction levels: “Overall the current rental market is a moderate landlord’s market. There is nothing in our numbers to suggest the market is about to
By Leith van Onselen Fairfax’s Ross Gittins has continued his great run of form, nicely summing-up how the older generations are screwing over the young: When they look at the economy that older generations are leaving for them, young Australians have a lot to be angry about… It is a bit rich for federal governments
By Leith van Onselen The Australia Institute’s chief economist, Richard Denniss, has posted his second The Lucky Country podcast, which contained an interesting discussion on mass immigration and its impact on living standards: Listener question: “I’ve heard arguments that letting refugees into Australia will actually help our economy as more people would mean there’s more
Global Macro / Markets / Investing: What The World Thinks Of Trump – Five Thirty Eight An empirical analysis of peer-to-peer lending – VOX Fed’s balance-sheet unwind will be moment of truth for financial markets – MarketWatch BIS Hunts for ‘Missing’ Global Debt, Inflation – WSJ What Jamie Dimon Got Wrong About Bitcoin and Tulips
By Leith van Onselen The Australia Institute (TAI) has produced an interesting report warning that record low wages growth could significantly curtail Australian’s superannuation retirement savings, placing immense pressure on the Federal Budget. Below is the summary of the report along with some key charts: The record-slow pace of wage growth in Australia’s economy is
By Leith van Onselen The ABS has today released its property price index – incorporating both detached houses and units – which registered a 1.9% rise in home values nationally over the June quarter and a 10.2% gain over the year, exactly the same as the 10.2% annual growth initially reported in the year to
By Leith van Onselen Thirty-five health organisations have united to put an eight-pronged action plan to the Federal Government, which includes a 20% tax on sugary beverages. From The ABC: Obesity Policy Coalition [OPC] executive manager Jane Martin said obesity was having a dire effect on the nation’s physical and economic wellbeing. “We have a
By Leith van Onselen Back in July it was revealed that a draft tax ruling issued by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) in March 2017 could allow “passive” family investment companies to claim tax refunds and deductions, opening the door for wealthy families to claim back hundreds of millions of dollars. This draft ruling overturned
From CoreLogic’s Cameron Kusher comes a nice breakdown of last weeks’ ABS biennial survey of household income and wealth: As at the 2015-16 release 30.4% of households were lived in by someone that owned that property outright. This figure was lower than the 31.4% in 2013-14 and as the above chart shows it has been
By Leith van Onselen Fairfax’s Ross Gittins delivered the goods again yesterday with a stinging take down of Australia’s “aimless, money-grubbing exploiting” universities: Of the many stuff-ups during the now-finished era of economic reform, one of the worst is the unending backdoor privatisation of Australia’s universities, which began under the Hawke-Keating government and continues in
SQM Research has released its rental vacancy series for July, which revealed a 0.1% fall in the national vacancy rate over the month as well as a 0.1% decline over the year: As shown above, rental vacancies fell or were flat rose across all capitals in August. Over the year, decreases in vacancies were recorded
By Leith van Onselen In the lead-up to this Saturday’s New Zealand General Election, the Labour opposition has continually taken aim at New Zealand’s excessive immigration program, which Labour claims is choking housing, infrastructure and public services in Auckland, as well as undercutting working conditions. The Economist has published an interesting profile on Labour’s leader,
By Leith van Onselen The immigration-driven population boom in Sydney – which has added 845,000 people (20%) to Sydney’s population over the past 12 years and is projected to increase Sydney’s population by 87,000 people a year over the next 20 years – is the gift that keeps on giving. Back in December and January
