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By Leith van Onselen Statistics New Zealand released its permanent & long-term migration figures for June 2018, which revealed that immigration into New Zealand has continued to drift back from record high levels, with 64,995 annual net permanent and long-term arrivals landing in New Zealand in the year to June, down from a peak of
By Leith van Onselen MB has frequently questioned the efficacy of Sydney’s WestConnex toll road and tunnel project – the $17 billion 33 kilometre motorway under construction that is more expensive per kilometre than the Chanel Tunnel. This hideously expensive project will see existing free public roads like the state-owned M4 (that have already been paid
By Leith van Onselen Earlier this month, Dr Bob Birrell and Dr Ernest Healy from The Australian Population Research Institute (APRI) published an excellent report explaining the deleterious impact Australia’s mass immigration ‘Big Australia’ policy has had on housing affordability in Sydney and Melbourne. Now, Bendan Coates, research fellow at The Grattan Institute, has admitted that mass
By Leith van Onselen CoreLogic has released analysis on the change in house and unit values over the past decade throughout each of Australia’s largest sub-state regions (best known as SA4). Below are the decade changes in house values: And below are the decade changes in unit values: You see from the above that Perth
By Leith van Onselen Here we go again. The Turnbull Government has reignited its plan for tougher “English-language” and “values” requirements to become an Australian citizen. From The Australian: Citizenship Minister Alan Tudge has warned Australia is veering towards a “European separatist multicultural model”, flagging a rethink of immigration settings that could include new migrants
By Leith van Onselen Australian Finance Group (AFG) has released its housing finance data for the June quarter, which registered a seasonal quarterly rise in the number of mortgage applications, but with applications falling heavily over the year. The number of mortgage applications rose by a seasonal 4.2% over the March quarter but was down
By Leith van Onselen In the week ended 19 July 2018, the CoreLogic 5-city daily dwelling price index, which covers the five major capital city markets, declined another 0.11%: Values fell across all major markets except Brisbane: So far in 2018, home values have declined by 2.07%, with only Brisbane and Adelaide recording a value
By Leith van Onselen Yesterday’s ABS labour force release for June revealed a firmer Australian youth labour market – i.e. those aged 15 to 24 years old – led by a surge in part-time jobs. The trend headline unemployment rate fell to 11.61% in June from 11.85% in May: Whereas total employment growth for those
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By Leith van Onselen Last weekend, CoreLogic released its preliminary auction clearance rates, which revealed the following results: CoreLogic has released its final auction results, which reported a large 5.5% decline in Sydney’s auction clearance rate to just 46.9%, with Melbourne’s also falling by 3.8% to 56.2%: According to CoreLogic, Sydney’s auction clearance rate fell
By Leith van Onselen As summarised earlier, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today released its labour force report for June, which registered a 50,900 increase in total employment but an unchanged headline unemployment rate of 5.4%, driven by rising labour force participation. In trend terms, the unemployment rate fell marginally from 5.43% to 5.41%:
By Leith van Onselen Earlier this month we revealed that Chinese tourist numbers had hit an all-time high 1.4 million in the year to May, with their share of total tourists also at a record 15.8%: Today, Minister for Tourism, Steve Ciobo, revealed that Australia’s tourism spend – comprising both domestic and international tourists – increased by
By Leith van Onselen The Australian Financial Security Authority (FSA) has released personal insolvency statistics for 2017-18, which reveals a sharp rise in total personal insolvencies to the highest level since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), with record high insolvencies reached in WA and NT, and debt agreements also hitting an all-time high: According to
By Leith van Onselen We noted on Tuesday how Sydney investors are facing the twin shock of both falling prices and rents. This came after SQM Research’s June rental report revealed that Sydney’s asking rents were now falling on the back of a spike in the rental vacancy rate to 2.8% – the highest level
By Leith van Onselen With Sydney having hit permanent peak hour: And the city being transformed into a high-rise ‘battery chook’ farm: NSW Deputy Opposition Leader, Michael Daley, has slammed a “massive overdevelopment” in the inner suburb of Pagewood: Mr Triguboff’s company Meriton proposes to build more than 3000 apartments over 10 years on the former
By Leith van Onselen Australia’s falling housing market: Combined with record debt loads: And falling houshold income: Has left the Australian housing market teetering “on the precipice” according to DFA’s Martin North, who was interviewed as part of a New York Times investigation: Georgia Blackie felt she needed to buy it or rent for the
By Leith van Onselen The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) has released a new report examining the future of tax revenue in Australia, which has projected that federal budget will become even more reliant on personal income tax revenue as other sources dwindle and no action is taken to better tax resources: …since 2001–02, the most significant
By Leith van Onselen ANZ’s latest Property Focus claims that claims that unaffordable housing and excessive immigration is killing productivity in New Zealand. From Interest.co.nz: “High house prices make it more difficult for younger households to invest in businesses, limiting the entrepreneurial endeavours of younger people. They also create barriers to labour mobility and social
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This morning I was interviewed by Luke Grant on Sydney Radio 2GB, where we discussed the Coalition’s illusionary cuts to the permanent migrant intake, the call for a Senate review into population policy, among other immigration-related issues. Enjoy!
By Leith van Onselen For years, MB has called on the federal government to implement the second tranche of anti-money laundering (AML) legislation covering real estate gate keepers, which was promised by the government more than a decade ago. MB’s incessant lobbying follows a veritable conga-line of reputable international organisations urging Australia to meet its
By Leith van Onselen The chorus calling for a lift in Australia’s pathetically low Newstart Allowance for unemployed workers (the ‘dole’) is getting too loud to ignore. In recent times, we have witnessed a huge cross-section of industry groups and commentators calling for Newstart to be lifted, including: Deloitte Access Economics senior partner Chris Richardson;
By Leith van Onselen A study by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) claims that people taking out mortgages to buy a home have become less vulnerable to the effects of a housing market downturn, higher interest rates and/or a loss of income since the introduction of Loan to Valuation Ratio (LVR) lending restrictions
By Leith van Onselen With the Turnbull Government confirming that the Adani Carmichael coal mine will not receive NAIF funding, Australia’s largest rail freight company – Aurizon – stating that it will withdraw its application for a federal government loan to build the rail corridor, as well as deep public opposition, the project should have
By Leith van Onselen Dr Bob Birrell from Australian Population Research Institute has argued that foreign students “gaming” Australia’s immigration system are locking younger Australians out of the jobs market. From The Australian: Surging overseas student numbers have driven net overseas migration to more than 240,000 a year, putting downward pressure on wages and pushing
By Leith van Onselen When it comes to Australia’s immigration program, you would be hard pressed to find a bigger liar than Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. On Monday night, Turnbull again spun a web of lies over Australia’s migrant program on The Project (video above). Below are some key excerpts. Lisa Wilkinson: “We are about
By Leith van Onselen With the release recently of Australia’s dwelling construction data for the March quarter of 2018, it’s once again time to examine how Australia’s dwelling supply is tracking against population growth. The below charts track the following, which are based on the latest available quarterly data: Dwelling approvals to March 2018; Dwelling
Interest rate comparison website, RateCity, has estimated that Australian mortgage holders are facing sizeable increases in repayments on the back of out-of-cycle rate rises by lenders. From The Australian: …mortgage holders with loans of $500,000 would be hit with a bill for an extra $358 each year if their lender increased rates by 10 basis
By Leith van Onselen SQM Research has released its rental vacancy series for June, which revealed a 0.2% lift in the national vacancy rate over the month but a 0.2% decline over the year: Over the year, decreases in vacancies were recorded in Adelaide (-0.3%), Perth (-1.3%), Brisbane (-0.6%) and Canberra (-0.3%), whereas increases were
