Simon Kuestenmacher is Director of Research at The Demographics Group and is described as “a rising star in the world of demography”. The Demographics Group is the private enterprise headed by self-proclaimed “unabashed supporter of a bigger Australia” Bernard Salt, who has spent years lobbying for mass immigration. Kuestenmacher has been frequently cited in the mainstream
With real Australian wages falling to December 2014 levels amid the spike in inflation: The Fair Work Commission (FWC) has flagged the possibility of awarding a larger increase in the minimum wage for the lowest-paid workers and a smaller rise for people on higher minimum award rates: At a minimum wage hearing on Wednesday, Fair
CoreLogic has released its final auction results for last weekend with the nation’s clearance rate falling to 60.1% – the lowest level since August 2021. The decline in the nation’s clearance rate was driven by Sydney, which fell to only 53.8% – the lowest reading in more than two years. According to CoreLogic: The busiest
While the gas cartel is busy forcing Australian energy bills up by sending our gas offshore, turns out the industry also pays minimal tax. According to a new report from The Australia Institute (TAI), major gas companies haven’t paid income tax in seven years despite earning $138 billion from their Australian operations: New analysis of
The ABS has just released its labour force survey for April, which reported that Australia’s unemployment rate has fallen to its lowest level since August 1974 at just 3.9%, with underemployment also falling to its lowest level since 2008 at just 6.1%: The key movements are shown below: In particular: Unemployment rate down slightly to
One of the big conundrums arising from the pandemic is the sharp fall in rental vacancy rates across Australia despite negative net overseas migration. Logically, the loss of hundreds-of-thousands of migrants should have seen Australia’s rental vacancy rate rise. However, vacancy rates instead plummeted. One plausible explanation is that Australian’s desire for additional space has
The situation has gone from bad to worse for Australia’s residential building industry. Following the recent collapses of major Australian construction firms Condev, ABG Group, Probuild and Privium, giant Metricon is now facing a similar fate: On Wednesday, it was reported that Metricon was in emergency talks with clients after falling into financial strife just
While the business lobby, its captured media, and the Coalition are all scaremongering about a ‘wage-price spiral’ if the minimum wage lifts in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI), Jim Stanford from the Centre for Future Work has instead argued that “profit-price inflation” is the far bigger concern: De-unionisation, insecure work, and deregulation of
The latest Australian interest rate forecast from the futures market tips the Reserve Bank of Australia to lift the official cash rate (OCR) to 2.7% by the end of this year, peaking at 3.4% by mid-2023: If the market’s projection proved correct, this would be the equivalent of another nine 0.25% interest rate hikes over
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ANZ Bank had forecast in February that dwelling prices would rise by 8% cent in 2022, followed by a 6% decline in 2023. However, ANZ says the prospect of aggressive monetary policy tightening means that it now expects dwelling prices to fall by 3% in 2022 and 8% in 2023. ANZ economists have forecast the
Analysis by the Australian National University (ANU) suggests that families on higher incomes will benefit the most from the child-care policies of both Labor and the Coalition. The analysts shows that the wealthiest 20% of households will save an average of $2,547 a year under Labor’s policy. In contrast, the Coalition’s child-care policy will result
The mood among Australian consumers continues to worsen, with the ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence index plunging to its lowest level since mid August 2020 when Australia was in the early stages of the pandemic: Four of the five confidence subindices dropped. ‘Current financial conditions’ fell 4.4%, while ‘future financial conditions’ dropped 0.4%. ‘Current economic conditions’
Prime Minister Scott Morrison yesterday attacked Labor for claiming that the Coalition’s policy to allow first home buyers to borrow up to 40% of superannuation to purchase their first home would “blow up the housing market”: [Morrison] took a swipe at Labor’s criticism of the policy, saying the party had “lost touch completely” after it
Australian wage growth missed economists’ expectations in the March quarter of 2022, according to new data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Total wages grew by only 0.65% in the March quarter, missing analyst’s expectations of 0.8% growth. Private sector wages grew by 0.65% over the quarter, whereas public sector wages grew
Throughout this year, we’ve heard outlandish claims that granting a CPI increase in the minimum wage would cause inflation to soar, driving up mortgage rates. The most egregious example came from Hospitality king pin Wes Lambert, who claimed the price of a coffee would soar to $7 if the minimum wage was increased “close to
Roy Morgan’s unemployment estimate jumped by 1.9% points to 9.7% in April – the biggest monthly increase since the initial stages of the pandemic just over two years ago. However, under-employment was unchanged at 8.4% in April: Key points as follows: Workforce increased 39,000 in April driven by the steep rise in unemployment: The workforce
A cross-country analysis shows that New Zealand’s residential housing market is by far the most expensive in the English-speaking world, measuring at 4.8 times the size of the economy: Capital Economics also estimated that New Zealand’s consumer spending growth is the second most sensitive to changes in house prices, behind Hong Kong: Given household consumption is
Last year’s NSW Budget revealed that the state’s housing shortage had all but disappeared thanks to the collapse in immigration: Building approvals are now running well ahead of the change in population, which is depressed due to the lack of inward migration. This suggests a potential oversupply in the near-term relative to the underlying demand
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Over the decade leading up to COVID, the exploitation of international students became systemic across the Australian economy. Multiple reports bemoaned the rampant wage theft from international students, especially from migrant employers of the same nationality. For example, the 2016 Senate Committee report, A National Disgrace: The Exploitation of Temporary Work Visa Holders, noted that
On Sunday, the Morrison Government announced that if reelected, it would allow first home buyers to borrow up to 40% of superannuation to purchase their first home, capped at up to $50,000 (see yesterday’s article). Under the policy, first home buyers would need to have $125,000 in their superannuation account in order to withdraw the
Australia’s rental crisis continues to worsen, with SQM Research recording a surge in asking rents amid tight vacancies. While the national vacancy rate rose 0.1% in April to 1.1% on the back of the smaller capital cities (see below table), asking rents nationally soared another 1.4% over the month to be 13.8% higher year-on-year: According
Roy Morgan’s last opinion poll before this weekend’s federal shows that Labor is poised to take government with a swing of 4.5%, However, the race has tightened: The ALP’s lead over the L-NP has been cut to 6% points as early voting began last week but it still holds a clear election winning lead before
The business lobby has dished up another serving of ‘skills shortage we need more migrants’ tripe at Fairfax, while explicitly admitting that mass immigration is used to suppress wage costs: Senior Australian business leaders have urged the next federal government to address the nation’s labour crisis by boosting migration to fill jobs, warning a failure
