By Leith van Onselen Flip-flopping demographer Peter McDonald is back with more immigration propaganda at yesterday’s AFR Infrastructure Summit, where he derided Scott Morrison’s decision to lower the non-humanitarian permanent migrant intake to 160,000: Peter McDonald, professor of demography at the University of Melbourne, said Australia was facing a potential “labour-supply crunch” because about two million
By Leith van Onselen As summarised earlier, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today released its labour force report for May, which registered a solid 42,300 increase in total employment but a flat headline unemployment rate (still 5.2%), driven by a 0.11% rise in labour force participation. However, the underemployment and underutilisation rates rose by
By Leith van Onselen Academic researchers, Rachel Ong and Gavin Wood, warns that the number of mature age Australians carrying mortgage debt into retirement is soaring, endangering Australia’s retirement system. From The Conversation: Microdata from the Bureau of Statistics survey of income and housing shows an increase in the proportion of homeowners owing money on mortgages across every
By Leith van Onselen Perth’s epic housing bust, where values have fallen for over 59 months with cumulative losses of 19.2%: Has seen values fall to the same level as April 2006, according to CoreLogic: “In Perth values were previously this low in April 2006 and values haven’t been this low across regional WA since July
By Leith van Onselen The ghettoisation of Western Sydney continues, with a record number of patients flooding the regions emergency departments and waiting times blowing-out, according to the latest NSW hospital data: Record numbers of patients are swamping emergency departments across NSW… The rising numbers – above population growth – show no sign of slowing…
By Leith van Onselen The decline in EU immigration into the UK in the wake of the Brexit Turmoil continues to be a boon for workers, with unemployment falling to the lowest level since the 1970s and UK wages surging: Wage growth beat market and economist expectations in the three months from February to April.
By Leith van Onselen Fidelity International investment specialist Anthony Doyle has taken direct aim at Scott Morrison’s first home buyer (FHB) deposit subsidy scheme, claiming that it will actually make housing affordability worse by pushing up prices. From The AFR: Mr Doyle said that introducing subsidies on the buy side doesn’t address housing affordability. He
By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics yesterday released its overseas short-term arrivals and departures figures for April, which showed a trend moderation in arrivals and a worsening is Australia’s ‘tourism balance’. The number of short-term visitor arrivals dived by 16.3% in April in original terms, whereas short-term resident departures rose by 27.5%
By Leith van Onselen Hot on the heels of former Infrastructure Australia (IA) chief, Michael Deegan, slamming the shroud of secrecy surrounding infrastructure provision across Australia, which has resulted in taxpayers being gouged, current IA head, Romilly Madew, has warned that Australia’s failing infrastructure is wrecking both productivity and living standards. From The AFR: Ms Madew
The latest official temporary migrant statistics from Australia’s Department of Home Affairs shows there were around 613,000 international student visas on issue as at March 2019, and increase of 77,000 (14%) from the year prior and up 280,500 (84%) since March 2013: As shown in the next chart from ABC Four Corners recent expose, this
Global Macro / Markets / Investing: Putting a tax on wealth means we first must measure it – Brookings Millennials are ‘canaries in the coalmine’ for toxic economic trends, say Stanford scholars – Stanford Workers: no longer needed? Productivity is down despite automation – IBO The Economics of a Job Guarantee: Wage and Employment Effects
From Martin North [my emphasis]: The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has released its response to the first round of consultation on proposed changes to the capital framework for authorised deposit-taking institutions (ADIs). The package of proposed changes, first released in February last year, flows from the finalised Basel III reforms, as well as the Financial
By Leith van Onselen In 2018, then Treasurer Scott Morrison made headlines when he claimed Tony Abbott’s proposal to cut Australia’s permanent migrant intake by 80,000 to 110,000 would cost the Federal Budget “$4 billion to $5 billion over the next four years”, arguing “the economy (would not be) growing at the same level and
By Leith van Onselen The former head of Infrastructure Australia (IA), Michael Deegan, has slammed the shroud of secrecy applied to infrastructure provision across Australia, which has resulted in taxpayers being gouged: Michael Deegan led Infrastructure Australia from 2008 to 2014 and said he was under “constant” pressure from state governments to keep key transport
By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released visitor arrivals and departures statistics for the month of April, which suggested that immigration into Australia continues to surge. In the year to April 2019, there were a near record 843,950 permanent and long-term arrivals into Australia, up 5% from April 2018, and
By Leith van Onselen A fortnight ago, The AFR published the following fake news: New Zealand pub owner Chris Dickson worries his staff is overworked. He expected employment visas for two new overseas workers to be approved weeks ago, but the paperwork was delayed with no clear reason given. …”We are struggling to find people,”
By Leith van Onselen The final report of the Hayne Royal Commission called for a “best interest duty” on mortgage brokers that would require the industry to act in the best interests of their clients and mirrors obligations imposed on financial planners. However, Australia’s mortgage broking industry is fighting back against the reforms. From The
By Leith van Onselen The ABS yesterday released a new experimental series on Australia’s labour market, which examines the number of filled jobs in Australia (as opposed to the number of people in work), which suggests that the labour market is weakening: The total number of filled jobs in Australia grew slowly in the March
By Leith van Onselen The Coalition’s personal income tax package looks to be stuck in the Senate after One Nation leader Pauline Hanson on Monday pulled the party’s support unless the Morrison Government agrees to build new coal-fired power stations to lower energy prices. The loss of One Nation’s two Senate votes has left the
By Leith van Onselen Last week’s national accounts release for the March quarter confirmed that Australia’s FIRE economy – Finance, Insurance and Rental, Hiring & Real Estate Services – continues bleeding its host, with its share of the Australian economy rebounding to a near record high 11.7%: Since financial markets were first deregulated in the
By Leith van Onselen Following yesterday’s post charting Australia’s housing finance data against house prices across Australia’s major capitals, below is a chart comparing mortgage credit growth – as reported monthly by the RBA – against dwelling values nationally, since I frequently get requests for this from readers: As you can see, unlike the ABS’
CBC has published an all too familiar report on how international students from India are breaking Canada’s 20-hour a week work rule in order to earn enough to pay for tuition fees and living costs, and how this is leading to underpayment and exploitation in the workplace: Abhishek Hastir, an engineering student from India now
Global Macro / Markets / Investing: G20 agrees to push ahead with digital tax – Reuters Our World Is Run By Global Corporations & Megacities, Not Countries – Citi Post Financial Crisis Has Seen the Largest Increase in Commercial Indebtedness on Record – The SoundingLine Crypto-Friendly French Finance Minister Fears a Worldwide Economic Crisis –
By Leith van Onselen Just a day after ‘Highrise’ Harry Triguboff’s mouthpiece, Robert Gottliebsen, warned that Sydney is facing chronic apartment shortages and escalating rents due to planning restrictions: …chaos reigns in both cities [Sydney and Melbourne] because supply cannot be generated to meet looming demand… In Sydney and Melbourne, with supply unable to be
By Leith van Onselen For years MB has explained why it does not support the proposed $120 billion High Speed Rail (HSR) line linking the major eastern cities of Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne, due to: The exorbitant cost associated with building and operating the rail line; Lack of population density to support the project;
By Leith van Onselen The SMH reports that the NSW Berejiklian government has forgone almost $850 million in revenue in two years to help first-home owners enter the crashing property market: New figures show the share of first-time buyers purchasing homes in the NSW property market reached 25.3 per cent in April – double the
By Leith van Onselen Back in April, the Committee for Adelaide demanded that the appallingly low salary floor for ‘skilled’ migrants be lowered to reduce costs for business: Committee for Adelaide member and prominent migration agent Mark Glazbrook told parliament “a successful migration program… needs to be based on demand and it needs to be
By Leith van Onselen Another report has come to light about how Victorians are being gouged by hidden infrastructure costs: Victorians are paying billions of dollars to a private consortium for a major road [Peninsula Link] that was contracted to be built for just $651 million nine years ago… Treasurer Tim Pallas was roads minister
By Leith van Onselen The Australia Institute (TAI) has released new research estimating that the final stage of the Morrison Government’s unlegislated income tax plan, stage 3(a) will, over the five years after it is introduced in 2024-25, deliver a $33 billion benefit to those earning more than $180,000: Key findings: Those earning more than
By Leith van Onselen A fortnight ago, The Australian’s Robert Gottliebsen ludicrously claimed that apartment prices across Sydney had surged by 10% in the wake of the Coalition’s shock 18 May election victory: The Chinese realise Australia’s outlook has changed and have created a surge of buying that has skyrocketed Sydney apartment prices by 10
