Australian Economy

Last year, RBA Governor Phil Lowe broke rank and warned that Australia’s high levels of immigration had contributed to the nation’s decade of poor wage growth and had given businesses an incentive not to train their workers.

By Gareth Aird, head of Australian economics at CBA. My view is that the RBA won’t lift rates until wage growth lifts above 3% (from 2.2% as at the September quarter), which suggests a June rate hike is too early.

Professor Ian Lowe – emeritus professor of science, technology and society at Griffith University, former President of the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), and author of the excellent book Bigger or Better?: Australia’s Population Debate – is lead author of a new discussion paper entitled Population and Climate Change.

ANZ-Roy Morgan has released its weekly inflation expectations survey, which rose 0.2% back to its seven year high of 5.0%: This follows Roy Morgan’s survey earlier this month, which also showed inflation expectations tracking near 5% over the next two years: Higher petrol prices and supply chain bottlenecks are clearly having an impact.

Last week, the Grattan Institute published “research”, thoroughly debunked by MB, claiming that the collapse in immigration has played minimal role in pushing Australia’s unemployment and underemployment rates to their lowest levels since 2008.

The hopes for a swift rebound in inbound tourism have taken a hit with China effectively locking its citizens within its borders until 2023: “Nobody will go to Australia because nobody wants to take the risk of getting the COVID-19.

During the course of the pandemic, we have seen elective surgeries delayed to free up hospital resources.

Credit Suisse with the note: After adjusting for inflation, the crude oil price has risen to a seven-year high, and the sharp move is comparable to run-ups of past oil bull markets (Figure1).

Over recent weeks, I have proven categorically (here and here) that the sharp fall in Australia’s unemployment and underemployment rates have been driven by the collapse in immigration over the pandemic: The evidence is irrefutable and proven in the ABS’ labour force data.

The national cabinet has accepted the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation’s (ATAGI’s) recommendation that people aged 16+ should receive a booster to be regarded as being ‘up to date’ on their vaccine status.

For years we watched in dismay as The Guardian’s left-leaning economic poster boy, Greg Jericho, defended Australia’s mass immigration program, arguing that immigration doesn’t suppress wages, among other things.

Australia has recorded 4,302 deaths from COVID-19 since the pandemic began, including about 3,000 deaths during the Delta and Omicron waves.

A new report from RMIT Online and Deloitte Access Economics claims the Australian economy has been hit hard from the loss of 380,000 migrants over the pandemic: RMIT Online and Deloitte Access Economics suggest the Australian economy produced some $148 billion less in GDP than it would have in a pandemic-free world.