Australian Economy

Via Bill Evans at Westpac: Westpac has revised its growth forecasts for the Australian economy in 2020 to take into account the expected impact from the Coronavirus.

Via Martin North: The latest data from our household surveys to the end of February 2020 shows that the impact of Covid-19 are hitting home.

Slowly but surely, Melbourne’s extreme population growth, which has seen the city’s population balloon by more than one million people (26%) in a decade, is threatening to overthrow another state government.

Via The Australian: Scott Morrison has jettisoned the budget surplus to fund a corona­virus stimulus package of almost $10bn in a bid to stave off a ­recession.

Amid the inane squawking of the Australian political economy pet shop there was one moment worth mentioning from the weekend.

Via The Australian: Australia faces an “unpreced­ented” fall in international visitor arrivals from key countries as the coronavirus outbreak feeds a ­record number of holiday can­cellations and a 36 per cent fall in bookings since December.

Via The Guardian: The coronavirus outbreak has led India to restrict the export of dozens of drugs including paracetamol and various antibiotics, leading to fears of a global shortage of essential medicines.

Australian retail sales plunged further in January, diving another 0.3% in seasonally adjusted terms, which follows December’s 0.7% fall: In the year to January, retail sales growth slowed to only 2.0% in seasonally adjusted terms and to 2.3% in trend terms.

The daily COVID-19 body count has now left China behind: Italy is now the gun super spreader.

Via the AFR comes more from Treasury Secretary Stephen Kennedy: The stimulus package will focus on wage subsidies, cash injections and tax breaks to help with cash flow, as well as business investment allowance to encourage investment.

Via the AIG: Too early for virus impacts and look at employment.

New Zealand migration to Australia has halved according to Statistics New Zealand: The estimated number of people migrating from New Zealand to Australia was 31,300 in the year ended June 2019, Stats NZ said today.

Xmas holiday’s nearly killed me but now there’ll be more!

Via Martin North: The official story is that lower interest rates are translating to reduced financial stress in the community.

I like Treasury Secretary Stephen Kennedy.

Via the ABC: Leaders of Australia’s $30 billion events and conference industry are watching nervously as clients take precautions to keep visitors safe, or — in rising numbers — postpone or cancel their plans due to coronavirus.

Looking backwards is what Australia does best.

We’ve already botched it by being too slow and weak at the border.

Yesterday’s December quarter national accounts release from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) was hailed by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg as another tick of approval for the Australian economy: The Australian economy continues to grow with today’s National Accounts seeing growth increase from 1.8% through the yr in the Sept qtr to 2.2% in Dec.

Panic buying is gripping the nation as shoppers stock up on staples like toilet paper, tissues, rice, flour, canned goods, bottled water, and hand sanitiser.