Australian Economy

No stopping it, via Bill Evans at Westpac: • The Westpac-Melbourne Institute Index of Consumer Sentiment declined 1.9% to 95.1 in December from 97.0 in November.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) yesterday released its Labour Account Australia, Quarterly Experimental Estimates for the September quarter, which revealed that filled jobs in the Health care and social assistance industry increased by 8.2% the year to September 2019, more than any other industry.

The biggest change to Australia’s motoring landscape over the past decade has been the massive shift away from passenger motor vehicles (PMVs) to sports utility vehicles (SUVs): In the decade to November 2019, PMV sales fell by 41%, whereas sales of SUVs surged by 163%.

In 2016, ACCC head Rod Sims famously flipped from being an avid supporter of privatisation to an opponent: “I’ve been a very strong advocate of privatisation for probably 30 years.

NAB’s new business survey is out and sucks: Overall, the business survey is consistent with ongoing weakness in GDP growth (especially private demand) and suggests there has been little improvement in Q4 for GDP.

Via Richard Denniss at the AFR: So, what exactly is “productivity”? Productivity refers to the amount of output produced by a given unit of input. Labour productivity measures how much stuff gets made by each unit (usually an hour) of labour.

The word is spreading, via Bloomie: Australia is expected to post the worst profit growth in Asia next year as a weak domestic economy stokes consumer caution and the banking sector deals with a litany of scandals.

For once in my life I agree with Australia’s rent-seeking CEOs, at the AFR: Australia’s top chief executives say the federal government must intervene to stimulate the economy through infrastructure spending and tax cuts, and have lamented the nation’s failure to properly tackle climate change and to develop a strong innovation policy.

The latest quarterly data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has revealed in all its hideous glory the decimation of Australia’s manufacturing sector.

In the years leading up to the May federal election, the Morrison Government and its supporters used Australian Taxation Office (ATO) data to lobby against Labor’s policy changes to negative gearing, claiming that those earning $80,000 were ‘middle-income earners’.

As an Australian parent in 2019, the public versus private school debate is hard to avoid.

Via Deloitte today: Retail Forecasts: little Christmas cheer but some promise in 2020 9 December 2019:  It has been a tough year for the retail sector so far in 2019, and the upcoming festive spending will likely do little to change that underwhelming result.

Last week’s national accounts data dump for the September quarter was another kick in the teeth for Australian households.

A fortnight ago I reluctantly shifted from my Telstra BigPond cable broadband service to the same priced NBN 50 service after being warned that my existing cable service was about to be switched off.

Shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers will urge the federal government to address issues such as low wages growth, underemployment and falling productivity in its mid-year economic outlook.

Five months ago, ahead of the Morrison Government’s tax cut package passing the Senate, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg was confident tax cuts would pump-prime the economy by juicing household consumption: “The tax cuts are equivalent to two 25 basis rate point cuts.

Via the excellent Damien Boey at Credit Suisse: Trade data came in below expectations.

Ah construction or, more to the point, lack of, via the AIG: Look at employment and new orders: If we break new orders down it is fugly: Houses, apartments, offices, bridges and roads all going bust at once.