Australian Economy

It looked a bit overdone last month, via Westpac: The Westpac-Melbourne Institute Index of Consumer Sentiment rose 4.5% to 97.0 in November from 92.8 in October.

Via the always bullish Deloitte: According to Deloitte’s Retailers’ Christmas Survey 2019, positive sentiment is down, in strong contrast to 2018, when retailers were approaching the season with a strong sense of optimism.

Evidence of Australia’s stuttering economy continues to mount, with the number of Australians turning to payday loans booming: Payday loans targeting the financially vulnerable are being taken out at the rate of more than 30,000 a week, with the amount borrowed in Australia on track to be worth $1.7bn by year’s end.

Via Peter Hartcher today: Yet Australia itself, where sane and centrist politics has largely prevailed, isn’t immune to the danger of a xenophobic populism in future.

Via NAB: Key messages from the Survey: This month’s survey results continue to point to only modest outcomes in the business sector, though forward-looking indicators have improved slightly and may be pointing to a stabilisation in conditions.

Via Nine today: Great to see them suffering.

The post-election bounce is well and truly over, with Roy Morgan reporting that business confidence has crashed, with forward indicators driving the decline: Roy Morgan Business Confidence dropped 4.6pts (-4.2%) to 106.0 in October, putting it at its lowest level since the Federal Election in mid-May.

The “paradox of thrift” was a theory made famous by renowned economist John Maynard Keynes.

Anthony Forsyth, Professor of Workplace Law at RMIT University, has roasted claims by employer groups that Australia’s “complex” industrial relations system is behind the rise in wage theft cases: Is Australia’s award system so complex major corporations capable of handling millions of customers and billions of dollars can’t manage to pay employees properly?

The Australian Bureau of Statistics yesterday published its overseas short-term arrivals figures for September, with Chinese visitors hitting fresh all-time highs.

Australia’s video-on-demand streaming market is becoming crowded, with incumbents Foxtel, Netflix, Stan, Amazon and Hayu set to be joined by offerings from Apple, Alphabet, Disney, Facebook, Hulu, HBO, CBS and NBC.

Via The Australian: Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack has lashed the “disgraceful, disgusting” behaviour of “raving inner-city lunatics” for linking climate change to the ferocious bushfires burning across Queensland and NSW.

It’s been two on trot and now third and the worst approaches, via the AFR: Real retail sales are going backwards as people who haven’t had a pay rise in years and feel they don’t need another dress, sofa or pair of shoes eschew the shops altogether.

Via Australian Construction Industry Forum (ACIF): ACIF Forecasts Market Dragged Down by Residential Construction but Not Out The Australian Construction Industry Forum (ACIF) forecasts that the decline in Residential Building will be so deep that it will dominate the outlook for building and construction, dragging down economic growth and employment.

Nobody sells it like Chris Joye: So what we are thinking right now?

Via The Australian: The shopping centre industry has been rocked by the largest deal of the year, with a half stake in the $1.34bn Westfield Marion in Adelai­de selling to Singapore-listed SPH REIT, in a transaction showing an 8 per cent discount to the mall’s December value.

The Attorney General’s Department has released its Trends in Federal Enterprise Bargaining Report for the June quarter of 2019, which reveals that private sector wage growth declined.

This year’s Melbourne Cup posted the lowest attendance since the mid-1990s, alongside weak television viewership and betting numbers: Attendance on the racetrack and TV ratings were down yesterday “for the race that stops the nation”.

Two months ago, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg boasted to the AFR Property Summit that the rebound in property prices would help to boost Australia’s GDP: Treasury estimates that a 10 per cent increase in house prices could result in a corresponding lift to GDP of about half a per cent.

There’s a lot of soul searching today over whether selling-off Australia’s essential assets and services was a good idea.