Australian Economy

Sydney’s water storages continue to plunge at a rate that makes the Millennial Drought look like child’s play: There’s no end in sight either, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, with no significant rainfall predicted until April.

Via Westpac’s always superb Red Book.

Yesterday evening I was interviewed on ABC’s Drive Program (above) debunking SGS Economics and Planning’s new report claiming that Melbourne is Australia’s “economic powerhouse”.

Sydney’s farcical $2.9 billion Eastern Suburbs Light Rail Project has had a rough opening with passengers labelling it “too damn slow”: With a 50-minute journey between Randwick and Circular Quay, many passengers noted it would be quicker to drive or get the train.

Rice Warner forecasts that Australia’s superannuation industry will have $7 trillion worth of assets under management by 2034, compared with $2.7 trillion at present.

For more than five years, MB has regularly ridiculed Australia’s ‘skilled’ visa system, which we have proven is poorly targeted, ineffective, and is failing in its stated purpose of alleviating chronic ‘skills shortages’ across the economy (see here).

In an interview with CNBC, SQM Research’s managing director, Louis Christopher, claims that Australia’s authorities are hoping the rise in Australian dwelling values will feed through to greater confidence in the economy.

Andrew Stone is a veteran economist that spent five years at the Australian Treasury and more than a decade at the Reserve Bank of Australia before working for nearly five years as Chief Economist and senior policy advisor to the Tony Abbott.

After years of overly optimistic wage growth forecasts: Today’s Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) has significantly downgraded wage growth from the 2019 Federal Budget: The four year forecasts are shown below, which projects that wage growth will rebound to 3% by 2022-23: MB does not support these forecasts.

The Recessionberg plan is going swimmingly, via CBA: The latest Commonwealth Bank Flash Composite PMI® pointed to a further marginal decrease in business activity across the manufacturing and service sectors in the final month of 2019.

As we already know, Sydney is a primary entry point for migrants: And Western Sydney is the prime dumping ground for these migrants: With Western Sydney also projected to receive the lion’s share future immigration-driven population growth – i.e.

I reluctantly ducked into Chadstone Shopping Centre earlier this week to buy Christmas gifts and was pleasantly surprised by how quiet the centre was.

Sort of, via the AFR: The glut in LNG supply that caused spot prices to slump to a three-year low in Asia this year will worsen in 2020, triggering the shutdown of 10 million tonnes a year of capacity in the US and putting Australian exporters under pressure, according to a respected energy forecaster.

David Alexander, managing director of government relations firm Barton Deakin, has penned a thoughtful article in The Australian explaining how the never-ending flood of cheap migrant workers is lowering Australian wages: The expansion in imported labour numbers in recent years has been dramatic.

Fifteen years of rapid population growth has driven a massive infrastructure deficit across Australia’s cities although estimates of this backlog vary significantly.

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

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released visitor arrivals and departures statistics for the month of October, which reveals that the number of permanent and long-term arrivals into Australia remains turbo-charged.

The new AEMO Integrated Energy Plan makes for facinating reading: The objective of an ISP is to minimise long-term total system costs, thereby maximising benefits in the interest of consumers, while meeting the NEM’s reliability, security and emissions expectations.

Ironically from by the AFR, kernel of evil for business parasitism, comes Productivity Commissioner Michael Brennan: Productivity Commissioner Michael Brennan says destructive rent seeking and a lack of entrepreneurship by business has stalled productivity and wage growth and that trying to fix the issue won’t be helped by reform nostalgia or economic pessimism.

One of the most profound changes affecting the Australian economy and society this century has been the massive lift in Australia’s net overseas migration (NOM) and population growth under the multi-partisan Big Australia policy.

Via COMMSEC comes one positive sign:  To get a gauge on the luxury vehicle market, CommSec tracks the sales of 17 luxury marques: Aston Martin, Audi, BMW, Bentley, Ferrari, Hummer, Jaguar, Lamborghini, Lexus, Lotus, McLaren, Maserati, Maybach, Mercedes-Benz, Morgan, Porsche and Rolls Royce.