Australian Economy

By Leith van Onselen Back in December, the higher education program director at the Grattan Institute, Andrew Norton, warned that Australia’s universities have become dangerously reliant on Chinese students.

By Leith van Onselen Credit Suisse has warned that a Shorten Labor Government would result in “cascading” wage increases and an increase labour’s share of national income.

Australians are paying more for their gas than the Japanese again. Asian spot prices are today at approximately $9Gj. On the east coast of Australia they are approximately $10Gj. Under the terms of the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism (ADGSM) the local export net-back and spot price should now be $7Gj.

AHG warns big time: Yuk: Plenty more where that came from.

By Leith van Onselen Telstra has advised that its profit fell by 27% to $1.2 billion in the first half of 2018-19. CEO Andy Penn said revenue is being affected by the impact of the national broadband network (NBN) on its fixed-line business.

By Leith van Onselen The ABS yesterday released a report entitled Insights from the Australian Census and Temporary Entrants Integrated Dataset, 2016, which revealed that there were 1,500,409 temporary residents in Australia on Census night, comprising: 41% Special Category (New Zealand citizen) visa holders – 664,957 persons (634,250 residents and 30,705 overseas visitors).

By Leith van Onselen Back in December, Western Australia’s mining sector attempted to soften-up the government to open the floodgates for temporary foreign workers to fill invented ‘skills shortages’ because of reported rising wage costs and an imaginary lack of workers.

This is totally perverse from the ABC: South Australia is losing a very important battle — to win the hearts and minds of those migrating to Australia.

By Leith van Onselen Following on from Gerard Minack’s report contending that “a recession in Australia is becoming more likely”,  Longview Economics has delivered a similar verdict: Summary & Conclusion: Excess in the Australian housing market has been widely discussed by investors and commentators for a number of years.

By Leith van Onselen With Australia’s consumer economy facing massive headwinds from the plummeting housing market and the likely reversal in the household savings rate: The RBA’s head of economic analysis, Alexandra Heath, has reached once more for the wage growth unicorn, claiming that rising wages growth will offset any fall in household consumption.

Via AOG: What, not the weather’s fault?

Via Westpac: Sentiment has recovered after a shaky start to the year.

Yesterday’s NAB survey rebound was enough to trigger an Australian dollar rally but it’s not clear why, via Westpac: The massive services sector is in free fall: Capex hit news lows.

Missed this earlier in the week.

By Leith van Onselen While residents of Sydney and Melbourne are suffering from crush-loaded roads, trains, schools, hospitals, and prisons, as well as hideously expensive housing, toll road company Transurban yesterday reported a massive lift in toll road revenues as Australia’s mass immigration ‘Big Australia’ policy continues to feed it customers.

And quite rightly.

I don’t publish it often but today is noteworthy as the ANZ weekly consumer confidence number tanked 3.4% to 114 continuing its downwards trend.

There was always going to be a little bounce back from the December crash: Business conditions saw a moderate rebound in January after falling sharply in December.

Via Bloombergo today: Signs are emerging that a two-year hiring burst that cut Australian unemployment by almost a percentage point is starting to cool.

By Leith van Onselen Western Sydney is the epicentre of the city’s working class.