Australian Economy

By Leith van Onselen The December quarter national accounts was another shocker for Australian households.

Chair of the Migration Council, Innes Willox, is at it again today.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today released trade data for the month of January, with Australia’s trade surplus jumping to $4.5 billion from $3.8 billion in December: The result smashed expectations of a $2.8 billion surplus.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released retail sales figures for the month of January, which recorded a 0.1% rise in retail sales over the month in seasonally-adjusted terms, with annual sales growth falling to 2.7%: In trend terms, annual retail sales growth fell to 2.8%.

By Leith van Onselen The federal government has expressed in-principle support for the 22 recommendations made in the report of the Migrant Workers’ Taskforce.

Earlier this morning I was interviewed by Radio 2GB’s Michael McLaren on Australia’s per capita recession.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today released the national accounts for the December quarter, which registered weak 0.2% growth in real GDP over the quarter and 2.3% growth over the year.

By Leith van Onselen Trade Minister Simon Birmingham will use an Asia Society speech to criticise Labor’s stance on free-trade agreements.

Yes, it’s Scummo’s Keynesian boom, via UBS: Public demand boomed again, up 1.6% q/q, adding 0.4% to GDP; saves the day Q4-18 ‘underlying’ public demand volumes surprisingly boomed 1.6% q/q (UBS: 0.0%, ‘headline’ 1.5%) after Q3 spiked 2.4%, the equal biggest 2 quarters since the GFC; & surged ~5.2% y/y.

Via Yahoo comes the great Australian economy: The former owner of two Subway franchises in Sydney has been penalised $65,000 after underpaying a former employee by $16,345.

Remarkable stuff for any long term observer.

Via Damien Boey at Credit Suisse: We now have all the partials (over 70% of the data) we can get to “now-cast” 4Q real GDP.

By Leith van Onselen With the NSW Election to be held later this month, the backlash against Sydney’s hyper immigration-driven population growth and over-development continues to grow.