Australian Economy

If you can be bothered, there’s oodles of amateurish commentary around on the RBA today.

By Leith van Onselen Today’s retail sales figures should subtract from Australia’s March quarter GDP when the national accounts are released early next month.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released retail sales figures for the month of March, which recorded a 0.3% rise in retail sales over the month in seasonally-adjusted terms, with annual sales growth rising to 3.5%: In trend terms, annual retail sales growth fell to 3.0%.

By Leith van Onselen With Australia’s population ballooning on the back of mass immigration, and projected to add around 360,000 people a year until 2066, The Economist last week warned that Australia likely to experience a “severe water shortage” by mid-century.

Via the AIG: In my experience this PMI is a much better guide to residential than it is commercial ore engineering work.

Via ANZ, job ads fell again in April, down 0.1% month on month and 5.6% year on year: After five successive steep falls, it is pleasing to see a virtually unchanged result in job ads for April.

Via the AFR: NSW manufacturers say relying on LNG imports or gas from the Northern Territory to satisfy the state’s needs will send them out of business and have stepped up calls for the government to get behind Santos’s Narrabri coal seam gas venture, which secured two prospective customers this week.

By Leith van Onselen The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) has released its new car sales figures for April, which revealed a heavy 8.1% decline in overall sales relative to April 2018, with the result the worst for April since 2011: Another month, another sales dip.

MTO warns: No more retirement pigs pigs for boomers.

By Leith van Onselen Last year it was revealed that that Australian university vice chancellors have seen their salaries balloon, with the average salary package approaching $1 million: University leaders are picking up major pay rises, taking the annual average salary of vice-chancellors in NSW and Victoria to just below $1 million.

Via AIG: Look at the trend.

By Leith van Onselen The AFR’s Duncan Hughes has penned a disturbing article on how property developers are exploiting a regulatory loophole that excludes property as a financial product to offer massive commissions to accountants, financial advisers and mortgage brokers for recommending property to their clients.

A few charts from UBS tell the tale of what’s to come.

Thanks to Satyajit Das at Nikkei: When Australians go to the polls on May 18, the choice for all intents and purposes is between the center-right (Liberal and National Party coalition) and the center-left (Australian Labour Party).

Better from AIG: New orders better but employment and wages hit: Full report.

Sort of: Car-making is coming back to Australia with one company committed to launching “this year” with an electric city runabout expected to be its debut model.

Via Deloitte: Business investment is set to accelerate in the years ahead, but – partly due to slower economic growth and a softening of investment conditions in the non-mining sector – the recovery will be slower than previously expected.