Australian Economy

Via Bloomie: Sydney’s plunging house prices are usurping a prolonged wage slump as the key worry for the central bank, with markets now showing more chance of an interest-rate cut than a hike in 2019.

By Leith van Onselen The SMH has published a spurious article entitled “Sydney’s migrant mums keeping Australia fertile”: Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics have revealed a sharp drop in the nation’s fertility rate over the past six years to its lowest level since the turn of the century.

By Leith van Onselen Western Australia’s mining sector continues 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.

Labor appears set on an attempt to fix low wages via re-regulation rather than limiting immigration.

By Leith van Onselen With mass immigration opponent, Luke Foley, resigning from the NSW Labor Party’s leadership earlier last month, I was hoping that new leader Michael Daley would maintain the rage against the mass immigration influx that is destroying liveability in Sydney: Sadly, early indications are not good.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics yesterday released its overseas short-term arrivals and departures figures for October, which continued to show a trend rise in the number of inbound visitors, with both Chinese arrivals and student arrivals hitting an all-time high.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released visitor arrivals and departures data for the month of October, which again posted turbo-charged net annual permanent and long-term arrivals.

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

Via The Australian: Bill Shorten says he’ll come down “like a tonne of bricks” on employers using 457 visas to fill jobs, rather than training Australians.

By Leith van Onselen Labor’s national conference has supported proposed changes to the party’s policy platform with regard to free-trade agreements.

Via John Adams, regular contributor to Martin North: Dear All, Economic Armageddon is no joke and if the past week has taught me something it is that warning the public of the coming economic peril comes at great risk to people like me.

From the CBA: Growth was maintained in the Australian private sector during December, but signs of softer demand were evident across both the manufacturing and service sectors.

Via the AFR: Chinese developer Forise is tossing up taking on a joint venture partner for its $1.2 billion high-rise luxury residential tower “Spirit” in Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast, or sell the site altogether, as it struggles to sell apartments.

The politico-housing swamp has entered a corruption blow-off.

By Leith van Onselen Of all the statements arising from Wednesday’s COAG pro-Big Australia love-in, the most idiotic has to be reserved for Victorian Premier, Dan Andrews.

By Leith van Onselen This is hilarious.

By Leith van Onselen The HIA has jumped aboard Peter McDonald’s immigration propaganda releasing the following drivel lobbying against any immigration cut: Sensible heads need to prevail regarding Australia’s immigration policy said the Housing Industry Association, following COAG’s determination yesterday to make population planning and management a standing item on their agenda.

By Leith van Onselen Fairfax’s Ross Gittins yesterday penned an excellent article lamenting the neoliberal obsession with privatisation, which is unambiguously making Australians worse-off: Many people feared that if private businesses were allowed to buy government businesses, the first thing they’d do would be to jack up their prices.

By Leith van Onselen The Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute has released a new report showing the proportion of workers in the private sector that are covered by enterprise agreement has fallen from 19% in 2013 to 12% in 2017.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian’s Judith Sloan has comprehensively demolished the business lobby’s latest “deeply misleading and self-serving” policy paper claiming “Migration works for all of us”.

Via Shane Oliver today: 2019 is likely to be an interesting year for the Australian economy.

By Leith van Onselen Professor Peter McDonald’s immigration propaganda swept yesterday’s COAG meeting on managing Australia’s population growth.