Australian Economy

By Leith van Onselen It seems the never-ending people flood and associated over-development is causing a revolt across one key latte-belt Melbourne inner suburb.

The NAB survey yesterday confirmed a material recent slowdown in employment: Those levels are low enough for unemployment to begin rising again at current immigration levels.

.@mattjcan thinks there are legitimate views to be considered. @tanya_plibersek thinks we need to provide a quality of life. Teela Reid says stop with Australian values #QandA pic.twitter.com/mXM3QhV8lk — ABC Q&A (@QandA) July 9, 2018 Both parties pretending to care as they ruthlessly stuff in the sardines.

It’s over: • How confident are businesses?

By Leith van Onselen Over the past few years, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) head, Rod Sims, has issued a spate of warnings about, and voiced opposition to asset privatisations.

At the AFR this time:  The Fair Work Ombudsman is investigating Trek North director Leigh Alan Jorgensen from Cairns over fresh claims he engaged working holiday visa workers in “trials” or “internships” last month, during which they performed productive work but were paid nothing.

We’re often told that the Australian wage growth slowdown is a global phenomenon.

Via The Australian: Malcolm Turnbull is facing pressure from both sides of politics to establish a royal commission into retail electricity pricing, with the Greens to table a bill for a wide-ranging inquiry amid a push by Coalition backbenchers for the Prime Minister to launch an ­investigation into the conduct of power companies.

Via UBS: Preview: Q2 CPI to rise 0.6% q/q, lifting to 2.3% y/y – but ~½%pt from petrol Based on our proprietary survey, we forecast Q2 headline CPI (due July 25) to rise 0.6% q/q (vs our initial 0.5%) – albeit after only 0.4% in Q1 was the 6th straight downside surprise to consensus.

Via The Guardian: A popular restaurant and bar complex in a trendy area of Melbourne has been underpaying its employees, former staff say, depriving them of award wages and penalty rates and costing workers thousands of dollars.

By Leith van Onselen With Sydney having hit permanent peak hour: And the city being transformed into a high-rise ‘battery chook’ farm: “Suffocating Sydneysiders” are rising up against overdevelopment, according to The SMH: Look around Sydney and you’ll see battles being waged in nearly every suburb between residents’ action groups and the state government.

Via AIG comes the construction PMI: ▪ The seasonally adjusted Australian Industry Group Performance of Construction Index (Australian PCI®) registered 50.6 points in June (readings above 50 points indicate expansion), a decline of 3.4 points from May.

By Gerard Minack from Minack Advisors Australian house prices are gently falling.

Via the AFR: A $7.4 billion building boom in office towers, apartments and hotels in central Melbourne is raising fears the city may become a victim of its own success, with oversupply putting pressure on vacancy, rents and values.

From the AIG and Innes Willox today: The Australian Industry Group has today released a new report that examines the ongoing energy crisis in Australia which, while improving, can be said to have gone from worse to bad.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released retail sales figures for the month of May, which registered 0.4% seasonally-adjusted growth over the month, but annual sales growth falling to 2.5%: In trend terms, annual retail sales growth also slipped was 2.8%.

Hmm, grain of salt time, via AIG: • The Australian Industry Group Australian Performance of Services Index (Australian PSI® ) rose 4.0 points to a record high 63.0 points (seasonally adjusted), indicating a faster rate of expansion in June compared to May.