Australian Economy

By Leith van Onselen Labor infrastructure and transport spokesman, Anthony Albanese, has given yet another weak defence of mass immigration and a ‘Big Australia’, offering a whole bunch of strawman arguments, motherhood statements, and worthless platitudes defending the 1.74 million extra people expected to inundate Sydney over the next 20 years.

CBA is turning desperate.

It’s as obvious as the nose on your face that global markets are beginning to suspect that the Australian property bubble may burst.

By Leith van Onselen I couldn’t help but laugh when I read the following report whinging about rapid unplanned population growth in Canberra’s Gungahlin region, to the city’s north.

MB prodding appears to have tipped Rob Burgess over the edge on population: Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party continues to stoke fears that Australia is becoming “Asian-ised” (whatever that means), and Australian Conservative leader Cory Bernardi complains of the growing threat of “‘influencers’ bankrolled by the Chinese Communist Party”.

By Ross Elliott, cross-posted from The Pulse US based urbanist Richard Florida – once described as an “intellectual Rockstar” – shot to fame with his 2002 book The Creative Class.

Via Westpac: • The six month annualised growth rate in the WestpacMelbourne Institute Leading Index, which indicates the likely pace of economic activity relative to trend three to nine months into the future, slipped from –0.16% in August –0.21% in September.

By Leith van Onselen When the National Broadband Network (NBN) arrived in my area late last year residents were greeted with a barrage of junk mail advertisements from all manner of internet service providers offering competitively priced internet at fast speeds.

Via Domainfax: National Australia Bank’s Alan Oster says it’s not exactly clear why retail sales have been so weak lately, but there are plenty of things likely to be limiting spending growth.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian last week gave a good summary of the population pressures afflicting Melbourne as the city experiences an unprecedented population boom: At the Melbourne train station of Williams Landing in the city’s southwest, the flower beds lining the carpark are repeatedly squashed into the dirt.

Via Westpac: September is a seasonally strong quarter due to the post June 30 price resetting of many administered prices and as such, the ABS seasonal factors moderate our estimate to a seasonally adjusted 0.4%.

By Leith van Onselen From Robert Gottliebsen (“Gotti”) comes an interesting titbit on the role that Australia’s dud Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) played in the car industry’s demise: The first Toyota closure reason was actually the so-called “free trade” agreements that Australia signed.

By Leith van Onselen The Business Council of Australia (BCA) and the Turnbull Government continue to argue that Australia’s company tax rate is among the highest in the world and that if we don’t reduce it then  Australia will be left behind economically.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics yesterday released its overseas short-term arrivals and departures figures for August, which continued to show a trend rise in the number of inbound tourists, with Chinese arrivals continuing to boom.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released visitor arrivals and departures data for the month of August, which registered another lift in annual permanent and long-term arrivals, which remains at turbo-charged levels.

By Leith van Onselen After downgrading Australia’s growth outlook last week, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has turned its sights to Australia’s huge pile of debt and the nation’s vulnerability to “risk premium shocks”.

Interesting stuff as the Real Estate Treasurer continues his bubble-defence world tour: When Treasurer Scott Morrison met Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein in New York late last week, the Wall Street banker was baffled.

From Bill Evans, following up last week’s Consumer Sentiment Index: This week we saw a strong lift in the Consumer Sentiment Index.

By Leith van Onselen The lobby group representing migration agents has warned that South Australia’s population growth could fall to zero following visa reforms by the federal government.

Our Bill has donned the hard hat: Labor is promising to help embattled manufacturers by establishing a $1 billion loan fund to help the sector modernise factories and move into high value production.

By Leith van Onselen At the beginning of last month, Houses & Holes coined the term ‘Botox Boom’ to describe the current growth drivers of the Australian economy: We’ve lived the housing and mining booms.

Some days this place truly is a mad house, Domainfax: Self-driving cars on roads with solar panels, hologram commercials, drones making deliveries, skyways between buildings, a magnetically-levitating train pulling into Circular Quay and trees.

Via ABC: Weaker mining exports and housing investment hurt by bad weather earlier this year have prompted the International Monetary Fund to cut its growth forecasts for the Australian economy.