Australian Economy

The ABS is out with Sep QTR CPI and it’s a miss on expectations of 0.8% headline and 0.5% core: Electricity was up 8.9% and utilities 6.8% quarter on quarter and still outside the RBA band.

Much better from Rob Burgess today: The complexities of this week’s debate over the National Broadband Network should not obscure two simple facts: Australia’s still way behind where it should be, and that’s due to the interests of corporations and politicians being put ahead of everyday Aussies.

Cross-posted from The Conversation: The preliminary report on energy prices released last week by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) suggests that the consumer watchdog is concerned about almost every aspect of Australia’s electricity industry.

Via Kitco: Australia is very close to introducing regulations for the cryptocurrency market, with the country’s Parliament scheduled to vote on a new anti-money laundering bill this week.

From Roy Morgan Research: Analysis of long-running trends in the Australian labour market by Gender shows that strong increases in Australian employment this century have been driven by large increases in both full-time and part-time employment for both women and men.

By Gareth Aird, Senior Economist at CBA: Key Points: We expect the headline CPI to rise by 0.9% in Q3 (2.1%pa), boosted by a large rise in electricity and gas prices. The underlying CPI on our forecasts will print at 0.5% (2.1%pa).

From the IMF: “Could Rising Medium-Term Vulnerabilities Derail the Global Recovery?” This section illustrates how shocks to individual credit and financial markets well within historical norms can propagate and lead to larger global impacts because of knock-on effects, a dearth of policy buffers, and extreme starting points in debt levels and asset valuations.

By Leith van Onselen Modelling by the Peterson Institute for International Economics suggests that Australia’s national income would have been boosted by 0.6% had the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) included the US.

By Leith van Onselen The frequency of #SardineSydney stories in the mainstream media has escalated as the city’s population has swelled way above the capacity of the road, public transport and housing systems.

Via Westpac’s superb Red Book: The Westpac–Melbourne Institute Consumer Sentiment Index has rallied 4.9% since Jul to be at 101.4 in Oct, back in optimistic territory above the 100 line for the first time since Nov last year.

Via Herald Sun: THE last ever Australian-made cars will roll off Holden’s Elizabeth production line today.

UBS has a go at it today: East coast gas market dynamics are going through a fundamental shift The market is resigning itself to the fact that recent actions to restrict LNG exports and divert gas into the domestic market will not have a significant impact on bringing down east coast gas prices.

The interest rate community is deluded.

By Leith van Onselen Yesterday’s ABS labour force release for September revealed further good news for those aged 15 to 24 years old that are looking for a job.

By Leith van Onselen As summarised earlier, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today released its labour force report for September, which registered another 19,800 increase in total employment and a 0.1% decline in the headline unemployment rate to 5.6%.

ABS jobs for September are out and the boomlet continues: Employment increased 19,800 to 12,290,200.

By Leith van Onselen Since the 7-Eleven migrant worker scandal broke in 2015, there has been a regular flow of stories emerging about the systemic abuse of Australia’s various migrant worker programs.