Australian Economy

By Leith van Onselen The Coalition and Labor continue to war over the Turnbull Government’s announced changes to Australia’s citizenship test.

From Treasurer Morrison: Treasurer Scott Morrison has warned the federal government can’t continue with existing energy policy because it’s hurting families and the economy.

By Leith van Onselen This site has often questioned the merits of Australia’s demand-driven university system, which is producing far too many graduates for the economy to digest, costing both students and the Budget a fortune.

By Leith van Onselen The March quarter national accounts was a sobering experience for Australian workers.

The AFR socked it CPA yesterday: Imagine an ASX listed company replacing direct board elections with an “owners’ council” where shareholders elect representatives who then in turn elect half the members of this council, while the board appoints the other half.

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

Because its famed business survey has little relevance to the Australian economy right now: • The business sector continued to look upbeat in the May NAB Monthly Business Survey, maintaining the apparent disconnect with a seemingly disheartened household sector.

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

Via The Australian: Weak first-quarter GDP number have pushed ANZ to lower its Australian growth outlook for 2017 and 2018, with the bank now seeing a “one-in-four-chance” of another RBA rate cut and the potential for Quantitative Easing (QE).

Via Mark Samter and the superb gas team at Credit Suisse: The month of June should, in theory, reveal plenty about the much-fabled (by us at least) East Coast gas market.

From Adam Creighton today: London School of Economics anthropologist David Graeber shot to fame in 2013 by drawing ­attention to what he called this “bullshit jobs” phenomenon in rich countries.

By Leith van Onselen The fallout from last week’s March quarter national accounts, which saw average compensation per employee contract in nominal terms for the first time in recorded history, continues. According to The Australian Institute, the share of Australian gross domestic product (GDP) going into workers’ pockets has hit a record low.

From AFR today: As part of his quest to market himself and his previously sleepy accountants’ body, CPA Australia, Malley hired the first man on the moon to visit Australia in 2011 for $US250,000 to $US300,000, according to a source.

By Leith van Onselen The frequency of #SardineSydney stories in the mainstream media seems to be increasing as the city’s population swells way above the capacity of the road and public transport systems.

Some nice charts today from Deutsche illustrate the mounting headwinds for local shares: The macro data is softer than the headlines suggest A slew of recent macro data appear encouraging, pointing to an economy broadly headed in the right direction.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) has released an interesting new report entitled Housing prices, household debt and household consumption, which examines the relationship between increasing housing prices (or housing wealth) and the increased consumption expenditure of households from before the GFC and afterwards.

By Leith van Onselen Fairfax’s Michael Pascoe penned a timely article yesterday explaining why ‘skilled’ temporary work visas will continue to be rorted by employers irregardless of the Turnbull Government’s recent reforms to the 457 visa system: …here’s how to rort the 457 temporary worker visa system and whatever the government renames it.

Congratulations to all: Households across the eastern states are about to be hit directly by the closure of the giant Hazelwood power station in Victoria and soaring gas prices, with sharp hikes in retail electricity prices from July 1 coming on top of the hefty increases in recent years.

Courtesy of your friend and mine Gerard Minack: Japan went 153 quarters without back-to-back GDP declines.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian’s Adam Creighton has penned a great post today questioning Australia’s fake growth record, which has seen it supposedly overtake Netherlands for the longest period without experiencing a ‘technical recession’: The reality is much less impressive: rapid population growth is responsible for Australia’s stellar economic growth run.