Australian Economy

By Leith van Onselen Greg Medcraft, chairman of the Australian Security and Investments Commission (ASIC), appeared on Lateline last night where he attempted to defend the organisation’s impotence in policing banking malfescence.

From 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, rose from +0.15% in August to +0.58% in September.

By Leith van Onselen On Monday, News.com.au published the findings of CBA economist, Gareth Aird’s, excellent report warning that high population growth (immigration) is eroding the living standards of Australian households (read Aird’s report here).

Cross-posted from The Conversation: Malcolm Turnbull’s Innovation Agenda focused attention on startups and technology-driven innovation, but this is not enough to overcome the broader problems inhibiting innovation in Australia.

By Leith van Onselen The AFR’s Julie-anne Sprague has penned a great piece today exploring the sharp downturn taking place across the Western Australian economy, which has been labelled the worst in living memory: Perth barber Peter Smith has been cutting the locks of the city’s businessmen for 40 years.

From CommSec: According to the Australian Institute of Petroleum, the national average Australian price of unleaded petrol rose by 1.0 cent per litre to 120.9 cents per litre in the week to October 16.

By Leith van Onselen Victoria’s crime wave is the worst in half a century according to Ron Iddles, a former homicide detective and current police union secretary: Mr Iddles can’t think of another time when crime in his home state was worse.

More orgasmic coverage of the commodity boomlet today at the AFR: An indicative estimate by The Australian Financial Review based on research by Commonwealth Bank and Treasury suggests a surge in income from exports could cut as much as $23 billion off the $63.2 billion budget deficit for 2016-17 and 2017-18.

Cross-posted from Gareth Aird, senior economist at the Commonwealth Bank.

From Morgan Stanley: Crucial housing data out today confirms a surge in apartment supply, with total completions setting a record at >200k (MSe demand ~160k).

Peak commodity delusion is at hand, from Peter Martin: Quietly, the mining industry has just doubled the price of coking coal.

From the OECD: In the past two years, Australia’s viability for the future has dramatically decreased and its need for reform with regards to economic, social and ecological sustainability has increased enormously. This of one of our findings in this year’s Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI) by the German Bertelsmann Stiftung.

Cross-posted from The Conversation: More than 900,000 immigrants on permanent and temporary visas enter Australia each year.

From Deutsche: Our Q3-CPI forecast at 0.8%qoq/1.3%yoy for headline and 0.5%qoq/1.6%yoy for the average of the RBA core measures.

From Westpac: • The Westpac Melbourne Institute Index of Consumer Sentiment rose by 1.1% in October from 101.4 in September to 102.4 in October.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) has released a new report exploring “the nature and magnitude of the relationship between house prices, household debt and the labour market decisions of Australian households”, which paints a sobering picture for the economy and financial stability.

From Credit Suisse: Life as an E&P analyst is supposed to get a bit easier, from a modelling perspective at least, once an LNG project hits first gas.

From Bloxo: Global commodity prices have risen by 26% since January 2016 and oil prices are at the highest level in over a year.

By Leith van Onselen The lack of planning and foresight to cope with the never-ending population (immigration) influx never ceases to amaze. Over the past decade, Melbourne’s population has ballooned by more than 850,000 people, or nearly one-quarter, driven mostly via immigration (see next chart).

Form the October NAB survey: BUSINESS CONFIDENCE HOLDS UP.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics on Friday 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.