Australian Economy

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released retail sales figures for the month of October, which registered a 0.5% rise in seasonally-adjusted sales over the month with annual sales clocking in at 3.5% growth: In trend terms, annual retail sales growth clocked in at 3.3% and is rebounding.

By Leith van Onselen Last month, ABC News published an article revealing how almost all of Sydney’s trains are over capacity during the morning peak.

By Leith van Onselen Following scandal after scandal, and a $3 billion Budget blow-out over four years, the Turnbull Government last night passed a bill through the Senate imposing stricter eligibility criteria for Vocational Education and Training (VET) courses, as well as capping student loans.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Population Research Institute (APRI) has released an alarming new report entitled “Immigration overflow: why it matters”, which examines the widespread rorting of Australia’s visa system, as well as the crushing impact of Australia’s high permanent immigration program on Sydney and Melbourne.

Much worse than it looks. From Westpac: • Total employment growth has slowed to just 0.9%yr in the year to October (0.5% annualised over the last 6 months) and yet the unemployment rate has continued to drift lower even though the working age population has continues to grow at a 1.5%yr pace.

By Leith van Onselen Roy Morgan Research (RMR) has released a new special report examining unemployment and underemployment across Australia’s states.

By Leith van Onselen Another day, another scandal involving the importation of foreign workers to do jobs that Australians could do.

By Leith van Onselen Disquiet within the Turnbull Government continues to grow with a Government-dominated parliamentary inquiry calling for greater independent scrutiny of future trade deals.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today released data on capital expenditures (capex) for the September quarter of 2016, which registered a sharp 4.0% seasonally adjusted fall in capex volumes over the quarter and a 13.7% decrease over the year (see below table).

The ABS has released September quarter capex intentions and the news is more weakness. Estimate 4 for total capital expenditure for 2016-17 is $106,926m. This is 14.3% lower than Estimate 4 for 2015-16. The main contributor to the decrease is Mining (-33.6%).

From AIG:  The Australian Industry Group Australian Performance of Manufacturing Index (Australian PMI® ) increased by 3.3 points to 54.2 points in November, indicating a more convincing expansion after more stable conditions recently (results above 50 indicate expansion, the distance from 50 points indicates the strength of expansion).

By Leith van Onselen I’ll ask the question yet again: What do you get when you shove an MCG-worth of people into a city each year, without sufficient new infrastructure investment?

The Aussie realty-corrupted press jabbers on today, at The Australian: Chinese buyers are still coming to the Victorian capital as the mystery buyer of former Toll Holdings chief Paul Little’s $60 million Docklands twin towers development has been revealed as Shanghai-based Mid-Universe.

Via Westpac: • The Annual National Accounts for financial year 2015/16 included revised estimates for business investment.

By Leith van Onselen This site has gone to great effort exposing the pitfalls of the ACT Light Rail Project.

By Leith van Onselen Another day, another scandal involving the importation of foreign workers to do jobs that Australians could do.

Cross-posted from The Conversation: Many Australians dream of starting their own businesses.

By Leith van Onselen The Guardian’s Greg Jericho has penned an interesting piece today calling for policy makers to focus their efforts on better redistributing the wealth gained from globalisation to poorer workers made worse-off.

By Ross Elliott, cross-posted from The Pulse There’s a famous scene in Monty Python’s Holy Grail where dead bodies from the plague are being heaped onto a cart.

By Leith van Onselen The political war over 457 visas has ramped-up after it was revealed that Labor allowed the expansion of the scheme to permit fast food chains like McDonald’s, KFC and Hungry Jacks to employ temporary “skilled” foreign workers to flip burgers in places of high youth unemployment.

By Leith van Onselen Infrastructure Victoria is the latest to warn that Melbourne is facing eternal gridlock as its population soars way beyond the capacity of the road system.