Australian Economy

By Leith van Onselen The latest Roy Morgan Research (RMR) unemployment estimate for October registered a 0.7% rise in unemployment to 9.2%, with the unemployment rate also 0.4% higher than a year ago.

By Leith van Onselen UBS is the latest to call for Australia to scrap large denomination bank notes, citing that it would help eliminate the black economy.

By Leith van Onselen Late last month, Judith Sloan – the Commissioner in charge of the Productivity Commission’s 2006 review into the Economic Impacts of Migration and Population Growth – penned a great article calling on the Government to reduce Australia’s permanent migrant intake by around 100,000.

By Leith van Onselen Late last year, in a great twist of irony, one of the people responsible for the proliferation of high rise development across Melbourne – former planning Minister (now Opposition Leader) Matthew Guy – had a Damascus moment and questioned the merits of high immigration into Melbourne.

By Leith van Onsele The Turnbull Government’s plan to resettle refugees held captive on Nauru and Manus islands in the United States has already hit a major snag, with a backer of President-Elect Donald Trump claiming the plan is “dead on arrival”.

By Leith van Onselen While the growth lobby continues to argue that Australia needs to run high levels of immigration in order to alleviate so-called skills shortages and to mitigate an ageing population, warnings continue to emerge about the rise of robotics and artificial intelligence, which threatens to replace many of today’s jobs.

By Leith van Onselen Let’s recall Bill Shorten’s comments over the weekend where he claimed that temporary foreign workers are ‘taking the jobs’ of Australians and must be pared-back.

By Leith van Onselen Australia’s politicians have rallied to assure Australians that the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) is safe despite the election of Donald Trump to President of the United States.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) yesterday released visitor arrivals and departures data for the month of September, which registered a small increase in annual immigration.

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

Today I’m not going to report what anyone in the MSM says.

From Westpac: • The Westpac Melbourne Institute Index of Consumer Sentiment fell by 1.1% in November from 102.4 in October to 101.3 in November The Index continues to hold in a very tight band.

Yesterday the People’s Bank of China said in its third-quarter monetary policy implementation report:   While creating neutral and appropriate monetary and financial environments for structural reforms and keeping liquidity reasonably ample, we should pay attention to curbing asset bubbles and preventing economic and financial risk.

By Leith van Onselen Labor senator, Penny Wong, delivered a speech yesterday to the National Press Club entitled Building bridges not walls: the case for an open Australia.

By Leith van Onselen Yesterday it was revealed in Fairfax that senators Pauline Hanson and Jacquie Lambie are seeking a plebiscite at the next Federal Election that would cover three topics: on same-sex marriage indigenous recognition in the constitution; and voluntary euthanasia.

Cross-posted from The Conversation: For 50 years, Australia’s policymakers have been persuaded that growth at every level of the education system would be a good thing in itself – and would drive economic growth and social progress.

The little boom we’ve had in the NAB business survey is over.

By Leith van Onselen Just two-and-a-half years after avoiding collapse, SPC Ardmona is in trouble once more as Woolworths considers tearing-up its long-term deal to purchase fruit from the cannery.