Australian Economy

By Leith van Onsele The Australian Greens have demanded greater parliamentary oversight of so-called free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations and approval of deals before they are signed, as well as an end to investor-state dispute settlement provisions that allow foreign corporations to sue taxpayers.

I did warn that any Arrium rescue must be kept away from the Australian Treasury because its dirt fixation meant it would completely miss the point.

Gotti is out defending Highrise Harry’s interests yet again today: BT’s Vimal Gor says that during the commodity boom times the Australian banks borrowed massive amounts of money, mostly in the form of long-term bank bonds, from foreign markets.

From Peter Martin today: In the Coalition’s three years in office, part-time employment grew 306,000 and full-time employment just 150,600.

By Leith van Onselen A new front has opened in the student-migration scam, whereby the Turnbull Government has opened the door to international primary school students and their guardians to access Australian schools and purchase Australian property ahead of achieving permanent residency.

By Leith van Onselen The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) released a Bulletin article yesterday examining household wealth using evidence from the 2014 Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey.

By Leith van Onselen Yesterday’s ABS labour force release for May revealed that the trend unemployment rate for those aged 15 to 24 years old remained dead flat at 12.2%, versus 4.4% unemployment for the rest of the labour market (see next chart).

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today released new motor vehicle sales for the month of May, which registered a 1.1% seasonally adjusted decline in the number of sales but a 1.7% increase over the year, with ongoing strong trend growth in NSW reported.

By Leith van Onselen As summarised earlier, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has today released its labour force report for May, which registered a 17,900 rise in total employment but an unchanged headline unemployment rate of 5.7%.

The ABS has just released the Labor Force survey for May and it is steady as she goes: TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE) Employment increased 3,700 to 11,919,400.

By Leith van Onselen Labor leader Bill Shorten has pledged to provide Arrium’s Whyalla Steelworks plant with $100 million of taxpayer support in a bid to keep the plant operational.

By Leith van Onselen The Foundation for Young Australians (FYA) has released a new report, entitled Renewing Australia’s Promise: Report Card 2016, examining how young Australians are faring economically, and finds that today’s young Australians are facing the very real possibility that they will be the first generation to be worse-off than their parents.

By Leith van Onselen Ahead of the ABS’ labour force release later today, the latest Roy Morgan Research (RMR) unemployment estimate for May registered a 0.3% rise in unemployment to 10.7%, with the unemployment rate also up by 0.4% from a year ago (see next chart).

ABC’s 7.30 Report aired a debate last night between Liberal Treasurer, Scott Morrison, and Labor Shadow Treasurer, Chris Bowen (video above).

From Westpac: • The Westpac–Melbourne Institute Index of Consumer Sentiment dipped 1% in June to 102.2 from 103.2 in May.

From NAB comes a useful note: More than half way through the mining investment downturn The economic significance of Australia’s once in a generation mining boom has not been lost on most people.

From Australia’s last sane analyst standing.

And good luck to them: The Queensland government will set a three per cent transfer duty surcharge for foreign buyers of residential property in the state.

By Leith van Onselen The Housing Industry Association (HIA) has released its latest Housing Outlook report, which forecasts a peak in dwelling starts this financial year (at 216,120), before construction falls by 24% to 164,180 in 2017/18 (see next chart).

The ANZ has a nice study of the forces at work in Australian disinflation today.