Australian Economy

By Leith van Onselen Dozens of international digital firms and user groups have signed an open letter to trade ministers and legislators raising alarm at the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations – the proposed regional trade deal between 12 Pacific Rim countries, including Australia.

David Uren has some reassuring words for us from credit rating agencies today: None of the three major agencies believes Australia’s AAA credit rating is in jeopardy from the budget debate, with the economic outlook seen as the greater risk.

From Mercer: The survey covers 211 cities across five continents and measures the comparative cost of over 200 items in each location, including housing, transportation, food, clothing, household goods, and entertainment.

From Westpac today: The Melbourne Institute (MI) Inflationary Expectations are now reported as a 30% symmetric trimmed mean utilising all responses except for the ‘don’t know’ responses. These changes have added about 2ppt to the level of the index compared to the old trimmed mean (chart 6).

By Leith van Onselen As summarised earlier by Houses & Holes, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today released labour force data for the month of June, which registered an increase in the headline unemployment rate to 6.0% from an upwardly revised 5.9% in May.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released its June Labour Force report and it’s a decent report, just ahead of consensus: Employment increased 15,900 to 11,578,200.

By Leith van Onselen Veda has today released its Consumer Credit Demand Index results for the June quarter of 2014, which registered a 3.0% fall in total annual consumer credit demand, although growth in mortgage enquiries remained solid.

By Leith van Onselen Roy Morgan Research (RMR) has released its latest State of the Nation report, which reveals that Aussies are fatter and more anxious than ever, despite solid improvements in some areas, such as in reduced incidence and consumption of smoking cigarettes.

Freshly out: The Department of Employment’s Monthly Leading Indicator of Employment (the Indicator) has fallen for the ninth consecutive month in July 2014.

Cross-posted from The Conversation Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Glenn Stevens has ticked off on a major item on the “to do” list for Australian policy-makers: raise the rate of growth in labour productivity.

Westpac’s unemployment expectations data is out and shows persistent worries over job security: The unemployment expectations index fell slightly in Jul, (–0.3%) following on from a –1.1% fall in Jun.

By Leith van Onselen Nobel Prize winning economist, Professor Joseph Stiglitz, has given an interesting interview on Business Spectator’s KGB program (above).

From our Bill at Westpac: The Westpac Melbourne Institute Index of Consumer Sentiment increased by 1.9% in July from 93.2 in June to 94.9 in July.

By Leith van Onselen While I disagree strongly with the Greens’ opposition to the re-indexation of fuel excise, I certainly cannot fault their stance on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – the proposed regional trade deal between 12 Pacific Rim countries, including Australia.

For those that don’t know, BDO operates a fast data retail index based upon same store sales at a number of their clients outlets week-on-week.

By Leith van Onselen The ANZ-Roy Morgan Research (RMR) consumer confidence index continues to languish following its Budget-induced shellacking, falling another 0.3 points in the week ended 6 July to be around 7% below the long-run average reading of 113.7, and some 10% lower than at the end of April (see next chart).

By Leith van Onselen The Australia Institute (TAI) has today released a new report which looks at growing wealth inequality in Australia, which it argues is likely to get worse if the Abbott Government’s Budget measures are implemented: While income distribution is unequal, the distribution of wealth is even more so.

A surprisingly firm result today in the July NAB survey: Business confidence showing no ill effects from the government’s ‘tough budget’, rather improving in line with better business conditions (reflecting sales and profits) – albeit conditions remain sub trend.

From The Pascometer today: …speeches by RBA heavyweights are worth reading in full…by reading the source document, you also don’t miss out on the good news that tends not to attract eyeballs the way bad news does.

By Leith van Onselen News improved a little for Australia’s tourism industry, with the release yesterday of the overseas short-term arrivals and departures figures for May showing a solid jump in the number of inbound tourists and a fall in out-bound tourists.

Cross-posted from The Conversation: When our two major levels of government work in partnership, our Federation can function well.