Markets have just caught a cold as Bloomie updated the latest propaganda from China on coronavirus: The outbreak of a virus originating in central China entered a new phase of severity as multiple medical workers were reported to have been infected and the death count grew to four people. The spread to medical workers indicates
A little summary from Crikey makes the point today: Attorney-General Christian Porter will lead a review into the community sports grants scandal despite the program netting his own electorate nearly one million dollars. Porter’s announcement follows revelations by the ABC that Scott Morrison’s local soccer club boasted about essential funding for a project weeks before the grants were announced. Morrison, whose office
Via the ABC’s Michael Janda: Hindsight is 20/20, so they say, but some big calls do seem to stand the test of time. One of those is the Reserve Bank’s decision to start raising interest rates in May 2002, having cut them only five months previously. In his statement explaining that rate cut, then-RBA governor
Via the ABC: The Acting Prime Minister has insisted it is appropriate for Scott Morrison to be having a Christmas break outside of Australia. Michael McCormack has confirmed the Prime Minister is overseas with his family at an undisclosed location. Some Labor MPs have posted online barbs to criticise Mr Morrison for taking a break
Via SCMP: China’s first home-built aircraft carrier was officially commissioned by President Xi Jinping on Tuesday as Beijing flexed its military muscles. The new warship will be called the Shandong and its formal entry into service is a significant milestone in the country’s efforts to build up its naval power. This drive has been viewed
Vai The Advisor: Twenty-six additional lenders have been appointed to the initial panel of the government’s First Home Loan Deposit Scheme, including major bank, Commonwealth Bank. The National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (NHFIC) has announced its full panel of lenders taking part in the federal government’s First Home Loan Deposit Scheme (FHLDS). Following on
Via your burning PM today: “I’m a Sydneysider and I know how unusual it is to see that haze across my city, and I know how distressing that has been, particularly for young people, who wouldn’t have seen that before.” “And I can understand that is deeply unsettling to a lot of Australians, particularly those
Ironically from by the AFR, kernel of evil for business parasitism, comes Productivity Commissioner Michael Brennan: Productivity Commissioner Michael Brennan says destructive rent seeking and a lack of entrepreneurship by business has stalled productivity and wage growth and that trying to fix the issue won’t be helped by reform nostalgia or economic pessimism. While business
One of the most profound changes affecting the Australian economy and society this century has been the massive lift in Australia’s net overseas migration (NOM) and population growth under the multi-partisan Big Australia policy. This rapid population growth is projected to continue for decades to come, if current policy settings favouring high immigration continue. The
You wouldn’t be her for quids. She was far too young to know what she was getting into. On the one hand she’s up in lights: On the other hand, she’s now being blamed by the child abusive right for everything from polio to the death of god. My own view is that Greta is
Sydney has disappeared, at The Guardian: The New South Wales environment minister Matt Kean has split from his federal Coalition counterparts, arguing climate change is behind the bushfire crisis and calling for greater emissions reduction. Kean’s intervention piles pressure on Scott Morrison to do more on emissions reduction and disaster management after his predecessor Malcolm
More retail carnage: Harris Scarfe has been placed into receivership with Vaughan Strawbridge, Kathryn Evans and Tim Norman of Deloitte Restructuring Services appointed voluntary administrators on Wednesday. Operating nationally, but best known in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania, Harris Scarfe retails bed linen, kitchenware, homewares, electrical appliances, and apparel across 66 stores. The business employs
After ceasing local manufacturing in 2017, Holden’s interim chairman and MD Kristian Aquilina has confirmed that the Commodore sedan will be discontinued, ending 41 years of sales where more than three million Commodores were sold. The announcement comes after sales of the Commodore fell to just 5,417 for the first 11 months of the year:
An income-dependent Boomer mate recently asked me what I thought of Listed Investment Companies and Listed Investment Trusts (LIC and LITs). He’s being pushed to invest in them by a financial planner because his term deposit income has fallen. I didn’t know enough about it be useful so set about investigating for him. What I
DXY slumped last night: But so did the Australian dollar: Gold firmed: With oil: Copper is trying: Miners firmed: With EM stocks: And junk: Treasury curves flattened: Bunds steepened: Aussie split the difference: Stocks are stuck: Westpac has the wrap: Event Wrap US NFIB small business survey rebounded more strongly than expected to 104.7 (est. 103.0,
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has released a “principles-based” responsible lending road map that seeks to replace the flawed Household Expenditure Measure (HEM) – a relative poverty estimate – used widely by banks in the lead-up to the Hayne Royal Commission: ASIC commissioner Sean Hughes said the examples provided by the regulator were
The biggest change to Australia’s motoring landscape over the past decade has been the massive shift away from passenger motor vehicles (PMVs) to sports utility vehicles (SUVs): In the decade to November 2019, PMV sales fell by 41%, whereas sales of SUVs surged by 163%. Moreover, a decade ago PMV sales outnumbered SUV sales by
Via Richard Denniss at the AFR: So, what exactly is “productivity”? Productivity refers to the amount of output produced by a given unit of input. Labour productivity measures how much stuff gets made by each unit (usually an hour) of labour. Capital productivity measures how much stuff gets made by each unit of capital (usually
For once in my life I agree with Australia’s rent-seeking CEOs, at the AFR: Australia’s top chief executives say the federal government must intervene to stimulate the economy through infrastructure spending and tax cuts, and have lamented the nation’s failure to properly tackle climate change and to develop a strong innovation policy. While the nation’s
The latest quarterly data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has revealed in all its hideous glory the decimation of Australia’s manufacturing sector. First, last week’s September quarter national accounts revealed that real manufacturing output has declined for 11 years, and is now tracking at the lowest level since 1999 – a 20-year low:
As an Australian parent in 2019, the public versus private school debate is hard to avoid. With two children aged 9 and 11, and living in a fairly affluent area of Melbourne, I am continually asked “which private school will you send your kids to”? When I respond that I am considering sending my daughter
Ian McAllister says the level of satisfaction with democracy in Australia is at its lowest level since the constitutional crisis in 1975 that led to the dismissal of the Whitlam government. McAllister is the co-author of the ‘Australian Election Study’, released by the Australian National University in the wake of the May federal election. The
Via the FT: Beijing has ordered all government offices and public institutions to remove foreign computer equipment and software within three years, in a potential blow to the likes of HP, Dell and Microsoft. The directive is the first publicly known instruction with specific targets given to Chinese buyers to switch to domestic technology vendors,
Inside Story’s Tim Colebatch has penned a ripping article on how Australia’s economy is forecast by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to lag the world’s 12 largest developed nations on per capita GDP growth: …the International Monetary Fund is forecasting that in 2020 Australia will have the highest growth rate in GDP (gross domestic product)
More consumer warnings: The failure of car sales to turn is one strong indication of how conservative the consumer feels.
From Ironyhaven today: Coal > climate change > drought > no coal.
It’s been more than three years since the Senate Education and Employment References Committee released its scathing report entitled A National Disgrace: The Exploitation of Temporary Work Visa Holders, which documented the abuses of Australia’s temporary visa system for foreign workers. And still the exploitation continues with a large supermarket pizza manufacturer the latest to
The September quarter retail sales data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) revealed the first annual decline in retail sales volumes since the early-1990s recession: Now, the ABS has released retail sales figures for the month of October, which recorded zero growth in the value of retail sales over the month in seasonally-adjusted terms,
Trying to get blood from a stone, at Domain: Embattled Liberal MP Gladys Liu has requested her party pay back at least $100,000 she donated to her campaign to win the marginal Melbourne seat of Chisholm. Ms Liu contributed the money to her own election campaign in the lead-up to the May 18 poll after
The NSW regional city of Tamworth is currently facing Stage 4 water restrictions, with the Chaffey Dam at just 15.6% capacity after experiencing record low inflows. Today, The SMH reveals that Tamworth has sucked the Peel River dry: The once-proud Peel River – also described as a “glorified creek” by those who know and love
