This is simply corruption, at the New Daily: Christopher Pyne opened negotiations over a lucrative defence consultancy while he was still serving as defence minister in Scott Morrison’s cabinet. The revelations are outlined in a submission to a parliamentary inquirylodged by his new employer EY Consulting on Tuesday. Mr Pyne has previously been cleared of any
Michael West has done a terrific job today exposing the vested interests behind the Morrison Government’s privatisation of Australia’s visa system: Despite the myriad failures of privatisation, not least the disastrous sale of the nation’s energy networks which has delivered dazzling profits to foreign multinationals at the expense of every citizen in this country, the
The latest ME Bank six monthly survey of financial comfort, released this week, revealed that cost of living pressures remain by far the biggest concern amongst Australian households, with 40% claiming they are living paycheck to paycheck: 31% of households that indicated that their financial situation had worsened over the past year, there was a
As stalled developments hulk across Australia’s east coast amid the surge in completions: The AFR reports that desperate developers are offering incentives of up to $90,000 in order to clear their apartment backlog: Commission payments of between $30,000 and $90,000 – plus extra incentives for multiple sales – are being offered by developers to buyers’
Yesterday’s dire Infrastructure Australia audit, which warned of growing infrastructure bottlenecks and rising costs across roads, rail, schools, electricity and water as Australia’s population balloons to a projected to 31.4 million people by 2031, has finally prompted both major parties to question their bipartisan support for mass immigration and a ‘Big Australia’. The Morrison Government has announced
She’ll be right. Via the ABC: Ties linking new Federal Liberal MP Gladys Liu to a secretive international influence arm of the Chinese Government have been uncovered by the ABC. Ms Liu, who made history after becoming the first Chinese-Australian woman to gain a seat in the Lower House, was appointed honorary chairman of a Hong Kong-based
Worrying stuff today as the AFR makes an editorial turn for “peace in our time” with China, no doubt egged on by captured Australian business interests. Yesterday it ran a piece by Andrew Sheng is Distinguished Fellow of the Asia Global Institute at the University of Hong Kong and a member of the UNEP Advisory Council
Robert Gottliebsen has rung the alarm that Australia’s international student trade risks falling over if Chinese international students stop arriving in record numbers: Universities are funded by taking in foreign students who pay full fees. Many of these students come from China. Chinese universities have adapted their courses to fit the modern world… In other
More from Martin North: Martin has been behind the curve on the rebounding market so is probably looking for an excuse to catch up. It’s still not clear to me that the ASIC judgement will end private class actions. Nor that ASIC will be forced to dump any of its HEM reform. That said, you’d
He’s not fan of freedom if it delays his travels: “You are angry because your flight is cancelled.” One stranded Australian tourist got into an argument with protesters at Hong Kong airport, saying they supported independence and that police should crack down harder. It didn’t go well for him. https://t.co/7TryMbHrEW pic.twitter.com/x7dIuNQ5ot — 𝕛𝕒𝕞𝕖𝕤 𝕘𝕣𝕚𝕗𝕗𝕚𝕥𝕙𝕤 🇭🇰🏴
Check out today’s daily index from CoreLogic, which has posted massive rises across both Sydney and Melbourne: That’s right, Sydney’s prices rose by 0.45% today and Melbourne’s by 0.44%, with the 5-city index up 0.30%. Accordingly, quarterly growth has now also turned positive.
Via Martin North: The key question now is will the banks revert to their previous practices of doing little to validate household spending patterns as part of the mortgage assessment processes. Some are already saying “buy now” with renewed vigour. The Royal Commission revealed last year that some lenders ignored household expense data favouring the
Via News comes ABC Q&A at new lows: Appearing on Q&A on Monday night, UQ philosophy student Drew Pavlou told the panel he had been assaulted by a “co-ordinated group of thugs” after helping to organise the protest on July 24. [Tony Jones said]…”To be clear, there have been reports you also were sending some pretty inflammatory
Via the ABC: The Federal Court has dismissed ASIC’s responsible lending case against Westpac and ordered the regulator to pay the bank’s costs. ASIC had alleged that Westpac breached responsible lending laws on up to 262,000 home loan approvals made using an automated process that relied on the Household Expenditure Measure benchmark, rather than using
Yesterday was the first day of the inquiry into NSW building standards, which was set up last month after major faults appeared in apartment buildings such as Mascot Towers and Opal Tower. The inquiry heard tails of woe from owners of apartments in the Mascot Tower, who have been left destitute and facing potential bankruptcy.
Yes, it has happened, via Domain: Clive Hamilton has slammed left-wing activists on Australian university campuses as “useful idiots” of the Chinese Communist Party, after a Greens student group belatedly reversed its opposition to a protest against the Confucius Institute’s impact on academic freedom. The outspoken author has also called on intelligence authorities to investigate
When I and other graduates arrived at the Australian Treasury in 2003, we were inducted by Secretary Ken Henry and his deputy secretaries who drilled into us the Treasury’s rich history of giving “frank and fearless” advice to the federal government, based upon rigour and evidence. We were told to examine issues rationally with a
Some brouhaha around this in Denmark: Jyske Realkredit is ready with a fixed-rate mortgage with a nominal interest rate of minus 0.5%. Yes, you read right. You can now get a fixed-rate mortgage with a maturity of up to 10 years, where the nominal interest rate is negative. However, you are not exactly going to make money
Could it be that hubris has overcome the ScoMo Government already? Via the AFR: The briefing, for MPs who entered Parliament in 2016 and 2019, was held when Parliament sat the week before last and was organised by Liberal MPs Tim Wilson, Jason Falinski and Andrew Bragg. It was designed to inform MPs from the
Via Domain: Subway has said it could terminate franchisees that do not pay staff properly after it emerged the US sandwich giant is under investigation by the Fair Work Ombudsman over underpayment of local employees. The troubled franchise is under pressure after an investigation by The Age and Sydney Morning Herald revealed it is closing
As usual, Australia’s second rate band of oligarchic intellects has little idea of what’s going on and even less about what to do about it. Paul Kelly is the exemplar though I could have pointed out one hundred other articles: The global pillars that have sustained Australia’s security and living standards for decades are now
DY fell sharply Friday night as EUR rose and CNY fell: The Australian dollar resumed its decline across DMs as risk puked: EMs were worse: Gold was strong: Oil held on: Metals didn’t: Nor miners. Goodbye RIO: EM stocks fell: Junk lifted with oil: All bonds fell: And stocks too: The global economy keeps on
In testimony on Friday to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) governor, Phil Lowe, blamed increasing labour supply from females and older Australians for holding down Australian wages: What’s happened is that increased demand for labour has been met with more labour supply, especially by women and older
The Morrison Government is being urged to remove Australia’s 33% luxury car tax following the demise of the local car assembly industry. From The AFR: Treasury is consulting on plans to extend a refund scheme for primary producers and tourism business operators, saving owners up to $10,000 on luxury car purchases… Farming advocates welcomed the
New research from Propertyology has advised owners of recently built apartments to consider cutting their losses and selling now before : The analysis from respected property market research firm Propertyology said unit owners who were patiently waiting for prices to rebound were playing Russian Roulette with their financial futures amid a looming apartment crisis. Propertyology
From the RBNZ: The Official Cash Rate (OCR) is reduced to 1.0 percent. The Monetary Policy Committee agreed that a lower OCR is necessary to continue to meet its employment and inflation objectives. Employment is around its maximum sustainable level, while inflation remains within our target range but below the 2 percent mid-point. Recent data
CoreLogic’s Cameron Kusher released interesting data tracking the real inflation-adjusted decline in Australian dwelling values across the major markets to June 2019. As shown in the below charts, both Darwin and Perth have experienced vicious housing downturns of 39.9% (Darwin) and 36.3% (Perth), with Darwin’s running for nine years and Perth’s 12.5 years: It is
And anyone else within earshot. Via the New Daily: China has threatened unspecified “countermeasures” if the United States goes ahead with plans to deploy ground-based missiles in the Asia-Pacific region, with a specific warning for Australia. “China will not stand idly by and will be forced to take countermeasures should the US deploy intermediate-range ground-based missiles in
Earth to Recessionberg. Earth to Recessionberg. Earth to Recessionberg. Your economy is falling apart. Come in Recessionberg! Nobody is listening. Perhaps nobody is home. Recessionberg is too busy today reassuring “quiet Australians”: Josh Frydenberg has urged Australians not to overreact to the turmoil on world markets as he moved to smooth concerns the US-China trade
Just in from the RBA: At its meeting today, the Board decided to leave the cash rate unchanged at 1.00 per cent. The outlook for the global economy remains reasonable. However, the increased uncertainty generated by the trade and technology disputes is affecting investment and means that the risks to the global economy remain tilted
