Yesterday it was the Real Estate Treasurer. Today it is the PM, via AAP: Malcolm Turnbull said the Reserve Bank is sending a prudent signal when it talks about the potential for higher interest rates. …”They are not saying they are going to do that tomorrow,” the prime minister assured Neil Mitchell on radio 3AW
Via The Australian today: Craig Kelly has doubled down on his comments suggesting renewable energy will cause deaths this winter, saying dozens more people could die if power prices aren’t brought down. Mr Kelly, whose claims were described as “ridiculous” by some of his backbench colleagues, said the cost of electricity is the “number one issue”
By Leith van Onselen The extent that Australia’s high-rise apartments are exposed to combustible cladding similar to that which engulfed London’s Grenfell, killing more than 50 people, is beginning to come to light. Yesterday, the second day of the Senate’s inquiry heard that thousands of apartments in Sydney and Melbourne are potentially at risk. From
There is sometimes confusion about the returns available on property in a self-managed super fund (SMSF) – especially as the mathematics starts to get confusing with relative rates of return, real vs nominal and opportunity cost vs risk, before tax and after tax returns. But I have a much easier way to explain why it
By Leith van Onselen ABC Lateline last night ran an interesting segment on the Western Sydney housing market, which is the most vulnerable to a correction. The segment profiles a new housing estate 50 kilometres north-west of the city, called the Hills of Carmel, whereby a typical house and land packages are on sale for
By Leith van Onselen The Australian Labor Party’s national conference will be held in late July, and it is rumoured that the left faction is seeking the re-implementation of an inheritance tax. From The Australian: Several left-aligned branches support the introduction of a national inheritance tax to address the growing divide between rich and poor:
By Leith van Onselen Last October, The Age ran a detailed report on how Melbourne’s hospitals are being overrun by the ongoing population influx caused by Australia’s mass immigration program: …leaked data indicates there has been no improvement in ambulance “ramping” and that this month hundreds of patients waited longer than an hour to get
Very. But not as much as it could get to: My own view is that the dollar has further to rise, perhaps into the 82-83 cents range. It’s being driven by USD weakness linked to falling oil and fading fiscal hopes, plus China holding up better than markets thought through its tightening, expressed most obviously
As expected: This Information Paper sets out the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s (APRA’s) conclusions with respect to the quantum of additional capital that might reasonably be expected to be required for the Australian banking sector to have capital ratios that are considered ‘unquestionably strong’. Reflecting the social and economic cost of the global financial crisis,
Another stellar effort from LVO yesterday at News.com: IT’S the debate we were never allowed to have. Until relatively recently, Australia’s population grew at a stately pace. There was an influx of European immigration in the mid-1940s, and pause from the mid-1970s, but in the 100 years after Federation in 1901, net overseas migration averaged
By Leith van Onselen I have noted previously that one of the key reasons why Australia’s high population growth (immigration) is lowering the living standards of existing residents is because of the strain that it places on infrastructure, which inevitably leads to more congestion on roads, public transport, as well as more expensive housing. Basic
The AFR has a nice story today illustrating the death of Australia: The Turnbull government’s strained relationship with corporate Australia has come under more duress following some heated exchanges between the Prime Minister and the nation’s leading chief executives at a private dinner in Sydney on Monday night. …The dinner was attended by board members
By Martin North, cross-posted from the Digital Finance Analytics Blog: We know that household debt has never been higher in Australia, but I do not think the true impact of this, especially in a rising interest, low income growth environment is truly understood. We have to look beyond mortgage debt. The latest RBA E2 –
Immigration and globalism is suddenly killing the Greens: The Greens have lost their second co-deputy leader in less than a week, with Queensland senator Larissa Waters announcing her resignation as a result of holding dual citizenship. At a press conference in Brisbane, an emotional Senator Waters apologised to the Australian people saying she had discovered
By Leith van Onselen Jessica Irvine’s latest spruik “Why I love a Big Australia, and you should too” (debunked earlier today), has been given short-thrift by SMH readers. Not only did most of the 200-plus comments disagree with Irvine’s position, but today’s Letters to the Editor have been overwhelmingly hostile: It’s disappointing that Jessica Irvine
It is Australia’s enduring curse to have a central bank that has no idea what to do about it’s currency. Pretty much every time it speaks the bank drives up the battler and it is no different today in the minutes: Domestic Economic Conditions Members commenced their discussion of the Australian economy by noting that
Yesterday Domainfax reported: Four out of five businesses advertising Australian jobs on Chinese, Korean and Spanish language websites are offering illegal pay rates as low as $4.20 per hour, a new audit has found. Two separate audits conducted this year and last year found 78 per cent of 200 job advertisements examined were offering pay rates below minimum award rates.
By Leith van Onselen In the wake of Deloitte Access Economics’ report yesterday claiming that the RBA sitting on housing “powder keg”, ABC’s The Business last night ran a segment examining the issue, featuring SQM Research’s Louis Christopher and the REA Group’s chief economist, Nerida Conisbee. As expected, Ms Conisbee played down the prospects of
Via The Guardian: Australian voters are resoundingly sick of their bitterly polarised politics and a sizeable group says they would consider voting for a new centrist political party, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll. The new survey of 1,830 voters found 71% agreement with the statement “I wish both sides of politics would try to
By Leith van Onselen LF Economics has released a new report, entitled “An Illustrated Guide to the Latest Trends in the Perth Housing Market”, which reveals a sinking market, yet ironically the ‘bubble’ is getting larger because rents are falling faster than prices. Below are some key extracts: The Perth housing market looks to have
By Leith van Onselen Ever since the 7-Eleven migrant worker scandal broke in 2015, there has been a regular flow of stories emerging about the systemic abuse of Australia’s various migrant worker programs. The issue was highlighted in all of its hideous glory when the Senate Education and Employment References Committee released a scathing report
The nation is sagely listening to the increasingly shrill warning emanating from the Pascometer:
From Judith Sloan: On one side of the debate is the assertion that rising electricity prices are not related to the increase in the penetration of renewable energy but are the result of rising gas prices. The proponents of this argument point out that electricity price increases have been higher in Queensland, which has very
By Leith van Onselen The Australian’s business columnist, Terry McCrann, is the latest high profile figure to question the efficacy of Australia’s turbo-charged immigration program, penning the following over the weekend after recently returning from a holiday in Japan: In Japan ‘‘things’’ worked and worked well. Drawing on the old saying, in Japan the trains
By Leith van Onselen The Australian Institute (TAI) has released a great paper by renowned energy analyst Dr Hugh Saddler, entitled National Energy Emissions Audit – Electricity Update, which reveals a strong correlation between domestic electricity prices and gas prices, despite gas making up only 10% of electricity generation. Below are the key extracts from
