Census data to be released Tuesday shows Australia changing rapidly before COVID, gaining an extra one million residents from overseas in the past five years, almost all of them in the three years before borders were closed.
The really bizarre thing about calls for a UK-style windfall profits tax on gas is that Australia’s already got one.
By lifting its cash rate by 0.5 points, from 0.35% to 0.85%, the Reserve Bank has added about another $120 per month in payments for a A$500,000 mortgage.
If financial markets are to be believed, by the end of this year it will have added a total of $800 per month – and, by the end of next year, a total approaching $1,000 per month.
A recession in the US usually brings on a recession in the rest of the world, although not always in Australia.
Australia has escaped such a recession twice in the past 50 years.
Stand by for something “reckless and dangerous”.
The last week of campaigns used to be frantic, behind the scenes. In public, right up until the final week, the leaders would make all sorts of promises, many of them expensive, with nary a mention of the spending cuts or tax increases that would be needed to pay for them.
The Reserve Bank is pushing up interest rates to take money out of our hands.
The first increase in the current round will add about A$65 a month to the cost of paying off a $500,000 mortgage.
One of the stranger things about the Reserve Bank’s announcement of why it’s lifting interest rates by 0.25 percentage points is that it suggests inflation will come down by itself.
“A further rise in inflation is expected in the near term,” the RBA says, “but as supply-side disruptions are resolved, inflation is expected to decline back towards the target range of 2-3%.
There are four economic wildcards between now and the election, and we know exactly when each will be played.