Financial markets and many economists no longer believe that the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) will provide further interest rate relief. They now expect the official cash rate to remain on hold next year. I am less hawkish. I expect the unemployment rate to trend higher amid the rapid expansion of the labour market via
Not a good start to the trading week with most Asian stock markets in the red as a slew of macro events and central bank speeches along with the restart of the US federal government is clouding the short term outlook. Currency markets appear nonchalant however with the Australian dollar holding somewhat steady but looking
Nine Media’s Shane Wright and Millie Muroi have written a detailed report explaining how the nation’s asymmetric responsibilities and vertical fiscal imbalances are harming service delivery, infrastructure, businesses, and overall productivity and living standards. There is an increasing number of Australian politicians and policymakers who believe that the nation’s federal system is a key cause
It appears that the average Australian knows more about housing affordability than YIMBY lobbyists, such as the Grattan Institute and the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS). The Report from the 2025 Australian Cooperative Election Survey by Macquarie University, based on the views of 4,012 survey participants, showed that immigration/population growth was considered the leading contributor
Pauline Hanson is fast becoming the opposition. The Coalition’s decision to abandon its commitment to net zero emissions as part of a dramatic weakening of its energy policy has failed to arrest its slide in popularity, with a new poll showing support plummeting while the One Nation vote has continued to surge. The Australian Financial Review/ Redbridge/Accent
The vicious Guinean junta knows how to run a resource economy better than we do. Guinea plans to launch its first sovereign wealth fund by the second quarter of 2026 with an initial $1 billion, its planning minister said, as the West African nation moves to leverage a flood of revenues from its giant Simandou
Australian real wages fell by a record 7.3% between mid-2020 and the September quarter of 2023. They have since recovered by a paltry 1.3%, leaving real wages 6.0% lower than their peak as of mid-2025. The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) forecast in its November Statement of Monetary Policy (SoMP) that real wages would remain
There is a problem for AI and it is serious. What mattered this week Here are 13 random observations and charts from the week that matters a lot (and some that don’t…) 1 – Testing testing 1 2 3 The 50-day moving average in S&P500 has been tested twice over the past 6 days. Will
In December last year, Housing Minister Clare O’Neil appeared on ABC’s Triple J radio to discuss the issue of housing. What followed was a confirmation of what many already believed to be true: that the Albanese government wanted ever-rising housing prices. Here is a copy of the relevant part of the transcript. Interviewer: Why don’t
The wreckers of Australian energy, and therefore living standards, as well as climate change mitigation, are shrieking like stuck pigs. At the top of the list is the corrupt Grattan Institute, sponsored by Origin. Its analyst, former Origin executive Tony Wood, famously campaigned against gas reservation in 2013. “With more than $160 billion forecast to