In reality, the housing bubble has been eating into all levels of government budgets for many years. Stamp duty is a revenue component that has increased structurally over time. AHURI estimates that Australian governments have spent a total of $20.5 billion on first-home-buyer schemes of various kinds from 2012-2021. I’m guessing it is more than
DXY was firm overnight after a reasonable jobs report. AUD had another tearaway night. This story was not about US jobs, which should have capped it. It was about a rocketing JPY post-election and CNY still on the up. Oil and gold are both chasing Iran. AI metals were mixed. Big mining parabolas have never
In August last year, Health Minister Mark Butler set a target to reduce NDIS spending growth from its current annual rate of 8% to 5-6%. According to estimates from the e61 Institute, this 5-6% growth figure is roughly consistent with the cost pressures on the NDIS from inflation, population growth, and population aging. While there
Announcing targets is easy. Delivering on them is the hard part. Two years ago, the Albanese government, alongside the states, announced the National Housing Accord, which set a target of building 1.2 million homes over five years from 1 July 2024, equating to 240,000 housing completions annually. This target was always overly ambitious, given that
Caitlin Fitzsimmons, the environment and climate reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald, has written an article challenging the common belief that younger Australians are being locked out of home ownership. While it’s true that people in their 20s are buying later than previous generations, Fitzsimmons points to Census data compiled by the Australian Institute of
Back in 2022, one week after Albo was elected, I rang the gloriously handsome Andrew “Lord” Charlton and briefed him on the incoming gas catastrophe his government faced. Those words fell into oblivion, never to be heard again, and perhaps today we can understand why. The square-jawed man of the people had his sights set
Charts from TME. Skew is a measure of how much investors are worried about the downside versus excited about the upside. Rising skew is bearish. It is rising. The IGV index tracks software stocks. Looks like we’re into a shjort squeeze here. Possibly a bottom. The software selling sure looks like capitulation. Thr shorts are
Australia’s federal budget uses two main deficit measures, and they differ because they treat certain transactions differently—especially asset sales, loans, and off‑budget funds. The headline balance captures all cash flows in and out of the Commonwealth government, including: day‑to‑day spending tax revenue capital spending asset purchases and sales loans issued and repaid equity injections transactions
As usual, this is all sound and fury signifying nothing. Grace Tame has stolen the limelight from the very cause she espouses. She is now on the defensive. “I’m not the story…The story is that Israel stands accused by the International Criminal Court of committing genocide in Gaza, and so far”… “This should terrify us
Australia’s rental market has experienced record-tight vacancy rates and explosive rental growth over the past five years. The nation’s vacancy rate fell to a record low of 1.5% in September 2025 and, as of January 2026, was tracking at 1.7%—well below the pre-COVID level: Cotality’s latest weekly indicators report shows that the number of rental