Blogotariat

And then, in a single bound, it was back to small modular reactors. The federal Coalition’s confused nuclear power policy has lurched from SMRs to large scale nuclear and back again to SMRs.

Queensland heads to the polls in October and without bi-partisan support for the state’s existing energy transformation and emission reduction targets, this exciting progress could grind to a halt. 

The latest temporary visa data from the Department of Home Affairs shows that there were a record 713,144 international students in Australia at the end of February 2024: According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), higher education providers earned $14.5 billion in tuition fees from international students in 2022-23. Despite the boom, universities are

A storm of criticism no less: Jim Chalmers’ hand-picked chair of the Productivity Commission has warned Labor’s Future Made in Australia plan would divert ­investment from more productive parts of the economy and lead to higher-than-necessary costs for taxpayers. Danielle Wood – the former Grattan Institute chief executive who the Treasurer tasked with shifting the

The post Albofacturing goes down like a lead balloon appeared first on MacroBusiness.

Walking stiffly, largely distracted, and struggling to focus on the bare essentials, US President Joe Biden was keeping company with his Japanese counterpart, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, when asked the question. It concerned what he was doing regarding Australia’s request that the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange be returned to Australia.  Assange, who has spent five…

The post Flicker of Hope: Biden’s Throwaway Lines on Assange appeared first on The AIM Network.

The December quarter national accounts from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed that real per capita household consumption declined by 2.5% in 2023, which was the weakest result outside the pandemic since the Global Financial Crisis in 2008: The February Household Spending Indicator (HSI) from the ABS revealed that, in nominal terms, household spending

The post Aussie consumer recession continues through Q1 appeared first on MacroBusiness.

Think Tank CEO Ed Cavanough believes the Greens will hold the balance of power in the next federal parliament because of its strong advocacy for renters: “Right now there’s a gaping emotional void in the housing debate that only the Greens are filling”, Cavanough wrote in The AFR. “They have become the only party effectively

The post “Moral outrage” won’t fix Australia’s housing crisis appeared first on MacroBusiness.

The AFR’s Michael Read reported that Australian insurers lost more than $650 million on home insurance policies over the past four years despite soaring premiums. As illustrated in the next chart, insurance premiums soared by 16.2% last year—the fastest rate of growth since HIH Insurance collapsed in 2000: The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) explained

The post Australians batten down for insurance storm appeared first on MacroBusiness.

Australia's biggest utility, still mulling the closure timing for the country's biggest coal plant, buys a massive wind and battery project in NSW.

Now that we have the final voting figures for the City of Brisbane, it was possible to update the analysis of preference flows and the impact of optional preferential voting (OPV) that I published prior to the election.

Immediately after the election, it became clear that there had been an increase in the proportion of Greens preferences flowing to Labor and vice versa at the 2024 election, compared to the 2020 council election.

DXY remained firm: AUD managed to undo a some damage: No help from North Asia: Oil is awaiting a new shock. New gold shows no sign of paying attention to old drivers like DXY or real interest rates: Dirt fell: Miners too: EM still poised: But junk is risk off: As yields pile it on:

The post Australian dollar to lift on RBA cuts appeared first on MacroBusiness.

The major obstacle to lobbying reform is that for members of parliament, their staff and senior officials, lobbying provides a very lucrative income when they leave parliament, the military or the public service. So they refuse to act on the lobbying scourge.

The lobbying scourge    By John Menadue

Last week, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released data showing that only 12,400 homes were approved for construction in trend terms in February, the lowest monthly reading since April 2012. On that run rate, Australia would only build 149,000 homes a year, 91,000 below the Albanese government’s construction target of 240,000 homes a year. Data

The post Construction collapse crushes Albo’s housing target appeared first on MacroBusiness.