Earlier this month, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced that if re-elected, the federal government would erase 20% of student debt. The Greens have taken the policy to the next level, promising to waive the student debts of 3 million graduates and make university and TAFE education free at a proposed cost of more than $120
Anyone with half a brain knows that reducing the number of international students (and migration in general) will help to ease the rental crisis. The association between the increase of international students and temporary migration is clear. Temporary visa numbers in Australia have increased by around 500,000 over the pre-pandemic peak, as shown in the
DXY is a runaway freight train as EUR succumbs. AUD is huddled in a corner hoping nobody will notice. But they will as the Crap Complex is mown down. North Asia is already responding to looming tariffs. Commods are being crucified as gold and oil do the limbo. Dirt is breaking down. Miners abandon hope.
The similarities between the Canadian and Australian governments concerning immigration and housing are astounding. In 2022, Canada’s then-immigration minister, Sean Fraser, saw immigration as a race for global talent, which he always intended to win. In 2022, Canada experienced record population growth of around 800,000. Still, Fraser announced that Canada would welcome 465,000 permanent residents
The Albanese government has badly overreached on two vital areas of regulation. First and foremost, Labor’s disinformation bill threatens to ban commentary that the government (via a faceless bureaucrat) doesn’t agree with, threatening a key pillar of democracy: free speech. Recall that the Albanese government sought to combat disinformation via a new reporting register. A page
Goldman with the note. USD: Elections have consequences. Our US economists expect tariffs to feature prominently in the new Trump Administration, coupled with modest additional tax cuts, more federal spending, and a light touch on regulation. Our European economists downgraded their GDP forecasts across the region in anticipation of higher uncertainty and other spillovers. The
Australia’s troubled Ambassador to Washington, Kevin Rudd, has made an inauspicious start to his “charm offensive”: Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles have met Donald Trump’s former top diplomat to shore up ties with the former president ahead of a close and bitterly contested US election. The previously undisclosed meeting with Mike
I have always said that water is the ‘elephant in the room’ of the immigration debate that policymakers and pro-Big Australia boosters never address. A procession of reports over recent years has warned that Australia faces chronic water shortages and rising costs as its population swells by millions on the back of permanently high levels
Australian voters have swung hard against Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, with the latest Newspoll survey of voting intentions showing that the Coalition is ahead of Labor leading into next year’s federal election. Primary support for the Coalition has lifted to 40% for the first time since the 2022 election, versus Labor’s 33%. More importantly, the
Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows that the public sector wages bill increased by 8% nationwide in 2023-24 to $232 billion. The federal government’s wage bill increased by 10% to $37.3 billion, while the number of federal public service employees increased by more than 4% to 365,400. Only the ACT recorded a