Leading independent economist Gerard Minack produced the following chart last year showing that population growth is a major contributor to house price growth across global housing markets: “I am gobsmacked by how many people don’t accept the obvious point that population growth has been a contributor – probably the single most important contributor – to
Most commentary on the local gas price has been very bearish about what is coming next. It can hardly be blamed for thinking so, given the Asian price for gas is sitting at about $22Gj, and likely to go much higher. While the local price has been about one-third of that. Gas prices have now
Australia’s “productivity tsar”, Professor Gary Banks, was the long‑serving founding Chair of the Productivity Commission (1998-2013). Back then, you could trust the Productivity Commission to deliver sound advice grounded in evidence. Sadly, after Banks departed as chair in 2013, the Productivity Commission lost its way and became politicised. Banks has long advocated strongly for evidence‑based
Late yesterday, in a conversation with Michelle Grattan on The Conversation’s Politics podcast, Deputy Governor Andrew Hauser talked about monetary policy, oil prices, and the Australian economy. Hauser said the Australian economy is now in fantastic shape. Over the past year, economic growth has accelerated, unemployment is still near all-time lows, and overall wealth and
Australia’s performative democracy is a circus of jingling clowns pretending to care about national interests while doing nothing of substance. This situation is largely due to the structure of political parties, which lends itself to corruption and cowardice in the face of vested interests. Therefore, political parties avoid conflict at all costs, even when it
Between the mid-1990s and 2004, Australia saw a strong rise in household formation for the 25 to 34 age demographic. With an adequate supply of new homes compared with dwelling completions, as illustrated by the chart below from AMP’s Shane Oliver, the nation’s younger demographics were able to form households in greater and greater numbers.
Roy Morgan’s latest mortgage stress report notes that the risk of mortgage stress fell to its lowest for three years in January, before the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) hiked the official cash rate: Roy Morgan estimates that 23.9% of mortgage holders (1,184,000) were ‘At Risk’ of ‘mortgage stress’ in January 2026, down 4% from
Cotality’s daily dwelling values index reports that Melbourne home values have declined by 0.1% over the past 28 days, whereas Sydney’s have recorded 0% growth: This week’s Westpac-Melbourne Institute consumer sentiment survey for March showed that while consumer house price expectations remain strong, sentiment around whether now is a good time to buy a home
Energy Minister Chris Bowen suggests that the recent energy crisis in Australia is largely down to you. Following a crisis conference of key stakeholders, the government said that the primary reason of shortages that are beginning to affect the regional sectors of agriculture and fisheries is panic buying of fuel, particularly diesel. Energy Minister Chris
Proponents of high immigration claim that it is necessary to alleviate purported labour shortages. The argument was always spurious: Australia has run one of the largest migration programs in the world this century, yet has suffered from persistent labour shortages: In effect, Australia has played a game of migration ‘whack-a-mole’ – it has imported migrants