Articles from MacroBusiness

Why is Ley backing Albo’s severe immigration/housing crunch

By Stephen Saunders The Coalition’s touted policy shifts enable Albanese to sail on with massive immigration, historic rental/housing unaffordability, and steepening power bills. Nominally the Liberal Party mantra is “individual freedom and free enterprise”. With immigration, housing, energy, employment, “United Nations” Labor is interventionist, dirigiste, statist. Donning that Joy Division T-shirt, former student-activist Albanese leads

Stop blaming council planning for the housing crisis

TechnologyOne boss Ed Chung has rejected claims that restrictive council planning red tape is the source of Australia’s structural housing shortage and crisis. TechnologyOne supplies software to a vast majority of Australian local governments, and Chung argues that councils are being “unfairly targeted” as the primary roadblock to housing supply. “I think local government is

MB Fund Podcast: The Pacific Inflation Divide: The Race to Cut vs. The Fight to Hold

In this week’s podcast, Nucleus Wealth’s Chief Investment Officer, Damien Klassen, is joined by Leith Van Onselen to break down the Pacific’s growing inflation divide—why the U.S. Federal Reserve is edging toward cuts while the Reserve Bank of Australia is holding firm, what’s really driving the split beneath the headline CPI numbers, and what this

NDIS blow out saves the economy

The Australian Financial Review recently reported that the cost of the NDIS continues to escalate. According to the latest data, the cost growth in NDIS plans was 9.5% year-on-year in the September quarter, with expense growth up by 10.1%. Examining these numbers clearly warranted a closer look at the system’s participant growth. Since the end

Australia’s youth have given up hope

The Australian Youth Barometer 2025, produced by Monash University’s Centre for Youth Policy and Education Practice (CYPEP), is the fifth annual study of young Australians aged 18–24. It combines surveys (527 participants), interviews, and existing national data to explore youth experiences across economy, work, education, health, relationships, and civic participation This year’s survey paints a

What will burst the AI bubble?

Many will argue that there is no AI bubble. The poster child of the bubble, NVDA, is not running away from profits on valuation. However, bubbles always have a kernel of truth, and that truth distorts underlying economic behaviour. In 1999, it was Cisco profits on routers. Note what happened to profits when the bubble

Iron plays chicken with Beijing

The ferrous complex remains paralysed with iron ore caught in an obvious trading range between $100 and $107. CISA data for mid-November was still bearish, rising slightly but below last year’s levels. Inventory rose commensurately. Yet, hot metal output remains strong. According to an SMM survey, on November 26, the blast furnace operating rate at

Jim Chalmers has destroyed the economy

Getting an early assessment of a new treasurer can be quite unfortunate. Especially for the treasurer. In June 2022, MB warned the newly elected Albanese government that a fateful energy shock was underway, one that would destroy its domestic agenda, while the government took a victory lap around the country. We went so far as

Aussie mortgage stress to climb higher

Roy Morgan reported that mortgage stress hit its lowest level since February 2023, following the three 0.25% rate cuts from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). In the three months to October 2025, 25.3% of mortgage holders were deemed by Roy Morgan to be ‘At Risk’ of ‘mortgage stress’, down 2.6% points from August 2025

Macro Morning

Again the lack of bad news and the Thanksgiving cheer gave Wall Street another boost which should translate into steady returns on Asian equity markets in today’s session. The near certainty of a rate cut by the Fed in tis December meeting is the juice that is powering risk makets at the moment with the

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