I wrote last week about how the taxation of tobacco is one of Australia’s biggest policy failures. The federal government has repeatedly raised tobacco taxes to discourage smoking. Yet, the Australian Medical Association has warned that the availability of cheaper, illegal tobacco has led to a sharp rise in smoking rates, alongside booming organised crime
From the Market Ear: Kamikaze The Japanese 30 year has risen sharply over the past few years. Is this a similar break out move like we saw earlier this year? Gold loves it Gold loves rising Japanese 30 year yields… The streak Gold prices have now posted their 8th consecutive quarterly gain, the third-longest streak
It’s rare that any more than a month or two goes by without Prime Minister Anthony Albanese mentioning that he grew up in public housing. Every now and then it’s casually trotted out, perhaps as an attempt to connect with everyday voters that many in the ‘Canberra Bubble’ increasingly find themselves detached from. Meanwhile, the
Last week, the government body Build Skills Australia released a report claiming that there simply aren’t enough tradespeople to meet Labor’s target to build 240,000 homes a year. Build Skills Australia shows that Australia’s rate of construction per new resident has collapsed, despite the volume of homes built over the past 20 years (174,000 dwellings
Point Lonsdale sunrise, Victoria AUD/USD EUR/USD USD/JPY GBP/USD Gold WTI Brent Australia 200 US S&P 500 UK100 Japan 225
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The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has already delivered 2.5% of interest rate cuts, which has taken the official cash rate to 3.0% from a peak of 5.5%. As illustrated below by Justin Fabo from Antipodean Macro, the Reserve Bank’s monetary easing has lowered new mortgage rates to pre-pandemic levels, whereas weighted-average interest rates on
India is Australia’s second-largest source of international students. According to the Department of Education, in the year to July 2025, there were a record 159,530 Indian students enrolled in Australia, up 31,000 from the pre-pandemic peak and 6.6 times more than in 2005: Of these Indian enrolments, 94,271 were in higher education (universities) and 63,613
Anyone who thinks attaining Labor’s 82% Renewable Energy Target (RET) by 2030 is feasible or affordable is kidding themselves. To meet Labor’s fantastical target, much of Australia’s baseload coal generation—the backbone of the country’s energy grid—would have to be shut down and replaced with masses of intermittent and weather-dependent wind and solar generation, backed up
Under a series of treaties signed by the Australian and New Zealand governments, New Zealand citizens have the right to move to Australia and live there indefinitely under the Special Category Visa (SCV). The SCV is granted to Kiwis automatically upon entry, provided they meet health and character requirements. But despite having a pathway to
Following May’s election, the nation’s electorate fundamentally changed the requirements to pass legislation through the nation’s upper house. Prior to the election, Labor held 25 senate seats, with the Greens holding 11, giving them 36 votes in a chamber that requires 39 for an unassailable majority. When Parliament sat for the first time post-election, the