Hi all, A quick note to offer guidance on the new website. As well as the layout changes that make it easier to access content for new readers, it comes with a dramatically improved sign-up and resubscription process, greatly enhanced speed, and a much better mobile experience (since 95% of traffic is now phone!). The
As usual, this is all sound and fury signifying nothing. Grace Tame has stolen the limelight from the very cause she espouses. She is now on the defensive. “I’m not the story…The story is that Israel stands accused by the International Criminal Court of committing genocide in Gaza, and so far”… “This should terrify us
Australia’s rental market has experienced record-tight vacancy rates and explosive rental growth over the past five years. The nation’s vacancy rate fell to a record low of 1.5% in September 2025 and, as of January 2026, was tracking at 1.7%—well below the pre-COVID level: Cotality’s latest weekly indicators report shows that the number of rental
We all know that the RBA can’t forecast its way out of a wet paper bag. Yesterday, we got a swag of soft data evidence that it has, once again, nailed the top of the economy with a rate hike. The CBA employment tracker continued to show a decline in monthly job creation. 21k per
The Pulse’s Ross Elliott has written an excellent article on the administrative bloat that has engulfed Australia’s planning industry. Elliott notes that lawyers he has spoken with told him “they didn’t really know how many [planning-related] pages of rules and regulations were now in force—just that it would be so many as to be impossible
The ferrous jaws may have partially closed, but a new problem is fast emerging: the price of steel amid weak demand. More profitable steel, or less loss-making steel, means more of it and lower prices, which leads to lower iron ore prices in a rinse-and-repeat cycle. ANZ has a new report that is worth considering
A new era has dawned in Japan with the reelection of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government. A Japan that is tough on China and strict on immigration has emerged, one that is unafraid of defending its interests both foreign and domestic. Prime Minister Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party won in an absolute landslide, securing a 10.77
The Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) February Statement of Monetary Policy (SoMP) forecast that trimmed mean inflation would rise in the near term to 3.7% and would remain above the midpoint of the RBA’s 2% to 3% target band until the end of 2028. The RBA also assumed that the official cash rate would rise
Silver surfed a massive wave, then wiped out. But it remains a long way above long-term prices. Is there a new paradigm for silver, or are we heading back to its long term real price of sub-$20? Background on metals pricing For most industrial metals, like iron or copper, the long-term commodity price is the
The Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) latest forecasts, contained in the February Statement of Monetary Policy (SoMP), show that real gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to grow by just 1.6% in the year to June 2028. This is the central bank’s lowest medium-term growth outlook since it began releasing forecasts in 1990. Stephen Smith
Australia is currently receiving a large inflow of New Zealanders. New Zealand citizens are permitted to migrate to Australia using the Special Category visa (subclass 444), which allows them to live, work, and study there without needing to apply for a visa before arrival. New Zealand citizens with a valid New Zealand passport are automatically
The world’s most unpleasant nation, and the Albanese government’s best friend, has once again bared its fangs, not to mention its glass jaw. China’s largest steel maker has accused Australian rival InfraBuild of making baseless and self-serving claims to convince the Albanese government that substantial tariffs are needed on imported construction products. In attacking InfraBuild,
In late December, Melburnians were warned that they could soon face severe water restrictions following the steepest annual decline in water storage levels since the Millennium Drought. Melbourne’s water storages dropped from 86% to 75.1% in a single year—a fall of 239 billion litres—and authorities urged conservation measures and planning for new water sources, such
The ostensible problem with East Coast gas supply is that it has no competition. The real problem is that energy policymaking has no competition, so there is nobody to hold Albo’s energy butchers to account. Albo’s half-baked idea for gas reservation is so nebulous that states and regulators are now in crisis, trying to figure
Leading independent economist Gerard Minack published the following chart illustrating the primary driver of Australia’s rental crisis: excessive population growth via immigration: After Australia’s international border was reopened in late 2021, net overseas migration surged, with just under 1.5 million net migrants arriving between Q4 2021 and Q2 2025. As a result, rental demand surged
The ABS released the December monthly spending indicator yesterday, and it came in weak at -0.4%. The quarterly rate was still high at 2.2%, and the annual rate was likewise 5%. Volumes were 0.9% for the quarter, so a solid contributor to GDP. The ABS attributed the downdraft to pull-forward from earlier sales, such as
I absolutely stand by the right of Australians to protest. But why do it about Palestine? Australian of the Year Grace Tame condemned Herzog’s visit, earlier telling the crowd Australia was “a so-called democracy that punishes peaceful protesters like us, but welcomes a war criminal with open arms”. “A man … who said, and I
A few more days of this, and we’ll be getting rate cuts, not hikes. DXY cratered overnight as a new government shutdown, this time over ICE constraints, looms. The Australian dollar went berserk with CNY and JPY relief post-election. Oil and gold did not waste the day. AI mentals were a little less hysterical. Gapping
With the release of the latest Newspoll, One Nation’s rise in the world of Australian federal politics has been emphatically confirmed, putting to bed any ideas that this was a temporary boost due to polling seasonality or the immediate aftermath of the Bondi terrorist attack. According to Newspoll, One Nation is now polling a primary
The Albanese government’s Housing Accord target of building 1.2 million homes over five years has fallen well behind. The Housing Accord commenced on 1 July 2024 and requires the construction of 240,000 homes over five years to meet the target. As of the September quarter of 2025, only 219,000 dwellings had completed construction, 27% fewer
The Crime Statistics Agency’s 2024-25 crime statistics revealed that Victoria saw a record high of 483,000 criminal incidents over the financial year. Victoria Police also reported that just 5,400 repeat offenders accounted for 40% of the state’s total crime. Car theft is one area where crime has surged in Victoria. In 2024-25, the number of
I have not posted about our old mate Drew Pavlou for three years, but he has earned another mention. Having first come to fame fighting the CCP’s quiet invasion of our universities in 2019, Mr Pavlou has morphed into a consistent protest presence attacking the fake left. Roughly a year ago, this morphed into a
Last week, following the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) decision to lift the official cash rate (OCR) by 0.25%, Treasurer Jim Chalmers claimed that excessive private sector demand was behind Australia’s high inflation. In a media release directly following the RBA’s decision, Treasurer Chalmers said “the Board’s statement today does not mention government spending. It
Charts from TME. There are a lot of wild moves closing out the week. JPM gross hammered. Huge shorts. Social media sentiment collapsed. Volatility spiked. However, instos are still all-in with no cash. Equities, equities, equities! Leverage is virtually unchanged. While Michael Hartnett’s risk monitor remains in extreme sell. Where there has been progress under
In 2003, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released its Population Projections 2002 to 2101, which contained a baseline (Series B) forecast for Australia’s population of 26.4 million by 2051, based on an assumed net overseas migration (NOM) of 100,000 annually. The following table illustrates the ABS’s 2003 population projections for Australia’s capital cities: Sydney
Australia will need to find a sugar daddy because the Chinese version has lost its mojo. New property sales are terrible to start the year. The secondary market is, at least, showing some signs that panic selling is over, with lower transaction volumes, but prices are still falling. Consumer confidence is precisely where you would
