In this week’s Treasury of Common Sense on Radio 2GB/4BC, I lambasted the Albanese government for opposing East Coast gas reservation and explained its implications for energy bills and the economy. In the early 2010s, the Rudd/Gillard Labor government made the fateful decision to approve LNG exports out of Gladstone QLD without requiring gas producers
Stock markets were quite mixed in the Asian session today without a solid lead from Wall Street as concerns over rare earth metal supply held back Japanese equities while currency markets are awaiting tonight’s ECB meeting. Most of the undollar’s remain in a strong position vs the almost dethroned King Dollar with the Aussie about
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Westpac was caught up in a responsible lending scandal in 2018, where it admitted to breaching responsible lending laws by approving over 10,000 home loans that should not have been automatically approved. The bank used an automated loan assessment system that relied on the Household Expenditure Measure (HEM)—a benchmark for living expenses—rather than evaluating customers’
The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) population data has become a lottery. The population estimates in the Q3 2024 and Q4 2024 national accounts releases (here and here) differed wildly from the official quarterly population statistics released a few weeks later. The Q1 2025 national accounts, released on Wednesday, implied that Australia’s population growth accelerated
The Market Ear on one winner as US growth fades. Breaking out Gold extending the move above the short term trend line. So far the bounce on the 50 day and the longer term trend line have been pretty much perfect. A close here, or higher, and we will start talking about all time highs.
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By Stephen Saunders Here’s Mr Albanese, pretending to re-fly the Coalition’s east-coast gas reservation, outing his 40-year emissions-rich “surprise” for Woodside NW Shelf gas, while smirking “it’s net zero, not zero”. At Election 2025, Peter Dutton kicked the own-goal of nuclear-net-zero. Reappointed Albanese Labor climate-Svengali Chris Bowen still spruiks 43% emissions reduction towards net zero.
Poor old McGoo, does it again it. From Goldman: Overall, the late-2024 pick-up in Australian economic momentum looks to have faltered in 1Q2025, raising downside risks to the RBA’s (recently downgraded) forecast consumer recovery. Looking ahead, a substantial RBA easing cycle will be required to spur a sustainable growth into private demand in our view,
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese suggested that Labor would negotiate with the Coalition on superannuation reforms, raising the prospect that it would abandon its proposal to tax unrealised capital gains. However, Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Wednesday slammed the door on that notion, stating that Labor would strike a deal with the Greens that
Wednesday’s national accounts release from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) revealed that Australia’s per capita GDP declined by 0.2% in Q1 2025 and by 0.4% year-on-year. This represented the ninth decline in eleven quarters, with per capita GDP down a total of 1.7% over that period. The overall GDP growth of 0.2% also badly