On Tuesday, the Fair Work Commission (FWC) decided to lift the national minimum wage and award wages by 3.5% from 1 July this year. The key justification given for the decision was to provide some real wage catch-up. Business groups met the decision with their usual backlash, claiming that higher minimum and award wages would
Today’s Q1 national accounts from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) revealed that Australians lurched back into recession, with per capita GDP growth declining by 0.2% over the quarter: Per capita GDP has declined in nine of the last 11 quarters, down a total of 1.7% over that period. The overall economy also grew by
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The Market Ear on the hated rally. …to start talking about all time highs? NASDAQ trading right on those huge levels. Source: LSEG Workspace Stopped in “Net leverage for the full PB book rose more than +8 pts in May, the largest monthly increase on our record, driven by large global net buying and mark-to-market“.
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NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman has accused Premier Chris Minns of blaming federal tobacco taxes for the fact that the illegal tobacco trade in the state is “out of control”. Minns has suggested that cutting tobacco taxes would lead to a reduction in black market tobacco activity, leaving NSW Police with more resources to combat
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It’s goodbye, Chinese steel prices. No good news. Despite the tariff reduction after the US-China trade talks in Geneva, the headline Caixin manufacturing PMI fell notably to 48.3 in May from 50.4 in April, contrary to market expectations of an uptick. Among the major sub-indexes, the output sub-index decreased the most, followed by the new
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Australia recorded a tiny 0.05% rise in carbon emissions in 2024, which has the usual suspects whining. As reported by the Guardian: Emissions last year were estimated to be 446.4m tonnes of carbon dioxide, 0.2m tonnes higher than in 2023. The increase is largely due to pollution from electricity generation rising by 2.2%, reversing a
Victoria’s finances are in a dire state. Victoria’s net debt was only $22.3 billion when the Labor government presented its first state budget in 2015. It has now risen to $155.5 billion and is expected to reach $194 billion by 2028-29, according to budget projections. Victorian net debt per capita was under $3,600 in Labor’s
Assistant Minister for Productivity Andrew Leigh used a speech to the Chifley Research Centre on Tuesday to call for “thickets of regulation” to be reduced to help boost productivity. Leigh stated that there are several ways to improve productivity, including an increased focus on rewarding project delivery and measuring outcomes. He claimed that excessive bureaucracy
There is dumb. And then there is really, really stupid. Australian defence falls into the latter category. In his address to the Shangri-La Dialogue Hegseth made clear the Trump administration’s priority defence policy region is Asia. …Poland expects to spend 4.7 per cent of its GDP on defence this year. Lithuania plans to spend 5.5
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Last night saw the release of the latest EU flash inflation figures which imply some building deflationary pressures while the latest US factory orders blew up to a new low, reinforcing the damage done by the Trump regime’s tariff “plan”. But reality didn’t matter to equity markets as they reacted to speculation around potential trade
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