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Articles from Peter Martin

The certainty of ever-growing living standards we grew up with under Queen Elizabeth is at an end

December 29, 2025 - 17:04 -- Admin

Much has been written about how, with the passing of the Queen, we have lost one of our last continuing links to the second world war.

We have, but we have also lost something even more profound – the link she gave us back to when the kind of world we know began.

On Tuesday last week Queen Elizabeth appointed a new prime minister of Britain, Liz Truss, who was born in 1975.

Australians on unemployment benefits are set for two record paydays – but it’s a sign of a broken system, long overdue for a fix

December 29, 2025 - 17:01 -- Admin

Australians on our humiliatingly-low unemployment benefit are about to get their biggest payday ever.

On September 20, the single rate of JobSeeker will climb A$25.70 per fortnight from $642.70 to $668.40. That’s the biggest automatic increase since the payment began at the turn of the 1990s, and twice as big as the next-biggest.

Sky-high mortgages, 7.1% inflation, and a 20% chance of recession. How the Conversation’s panel sees the year ahead

July 1, 2022 - 14:50 -- Admin

Homeowners will face mortgage rates near 5.5% in a little over a year, according to a survey of 22 leading Australian economists.

The Conversation’s 2022-23 forecasting survey predicts an increase in the Reserve Bank’s cash rate from its present 0.85% to a peak of 3.1% by next August.

Expect the RBA to go easy on interest rate hikes from now on – we can’t afford rates to climb as steeply as the market expects

June 8, 2022 - 14:16 -- Admin

By lifting its cash rate by 0.5 points, from 0.35% to 0.85%, the Reserve Bank has added about another $120 per month in payments for a A$500,000 mortgage.

If financial markets are to be believed, by the end of this year it will have added a total of $800 per month – and, by the end of next year, a total approaching $1,000 per month.

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