Statistics New Zealand this week released migration data, which showed that only 13,066 net overseas migrants landed in New Zealand in the year to July. This was well below the decade average of 49,000 and more than 120,000 lower than the late 2023 peak. The decline in net overseas migration has been driven by the
Australia is beginning to resemble George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth from the novel 1984. First, the Albanese government performed a policy-180 and announced that Australians under the age of 16 would be banned from viewing YouTube. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is seeking to expand Australia’s draconian media restrictions globally at this month’s United Nations General
Recently on Twitter (also known as X), I came across a series of charts purporting to show the trend in certain search terms on Google indicative of financial stress. Fake charts are increasingly common, so I thought it would be best to do my own research on Google search trends to see if I could
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released the monthly CPI indicator for August, which recorded a jump in headline inflation to 3.0%—the highest result since July 2024. In better news, the policy-relevant trimmed mean inflation moderated to 2.6% in August, down from 2.7% in July. The main driver of the rise in headline CPI
Australia’s government and media want us to believe that climate change is the most serious environmental concern. They say that Australia must reach its net zero promises to avoid “dangerous climate change”, ignoring the reality that Australia is a tiny (1%) emitter on the global stage. Last week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese unveiled Labor’s long-awaited
The ferrous complex plods on. Caught between the approach of Simandou, Capanema, Gara Gjeblet on one hand and the shutdown of Chinese green steel on the other. The balance is unusually solid blast furnace output for the season. Honestly, if you had shown me that chart in 2019, I would have told you iron ore
In the years since the pandemic arrived, Melbourne has gone from having one of the strongest economies in the nation and being a drawcard for internal migration to the butt of jokes and criticism. In some ways, this criticism is justified; the Victorian labour market and economy today are performing nowhere near as strongly in
With the implementation of the Albanese government’s 5% deposit scheme for first home buyers just over a week away, social media is filled with promotional material from the Albanese government crowing about how their achievement will help prospective home buyers. It’s certainly true that some first home buyers will benefit because they will be able
From the Market Ear: Tech spending Without tech spending the US economy would be close/in a recession. DB points out: 1. Good news: The AI super-cycle — with NVIDIA effectively carrying the US economy — is offsetting demand (tariffs) and supply (immigration) shocks. 1. Bad news: The cycle can’t last without parabolic capex. With hyperscaler
The Productivity Commission (PC) released its quarterly Bulletin, which explored the structural decline in Australia’s ‘capital deepening’, which has contributed significantly to the nation’s productivity malaise. “Labour productivity tends to increase when workers have more or better capital (such as computers and buildings) to work with, which is known as ‘capital deepening’”, PC Deputy Chair