Category Archives: Australian economy

Australia news live: Dutton says PM should ‘make sure’ federal police are sent to to Alice Springs; recount ordered for Sydney seat

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Opposition leader says locals are leaving town and tourism numbers are down due to lack of safety. Follow all the day’s news

If the NDIS is improved for people, it will be better for budget, Shorten says

Shorten is being asked about his other portfolio, minister for NDIS. The Grattan Institute yesterday made several recommendations to help rein in the budget, saying the government need to take a hard look at the NDIS.

If we run the scheme better for the person, the participant, the person with severe and profound disabilities. I also think that some of the other anxieties which are about money being wasted, will be dealt with.

We’ve been reforming individual features of the scheme already like getting people who are medically discharged from hospital on the NDIS, not languishing in hospital for months and months. We’ve been reducing some of the legacy cases.

So the budget will no doubt have measures which will be about improving the NDIS for participants but the budget isn’t an end in itself. So we’re doing work right now. There’ll be more work being done, and there’ll be work also finally announced when the review happens.

The bigger piece first of all, is that when the government thinks that someone owes a debt to the government, we’ve got to have a much more methodical transparent process to establish the accuracy of the debt.

The best thing you can do is not make a mistake to begin with – and I mean the government not make a mistake.

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Unemployment rate holds steady as Australian employers add 72,000 full-time jobs

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At 3.5% the unemployment rate remains near its lowest since the mid-1970s

Australia’s jobless rate held steady last month, with employers adding more than 72,000 full-time positions in the latest sign of resilience in the Australian economy.

The country’s unemployment rate for March was 3.5%, seasonally adjusted, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday. Taking into account the drop of part-time roles of just over 19,200, the net jobs gain last month was 53,000.

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Dutton may allow conscience vote, Wyatt says – as it happened

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Treasurer flags power bill assistance

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, is giving more specifics about how this IMF report may affect the upcoming May budget. He’s flagging the government will be helping Australians pay their electricity bills.

As we say these forecasts about a decline in the economy are because of these cost of living pressures, which is hurting families and pensioners and people right around Australia.

Because they are expected to be persistent because we expect inflation to be higher than we’d like for longer than we’d like and we do need to deal with in a responsible, methodical way those cost-of-living pressures and so we need to do that in a way that doesn’t make inflation worse.

On the view of the International Monetary Fund, the global economy is on an increasingly perilous path. The situation in the world has become more complex and more challenging even over the course of the last few months. And so we won’t be completely immune from that.

The Treasury does expect our own economy to slow considerably later this year because of that combination of a slowing global economy and the impact of higher interest rates here at home as well. So we’ve got a lot coming at us from around the world.

So is it your view that avoiding a recession is still possible but a lot harder now?

Of course, it’s still possible and it’s still the expectation of the Treasury and the Reserve Bank, and a number of other economic forecasters here in Australia.

But we need to be upfront … and say that a slowing global economy matters to us a great deal, and we do expect our own economy to slow considerably the Treasury and the Reserve Bank are not currently expecting a recession here at home.

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Australian Taxation Office to force banks to hand over landlord data in investment property crackdown

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Exclusive: Incorrect reporting of rental property income and expenses, and failure to declare capital gains are all in the spotlight

Banks will be compelled to hand over the data of 1.7 million landlords, including transaction details, as part of a tax office crackdown in search of $1.3bn in revenue lost from residential investment properties.

The data-matching program will target people failing to declare rental income or pay capital gains tax, and those incorrectly claiming deductions – including rental property loan interest – to reduce income and negatively gear properties.

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Australia news live: Liberal MPs praise Leeser’s decision to quit frontbench; contraceptive class action to begin in Melbourne

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Bridget Archer lauds former shadow minister’s ‘courage and integrity’. Follow live

Japanese hydrogen partners offer only short-term deals, want more funds

There’s been a few articles in the business media lately touting the promise of converting brown coal in Victoria into hydrogen and shipping the fuel to Japan.

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Australia’s richest captured 93% of economic growth between 2009 financial crisis and Covid, paper shows

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Wealthiest 10% captured growth in company profits while most Australians watched their real wages shrink, Australia Institute finds

A new paper from the Australia Institute shows 93% of the benefits of economic growth between 2009 and 2019 went to the top 10%, while the bottom 90% received just 7%.

The paper shows the share of economic growth going to the top 10% over that period was far higher in Australia than in other developed countries, including the US and Canada.

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Essential workers unable to afford to rent alone almost anywhere in Australia, report shows

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Aged care workers in capital cities would have to spend 77% of their pay on housing to pay the average rent of $572 a week

Soaring rents have made living alone impossible for Australia’s essential workers: new research shows some would have to spend around two-thirds of their income to afford a place on their own.

Comparing the average weekly unit rents against award wages for 15 essential jobs, the national housing campaign Everybody’s Home found there were virtually no regions of Australia where a single full-time essential worker, such as those in aged care, early childhood or nursing, could afford to rent by themselves.

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Housing values in some wealthy Australian suburbs have slumped more than a quarter, data reveals

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Affluent areas of capital cities ‘lead both the upswing and the downturn’, according to property data expert

Housing prices in some of Australia’s most affluent suburbs have had the biggest falls from pandemic peaks. Some high-end houses and apartments have lost more than a quarter of their value.

Nationwide data shows that many of the same wealthy areas that enjoyed exuberant price runs in the years leading up to and the initial period of the pandemic have now retraced the most.

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Value of Australian lithium exports tipped to match thermal coal in five years

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Revenue from mining key metal used in EV batteries to triple by 2027-28 while thermal coal exports set to fall by more than 70%

Exports of Australian lithium – a key metal used in batteries – are expected to earn as much as sales of thermal coal within five years, as the world increasingly embraces clean energy and the market value of fossil fuels falls.

New data released by the Australian government forecasts local lithium production will double and the industry’s revenue will triple by 2027-28 compared with last financial year.

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Australia’s booming banks should do more to protect customers from scams, advocates say

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More than $95m has been lost to scams so far this year, while the big four are expected to make more than $33bn

With the big four banks tipped to make record profits this financial year, consumer rights advocates are calling for financial institutions to invest more in protecting customers against scams.

Australians have lost more than $96m to scams so far this year, with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission estimating that is just the tip of the iceberg as most go unreported.

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Australia news live: Peter Dutton confirms Liberals will campaign against Indigenous voice to parliament

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Opposition leader continues his narrative of calling the proposal a ‘divisive Canberra voice’. Follow the day’s news

Birmingham calls for end to culture wars on ‘fringe issues’

So Simon Birmigham wants the party to modernise, but keep its Liberal values. So essentially ditch the culture wars and get back to Liberal basics – small government, small business, families (although Birmingham argues for inclusive family support now).

Well, it is, in that it concerns only a relatively small numbers of people, frankly, on either side of the debate. And so having, in the lead-up to the Aston byelection, debate ensuing in the Victorian division of the Liberal party around trans rights, Nazis, all of those sorts of things that were being thrown around, was clearly very, very counterproductive.

And I think that’s acknowledged right across the leadership of the Liberal party. And so trying to make sure that, whilst there has to be space to deal with issues where international sporting organisations are making rules and laws, but we shouldn’t take that into into a realm where suddenly there are public protests supported by Liberal MPs or anything that suggests there is a sense of disrespect other than careful, thoughtful policy consideration.

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Australia news live: seizure of $270m worth of heroin is Queensland’s biggest; RBA interest rates decision due

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Australians will find out at 2.30pm AEST whether the Reserve Bank will pause its interest rates hikes after 10 consecutive rises. Follow the day’s news live

Australia’s new high commissioner to the UK, Stephen Smith, says becoming a republic is “inevitable” even if Australians are proud to have the British monarch as their head of state.

In his first interview since taking up the post, Smith told the Times newspaper that most British people would be “indifferent” to Australia getting rid of the monarchy and it would not damage the countries’ relationship.

There is a lot of affection and respect for the monarchy in Australia.

That affection and respect hasn’t gone away because of Australia contemplating from time to time what it should do about its constitutional arrangements.

My personal view is it’s inevitable. But how that’s progressed is entirely a matter for the Australian government of the day.

Our public-sector workers do a great job serving their fellow Victorians and we’re proud to support them. In addition to wage increases, workers will be able to obtain a sign-on bonus while productivity improvements will bring the potential for further advancement of conditions.

The policy provides fair outcomes for employees while being responsible as we deal with the types of budget challenges faced by families, businesses and governments across the world.

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Super tax breaks costing $45bn a year are ‘inheritance schemes’ for Australia’s rich, new report says

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The Grattan Institute report recommends 10 changes to superannuation taxation that could save the budget billions a year

The Albanese government could save the budget billions of dollars by winding back generous superannuation benefits that effectively produce “taxpayer-funded inheritance schemes” for the wealthy, a new Grattan Institute report argues.

The “super savings” report says such tax breaks now cost $45bn a year, or 2% of GDP, and will soon exceed the age pension costs. Two-thirds of the breaks go to the top 20% of income earners who typically are already saving enough for retirement.

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Australia’s soaring interest rates have trapped ‘mortgage prisoners’ into crushing repayments

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A growing cohort of pandemic-era homebuyers are also unable to refinance because they no longer meet lenders’ standards

A growing number of Australian have become “mortgage prisoners” – trapped by crippling mortgages they are unable to renegotiate.

This growing cohort of pandemic-era homebuyers are unable to refinance because they no longer meet lenders’ standards after recent rate increases.

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Labor claims Aston win, throwing Dutton’s Liberal leadership into question – as it happened

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Labor’s Mary Doyle has two-party preferred swing of at least 6% in the count on Saturday evening. This blog is now closed

Dutton says Labor’s road funding cuts in Aston ‘a disaster’

Out of hiding and into the open, opposition leader Peter Dutton has been seen on the campaign trail in Aston today.

[Labor] haven’t explained to the people of Aston why it is that they cut road funding as the first act in government, and it’s quite remarkable.

It’s a disaster for locals and people realise that the first act of the Albanese government was to cut road funding here in Aston … They’ve never apologised for it, they never explained why.

There are a lot of Australian families who have heard Anthony Albanese promise before the last election on 97 occasions that he would reduce your power to $275. That was a promise he made before the election, he’s never mentioned it since, not once.

So cost of living pressures are real for families and the opportunity in the election today is to send a very clear message to Labor that they shouldn’t be cutting local road funding, and they shouldn’t be abandoning this community.

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Laura Tingle becomes ABC staff-elected director – as it happened

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The 7.30 political correspondent will sit on the broadcaster’s board alongside chair Ita Buttrose. This blog is now closed

Report of new gas tax for Australia

The Australian Financial Review is this morning reporting that a new gas tax looms as the government tries to raise revenue to begin budget repair.

Major companies such as Woodside Energy, Santos and Shell and their tax advisers have signed confidentiality agreements with Treasury on the PRRT consultation.

Since Treasury resumed the stalled work for Labor late last year, it has cast the net wider to probe other PRRT areas, such as deductions, in an attempt to raise revenue sooner for the government from the profits-based tax.

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Shorten attacks Robert’s links to lobbyist – as it happened

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Chalmers hopes for bipartisanship on RBA review

Jim Chalmers will receive the review into the Reserve Bank tomorrow. He says he will be releasing its report in April, along with some of the actions the government intends on taking.

I think people do understand how critically important the decisions taken by the independent Reserve Bank are and so we need to give the RBA the best possible basis to make those decisions. And one of the things that we’ve tried to do throughout is we see this as a bipartisan opportunity will see this as an opportunity for some bipartisanship.

What I’ve done is made sure that the panel hasn’t just kept me up to speed on their thinking and across their thinking but also the opposition and also the crossbench as well and I’ve got my differences with Angus Taylor, but I do want to say that he has been engaging with this Reserve Bank review panel in good faith and I appreciate that.

Our submission will be consistent with our values and our policies and our objectives and one of our highest priorities is to get wages moving again in meaningful and sustainable ways.

I think it’s common sense to prioritise the lowest paid as you go about that. You know, some people might pretend that we’ve got an inflation problem in our economy because the lowest-paid Australians are getting paid too much and that is obviously absolute rubbish.

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Vast Aukus spending sparks calls to boost Australia’s aid budget

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Country gives just $1 in assistance for every $10 that goes to defence, humanitarian groups say

The huge Aukus price tag has sparked calls to boost aid funding, with the sector lobbying the Australian government not to dismiss such measures as an optional “luxury”.

The nuclear-powered submarine program is forecast to cost between $268bn and $368bn by the mid 2050s, most of it beyond the first four-year budget period.

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‘Simply about survival’: ACTU calls for 7% pay rise for lowest-paid workers to keep pace with inflation

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Minimum hourly rate would rise to $22.88 – or $45,337 a year – if the Fair Work Commission grants the increase

Australian unions have called for a pay rise of 7% for the lowest-paid workers, a raise in the national minimum wage of $1.50 an hour to keep pace with inflation.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions made that submission to the Fair Work Commission’s annual minimum wage review, which sets the pay of more than 2.6 million employees on the national minimum or award wages.

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Australia politics live: rate rises must stop with inflation coming down, Greens say; Brereton named anti-corruption commissioner

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Commission appointments must be signed off by the governor general. Follow live

Sorry – I am told by a couple of senators that it was “technically” 4.13am.

So expect to see a few bleary-eyed senators in the coffee lines this morning.

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