Category Archives: Cost of living crisis

Australia’s housing crisis may be starting to ease as home prices fall in four capital cities

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New data also shows auction figures softening while rent rises are at their slowest pace in years

Australia’s housing crisis may be starting to ease with dwelling price rises tapering off and rents increasing at their slowest pace in four years, data groups say.

Property values increased 0.4% in September, close to the 0.3% rise recorded for both the previous two months, CoreLogic reported. PropTrack’s housing index was basically flat, rising just 0.04% for the month.

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GP visits costing Australians more than ever, survey finds

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Royal Australian College of General Practitioners’ 2024 report shows rising out-of-pocket costs hit vulnerable with chronic, complex and mental illnesses hardest

Out of pocket costs to visit general practitioners are higher than ever, a survey from the peak body for GPs has found, along with the first indications in a long time of a boost in GP workforce numbers.

The gap has risen to an average $36.86 for a 20-minute consult in 2024, up from $34.91 last year, according to the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners’ 2024 health of the nation report.

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How the most affluent Australians disproportionately benefit from negative gearing

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Those in the top tax bracket three times more likely to be negatively geared property investor, says economist

Negative gearing helps high-earning Australians the most, with those with income of more than $180,000 annually snaring almost one-quarter of the benefits, despite numbering just 5% of taxpayers.

Data from the Australian Taxation Office showed people who earn more than $180,000 were able to lower their collective tax bill by $1.3bn in 2021-2022 through negative gearing. The $1.3bn was roughly 25% of all the losses on rental properties claimed by taxpayers in that financial year.

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Opposition leader calls for university’s leaders to quit – as it happened

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The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has joined an international push “to hold the Taliban to account” under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

Wong says:

We know the women and girls of Afghanistan are effectively being erased from public life by the various edicts the Taliban … have issued.

The steps we are taking with Germany, Canada and the Netherlands are unprecedented. We are intending to use the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, to which Afghanistan is a party, to take action.

If I can … say again to the Australian Lebanese community. This is a deeply distressing situation for so many of you. I know that there are many Australians in Lebanon. There are many Australians who have relatives, family and friends in Lebanon. I again urge Australians in Lebanon to leave now. There are flight cancelations and disruptions, and there is a risk that Beirut airport may close for an extended period of time.

Please do not wait for a preferred route. Please take the first option you can to leave. We continue to monitor the situation closely. We have been working with partners on contingency plans now for many months but I again say to anyone who any Australian who is in Lebanon: please leave now.

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‘Stop doing dumb stuff,’ economist warns as housing affordability in Australia slips

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Saul Eslake says decades of ‘bad policies’ have inflated demand as report finds about 20% of households effectively ‘locked out’ of the market

Housing affordability has deteriorated over the past year to reach its worst level since records began in 1995. First home buyers now rely on wealthy families or high-income jobs to enter the market, according to the latest housing affordability report from PropTrack.

Driven by high mortgage rates and increasing home prices, affordability further deteriorated this financial year to the point where a median-income household earning about $112,000 could afford just 14% of homes sold – the smallest share since records began. This share has declined from 43% in just three years.

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Green Day in Sydney for $500 – is dynamic pricing reserving live music for the rich?

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Ticketmaster and Ticketek claim demand-driven prices mitigate the problem of scalping, when tickets are bought – often by AI bots – and resold at inflated prices

Dynamic ticket pricing helps combat ticket scalpers, the company behind $500 Green Day tickets claims – but music industry insiders and consumer groups dispute that, with some concerned the controversial practice skews live events to the rich.

Dynamic pricing – when the cost of products rise and fall according to demand – is well established in Australia, from Uber’s surge prices to utilities and airline fares.

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NSW nurses and midwives announce strike – as it happened

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Australia’s ‘sex report card’ released

The latest Australian Study of Health and Relationships was revealed at a conference in Sydney this week held by the International Union Against Sexually Transmitted Infections.

Rent assistance went up by $25 and … average rents have gone up by more than $100. What might look like a big percentage increase is, frankly, fuck all, and that’s one of the reasons that this is so upsetting.

When CRA is indexed, the amount of rent that you have to pay before you get any rent assistance increases. So the proportion of your rent, where you qualify for it, reduces if you aren’t receiving the maximum payment.

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Politics live: Senate question time spars over housing and the economy; plan for Australia to build rocket motors for ‘world’s most advanced missiles’

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Follow today’s headlines live

Albanese says it’s a ‘good thing’ Trump is safe after apparent assassination attempt

Anthony Albanese has responded to news about an apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

Everyone wants the democratic process to be peaceful and to be orderly. This incident in the United States is of concern, again. It is good that President Trump has said that he is safe and that the incident, the details of which are still coming out, so it’s not quite clear all of those details but what is clear is that President Trump is safe. That is a good thing.

The first round of Labor’s Housing Australia Future Fund and National Housing Accord programs will deliver 4,220 social and 9,522 affordable homes, including 1,267 homes for women and children escaping domestic violence and older women at risk of homelessness.

In just the first round of these programs, the Albanese Government is directly supporting more social and affordable housing than the Liberals and Nationals did in their entire nine years in office.

Housing Australia has recommended contract negotiations for 185 projects, with construction on almost 40 per cent of the 13,742 dwellings forecast to get underway this financial year.

Round one of the programs’ funding will unlock $9.2 billion of investment in social and affordable housing across Commonwealth, State and Territory government, and the private and community housing sectors.

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Despite all the doom and gloom on Australia’s economy, could the worst be behind us?

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We hear about the ‘weakest growth in decades’ and being ‘smashed’ by the RBA, but positive tidings abound – if you want to look for them

In a week dominated by headlines declaring the “weakest growth in decades” (excluding Covid) with an economy being “smashed” by the Reserve Bank, it might seem Australia teeters on the edge on an abyss.

For some households and businesses, the challenge of paying stratospheric housing costs amid 13-year-high interest rates will alas be overwhelming.

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Australia news live: parts of Victoria told to plan for up to 72 hours without power; two Tasmanian emergency workers injured during floods response

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Weather situation overnight in Victoria has led to about 1,900 calls to the SES for assistance. Follow today’s news live

Delays predicted at Melbourne airport amid strike action

Melburnians catching a flight this morning may want to give themselves extra time as severe delays are predicted, with security screeners striking between 6am and 8.30am at the domestic airport.

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Dutton’s nuclear reactor in Collie would have a 10th of the output of renewables, Chris Bowen says – as it happened

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The energy minister has been taking every opportunity to undermine the Coalition’s ‘plan’ on nuclear energy. This blog is now closed

Bragg defends NSW Liberal chief’s position after council elections debacle

Finally, Bragg has also defended Liberal party’s NSW president, Don Harwin, staying in his role after the “catastrophic failure” of the division to nominate candidates for local government elections.

I’m more interested in looking at the core competency of the division rather than getting into personality debates.

I don’t see any case for Don to go. I think he’s done a good job as president. I don’t think that having an election for president now inside the New South Wales division would be in the interests of the party, and at the end of the day, people love talking about these things, but the core competencies are on display – you’ve got candidates in the field and you’re raising money.

It’s been my view for a long time that gender identity and sexual orientation are reasonable questions to ask in a modern society. I think the fact the PM has tied himself in knots on this issue shows a great weakness in his own leadership.

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Coles profit surges to $1.1bn as shoppers grapple with cost-of-living crisis

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Greens accuse company of price-gouging, as supermarket attributes sales boost to seasonal campaigns and rising digital revenue

Coles has posted a surge in revenue from its groceries business and expanded supermarket profit margins to the highest level recorded in the pandemic era, even as shoppers grapple with fast-rising household costs.

The revenue bump underpinned a robust rise in annual profit to $1.1bn. It threatens to draw Australia’s second largest chain back into the public limelight as cost-of-living pressures become a central political issue for the next federal election.

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From cars to coffee machines, here’s how Australian spending habits are weathering the high cost of living

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Retailers like Temple & Webster have slashed their pricing and tweaked their product range to lure gen Z and millennials – and it’s working

Many Australian businesses are feeling the pinch as customers can no longer afford the armchairs, gadgets, clothing brands and new bathrooms they could before the cost of living shot up.

But spending patterns remain uneven, and at times counterintuitive, leading to a mixed corporate earnings season marked by subdued but not collapsing demand.

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Melbourne lord mayor floats plan to slash power bills by bulk buying renewable energy

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‘MPower’ would be Australia’s largest scheme of its kind – with neighbouring councils invited to join in

Melbourne residents and business owners could have their electricity bills slashed by hundreds of dollars each year in a radical plan proposed by the city’s lord mayor.

Nick Reece has pledged to facilitate Australia’s largest community-led bulk purchasing scheme for renewable energy if he is re-elected.

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Australians’ mortgage payments hit high not seen since before GFC, data shows

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The average mortgage holder is parting with more than a fifth of their pre-tax income, double what they were spending in the 90s

Mortgage holders are spending well over 20% of their pre-tax income on their loans, representing one of the highest levels on record, data compiled by Commonwealth Bank shows.

It has rocketed in recent years amid rising interest rates and high living costs to a level last seen two decades ago when frothy property prices took hold before the 2008 global financial crisis.

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Furniture is getting really expensive. That doesn’t bode well for the Australian economy

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Annual results underline fears cost-of-living pressures will limit spending – including on side tables and lamps – so much that the economy will shift into reverse

What do sales of six-seat modular sofas and matching buffet tables tell us about the financial health of households and the broader economy? Quite a lot, it turns out. And, according to market professionals, it does not look good.

Annual profit at Sydney-headquartered furniture retailer Nick Scali fell almost 20%, according to results released on Friday. Crucially, sales order growth for the past two months has turned negative, down 1.2% from the prior year.

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‘Too high for comfort’: transport costs rising at almost three times rate of inflation, data reveals

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Households ‘hurting’ as people forced to spend more of their income on driving, petrol, tolls and public transport fares

Australians are being forced to spend more of their income on transport, with spending on driving, petrol, tolls and public transport fares growing at almost three times the rate of inflation, new data reveals.

In the 12 months to 30 June, transport costs rose by 10.5% across the board, well above the CPI increase of 3.8% over the same period, the latest Australian Automobile Association’s (AAA) transport affordability index showed.

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Australians shunning petrol-powered cars for hybrid vehicles as bowser prices rise

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Trend also reflects concerns over range and a lack of charging infrastructure affecting purely electric vehicles, experts say

Australians are buying more cars than ever but are increasingly choosing hybrid vehicles over petrol-powered cars due to rising costs at the bowser, new data by the Australian Automobiles Association shows.

Quarterly vehicle sales data released on Monday revealed a further uptick in demand for hybrid vehicles, a trend the industry believes reflects both the rising cost of living, as well as range anxiety and concerns over a lack of charging infrastructure affecting purely electric vehicles.

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Demonstrators in Nigeria gather days early for anti-government protests

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Crowds converge on Suleja over economic hardship and record inflation amid warnings against mass action

Hundreds of protesters have gathered in central Nigeria days before planned national demonstrations over economic hardship and record inflation.

The protesters, many of them young people, converged in the town of Suleja, 3o miles outside the federal capital, Abuja, with placards criticising the government’s policies. Week-long nationwide protests had been due to begin on Wednesday.

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Australia in biggest ‘baby recession’ since 1970s as pandemic birth boom fades

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Sydney has biggest drop in births as economist says couples delaying children because of cost-of-living crisis

Australia is in the grips of a “baby recession”, which some have attributed to rising cost-of-living pressures and economic uncertainty.

The number of births in Australia dropped to 289,100 in 2023, the lowest recorded since 2006, analysis from KPMG Australia showed.

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