Blogotariat

Prime Minister Tony Abbott says the multi-billion-dollar program to purchase new jet fighters for the Defence Force does not involve any "new spending" by taxpayers.

The Government has given the go ahead for the purchase of 58 more F-35 Joint Strike Fighters (JSF) at a cost of $12.4 billion - making it the nation's most expensive Defence asset.

Clive Palmer take note!…

Source (paywall)

Chris Weston, Chief Market Strategist at IG Markets US and European markets have naturally taken heart from the raft of M&A deals (and speculation) in a number of geographies. With sentiment where it is, new all-time highs in the US benchmark look relatively assured. There will be a time to be tactically short US markets, [...]

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The NSW Greens late last week claimed to have obtained documents showing that the NSW Department of Education and Communities' wide-ranging Learning Management and Business Reform program, which involves a number of rolling upgrades of business administration software, was deployed before it was ready, with "appalling consequences for administrative staff, principals, teachers and students".

By Leith van Onselen RP Data’s Cameron Kusher has produced an interesting post this afternoon on Australian housing values in the wake of today’s March quarter CPI release from the ABS: Over the 12 months to March 2014, combined capital city home values have increased by 10.6% however, when you adjust for inflation the rise [...]

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Each day passes with policy enhancing the never ending Great Australian land bubble. Three of note include: the recent sale of $500m in Australian sub-prime loans by non-bank lender Pepper (AFR, paywalled), bundled together as Residential Mortgage Backed Securities. Moody’s gave the thumbs up to the sale, despite 44.5% of loans being of sub-prime nature. […]

By Leith van Onselen The ANZ-Roy Morgan Research (RMR) consumer confidence index has been released for the week ended 20 April, which registered its first rise in four weeks, jumping 3.4 points (+3.0%) to be above its long-term average (113.0) but well below the highs reached after last year’s Federal Election: The improvement in the [...]

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By David Collyer, cross-posted from Prosper Yesterday REIWA president David Airey issued a call in the West Australian newspaper for the WA government to abandon Stamp Duty and fund this by removing the many wheezes from the tattered State Land Tax. Hooray! Airey says: “It’s time to recognise that stamp duty on property as a [...]

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By Leith van Onselen The March quarter consumer price index (CPI) data, released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), revealed a continued moderation of rental growth at the national capital city level. According to the ABS, rents nationally grew by 0.7% over the March quarter of 2013 – up slightly on the 0.6% [...]

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From the Kouk: It would be a wild exaggeration to say that Australia has an inflation problem, but the March quarter CPI highlighted the fact that the strength of the domestic economy is spilling over into a somewhat uncomfortable acceleration in the inflation rate. While the March quarter inflation rates came in under market expectations [...]

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If you've attended an Australian cinema recently, you'll be aware that $20 ticket prices are now a thing. If you just hit up a film every couple of weeks and avoid the cinema's high-priced junk food aisle (your writer habitually goes to Woolworths for some snacks beforehand), then this mark may not seem like such a huge deal. But if you throw a family into the mix, a night out at the movies can now seem a little too exorbitant for many.

Two shootings on opposite sides of the world show that far right groups pose a constant threat of violence. In Australia, the Islamic community are likely to be the targets, writes Andy Fleming

Some days the climate change debate is so awfully absurd that it’s a toss up between whether to laugh or cry. Most days, in fact. On one hand, we hear that leaders of the IMF, World Bank and UN are pushing for a price on carbon, and that Archbishop...

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