Data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) last week showed that the combined recurrent spending of the federal and state governments rose by 7.7% in 2024-25, to $1.02 trillion. In contrast, government revenue increased by just 4% during the financial year. The increase in recurrent spending was driven by a number of factors.
As a beverage, coffee has been popular for a long time, with the discovery of the stimulant effect of the plant in Ethiopia early in the 14th century or thereabout, its cultivation in the 15th century in the Arabian Peninsula, from where it spread throughout Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries1.
The latest polling shows that support for the Susan Ley-led Coalition has collapsed. Newspoll shows that the Coalition’s primary vote has bombed to just 27%, well below Labor’s 36%. This marked the worst primary vote in Newspoll history. The Coalition’s two-party preferred vote has also plummeted to just 42%, down significantly from the 44.8% two-party
Australia already had the highest concentration of international students in the world before the pandemic hit. As illustrated below by Salvator Babones, an Associate Professor at Sydney University, Australia had more than twice as many international students as the United Kingdom as a share of its population and roughly three times as many as Canada
I have remarked many times how strange liquidity-fed markets have become. Iron ore is no exception. The anti-involution rally appears to have topped out with the opposite outcome of that intended. Steel prices have fallen while input prices have risen, killing profitability. That will only produce more deflation over the stretch as squashed margins meet
From the Market Ear: Comfortably numb The S&P 500 officially hits 6,600 for the first time in history, now up +36% since its April 2025 bottom. Nasdaq is up ~50% off the April lows. This marks one of the best 5-month stock market rallies in US history. At the same time the exuberant sentiment that
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THE ASSASSINATION OF CHARLIE KIRK MAY NOT CHANGE THE COURSE OF HISTORY, BUT UNLIKE THE MURDERS OF JFK, MLK AND OTHER POLITICIANS VYING FOR POWER, IT HAS IMPACTED THE WHOLE OF AMERICA, WITH A SINGLE BULLET TO AN AVERAGE SPRUIKER.
This month’s Australian Financial Review property summit contained the usual bluster on the need to lift Australia’s housing supply to meet demand. NSW planning minister Paul Scully accused anti-development residents in wealthy suburbs of NIMBYism and trying to lock future generations out of housing. Mike Zorbas, chief executive of the Property Council of Australia, heaped
It seems likely that our prime minister will meet Donald Trump at the United Nations General Assembly later this month.
AUKUS submarines will cost five times the entire annual defence budget. We can’t fund both AUKUS and a self reliant defence capability. We must choose self reliance.
The president of the UN General Assembly, Annalena Baerbock, has said she could imagine UN peacekeeping forces being deployed to Ukraine to secure a ceasefire and postwar peace if supported by the majority of UN states.
Killing the Hamas leaders in Qatar would clear the way to ending the Gaza conflict and the return of Israeli hostages, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday, just days after the Jewish state bombed the militant group’s top members in Doha.
When the Morrison government handed down the 2022-23 federal budget in late March 2022, shortly before that year’s federal election campaign kicked off, it was projected that net overseas migration for the full 2021-22 financial year would be 41,000. With only a little over 3 months remaining in that financial year at the time, it
