New Zealand provides a textbook example of why lowering immigration below the nation’s home building capacity lowers rents, benefiting tenant households. As illustrated in the following chart, New Zealand’s net overseas migration slowed to only 10,628 in the year ending August 2025, well below the decade average of 49,000 and around 120,000 fewer than the
This is right, but for the wrong reason. Former Liberal treasurer Peter Costello has accused the Productivity Commission of failing to use its statutory independence to tell “inconvenient truths” to the Albanese government about the causes of the nation’s waning productivity, declaring the agency had become “politically correct”. Blaming the “arcane” award system for a raft of
A new report from The Australian Population Research Institute (TAPRI) contends that Australia may be on the brink of a political realignment, similar to movements in the UK, France, and the US, driven by populist challenges to mainstream policies on immigration, cultural diversity, net zero, and free trade. While commentators dismiss this possibility, the authors
Five young economists from Deloitte have rejected calls to lower immigration to alleviate housing pressures, instead arguing that migrants are part of the housing solution: The young economists argue migration is a solution to the housing supply gap rather than a problem because it will help fill skills shortages in the construction industry. They say
On Thursday, I lambasted Treasurer Jim Chalmers for boasting that Labor has delivered the “longest period of consecutive real wage growth in almost a decade” following eight consecutive quarters of annual real wage growth: Chalmers’ boast came despite real wages falling by 0.5% in Q3 2025, tracking at mid-2011 levels. Australian real wages have only recovered
