By Ashwin Clarke, Senior Economist at CBA Wages measured by the Wage Price Index rose by 0.8%/qtr held up by strength in state government enterprise agreements, in line with both our, consensus, and the RBA’s expectations. The annual rate remained at 3.4%. The Minutes of the November Monetary Policy Board meeting highlight the key questions
So much for the consumer recovery. Last week’s Roy Morgan consumer confidence number lifted slightly, but since the RBA held, it has wiped out over a year of gains. The Westpac alternative consumer sentiment measure mysteriously jumped hugely last month. But get ready for the great retracement as its credit card tracker pulls the handbrake.
The 12 months ending 31 October were volatile. But, after all was said and done, our international fund finished up 25%, our Australian fund finished up over 10%. Our tactical growth finished up around 15%. All of our funds look attractive relative to their benchmarks, especially as they were all significantly less volatile than the
International Reading: Top Economist Warns Trump Tariffs Effectively Impose Tax Rate On Low-Income Households That Is Triple Of High-Income Ones – Bezinga ‘China was playing chess while the rest of us were playing checkers’: Bombshell study finds $200 billion of secret loans to U.S. businesses over 25 years – Fortune Low-income Americans being priced out
Not quite a bath of blood on Asian equity markets today but it has been a pretty broad selloff in response to the volatility on Wall Street overnight. Currency land was more sanguine with even the Japanese Yen relatively stable amid a new big stimulus package announced by the Japanese government while local shares hit
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