“Voluntary attendance. Online classes. Student numbers swelling”. The Guardian’s education correspondent, Caitlin Cassidy, has questioned the erosion of teaching standards at Australia’s universities, which have transformed into little more than “degree factories”: More than a dozen academics who spoke to Guardian Australia on the condition of anonymity say their work has become undervalued and underpaid,
According to the Department of Education, a record 1,018,799 international students were enrolled in Australia during the year ending Q3 2024: The table below shows a breakdown of enrolments by type of institution. As you can see, vocational education and training (VET) has had the largest increase in student enrolments since 2019, from 247,467 to
The Albanese government has set a fantastical target of building 1.2 million homes over five years, equating to 240,000 homes a year. As illustrated below, this is a level of construction that has never been achieved before. Current construction levels are tracking around 30% below the government’s target. The latest housing projects from the Housing
The answer to every East Coast energy problem costs only $2bn. APA Group has detailed plans for a near-$2 billion expansion of its east coast gas grid in a bid to close off what is has described as a disastrous option of importing LNG to meet demand for the fuel in the country’s south-east. But
Both steel and iron ore fell yesterday. The news is tariffs, from all quarters. Vietnam will impose anti-dumping tariffs on steel from China, following South Korea and other nations in fighting back against surging supplies from the world’s biggest producer. This is steadily cutting off Chinese steel mills’ lifeline of global dumping. Can it offset that with
Melbourne’s population has increased by around 2 million people this century. Melbourne’s population is projected to increase by another 3.5 million over the next 31 years to 9.0 million by 2056. This would mean that Melbourne would have added 5.5 million people in only 56 years. All Melburnians have felt the deleterious impact of this
Domain is busy trying to argue Australians wouldn’t support Trump policies. The only problem is that this ignores the four major Trump policies and themes that got him elected. Slashing immigration to protect wages. Applying tariffs to boost local industry. Disengaging from China. America First! How are we to know if Australians support Trumpist policies
DXY is still legging it down. AUD was soft anyway. Plenty of room to catch up to lead boots. Gold is about as overbought as anything, ever. Oil not liking Ukraine peace. Another commods false start. Miners rolling. That deep suckered sound you can hear is Chinese stocks hoopla gone bust. Junk is telling us
Wall Street is still failing to make a comeback after its Friday night breakdown with tech stocks again on the back foot while European shares were mixed as the German DAX made a new high on the back of a new conservative government that looks set to go full steam ahead in defense spending. The
Australia’s inflation is falling. CBA forecasts that trimmed mean inflation will fall to 2.8% in January, within the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) 2% to 3% inflation target. However, this does not mean that the cost-of-living crisis is over. As independent economist Tarric Brooker illustrated, since Q42020, cumulative Australian inflation has increased by 19%. That