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MacroBusiness Tuesday, December 9, 2025 - 11:30 Source

In recent weeks, various polls have revealed a Coalition, but more particularly a Liberal party well and truly entrenched in an existential crisis. In the history of Australian federal politics in the postwar era, a major party facing a disastrous defeat at the ballot box generally had time to lick its wounds and reflect on

The post A Barnaby Joyce shaped wrecking ball appeared first on MacroBusiness.

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MacroBusiness Tuesday, December 9, 2025 - 11:00 Source

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has revealed that the federal government’s energy bill subsidies will not be extended next year. The $75 a quarter reduction for all households, which began in mid-2023 but was twice extended to alleviate cost-of-living pressures, will expire in December as scheduled. The bill subsidies have cost taxpayers almost $7 billion. “This was

The post No more hiding Australia’s energy pain appeared first on MacroBusiness.

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Renew Economy Tuesday, December 9, 2025 - 10:58 Source
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MacroBusiness Tuesday, December 9, 2025 - 10:30 Source

Of all the nations in the world, Australia has one of the strangest sets of geopolitical relationships. On one hand, Australia has been a key U.S. ally since the American entry into World War 2, with the key battles of the Coral Sea and Guadalcanal (Solomon Islands) fought to secure shipping lanes to Australia within

The post Australia’s silence on China’s aggressive stance toward Japan appeared first on MacroBusiness.

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MacroBusiness Tuesday, December 9, 2025 - 10:00 Source

The AFR’s Luke Kinsella is the latest commentator to warn about Australian real wages, which have collapsed back to 2011 levels and face a painfully slow recovery amid sluggish productivity growth. Kinsella notes that ordinary Australians are struggling with higher costs for essentials like housing, food, and energy. As a result, rising living costs are

The post Australians face ‘lost decades’ of wage growth appeared first on MacroBusiness.

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Renew Economy Tuesday, December 9, 2025 - 09:33 Source
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MacroBusiness Tuesday, December 9, 2025 - 09:30 Source

It’s decision day at Martin Place as the Reserve Bank of Australia meets to pull or not to pull – that is the question – the interest rate level. This waiting has seen the Australian dollar lift out of its recent malaise and hit a new monthly high against USD: Of course this volatility always

The post Australian dollar girds for RBA decision appeared first on MacroBusiness.

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The Tally Room Tuesday, December 9, 2025 - 09:30 Source

A lot of people would love to know how the electoral map would change if the parliament was expanded.

We’ve already been able to get some idea of what might happen by looking back at the historical experience from the 1948-49 and 1983-84 expansions. But the political system has changed since 1984, as has the map.

So I wanted to try drawing my own map, attempting as best as I can to draw sensible boundaries that fit within population constraints, and then examine what those maps would mean.

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Renew Economy Tuesday, December 9, 2025 - 09:03 Source
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MacroBusiness Tuesday, December 9, 2025 - 09:00 Source

Overnight action on stock markets was muted given the selloff in bonds across most sovereign markets with Treasuries falling back following hawkish comments from all sides on inflationary pressures. It appears the Fed may soon adopt the cautiously hawkish approach going into 2026, even after a pre-Christmas rate cut, inline with other central banks which

The post Macro Morning appeared first on MacroBusiness.

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Your Democracy Tuesday, December 9, 2025 - 08:31 Source

After a dizzying year of global upheaval, this reflection looks back on writing as resistance – against war, media failure, imperial power and silence – and why truth-telling still matters heading into 2026.

 

Eugene Doyle

Writing as resistance in a year that refused to slow down

 

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MacroBusiness Tuesday, December 9, 2025 - 08:00 Source

Australia has run one of the strongest immigration programs in the world this century, which has grown the nation’s population by an extraordinary 8.9 million people (based on the latest reading from the ABS Population Clock). Australia’s population growth has outpaced virtually every other developed nation this century, thanks to 20 years of mass migration.

The post Australians continually ignored on immigration appeared first on MacroBusiness.

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Renew Economy Tuesday, December 9, 2025 - 07:00 Source

As the industry hits a new upswing, Tindo is doubling down on Australian-made solar. Scaling production, pairing every system with storage, and proving quality outperforms cost over time.

The post Riding the solar coaster: Tindo’s push for Australian-made power appeared first on Renew Economy.

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Your Democracy Tuesday, December 9, 2025 - 06:55 Source

During the closing plenaries of the 30th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP30) in Belém do Pará in the Brazilian Amazon, United Nations Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell gave a rousing speech

 

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MacroBusiness Tuesday, December 9, 2025 - 00:05 Source

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released its Q3 Labour Account, which revealed the extent to which Australia’s job market has been artificially fuelled by government spending. As illustrated below by Justin Fabo from Antipodean Macro, the annual growth in filled jobs remained stronger in the non-market (government-aligned) sector in the year to September 2025

The post Private sector unemployment surges appeared first on MacroBusiness.

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Renew Economy Monday, December 8, 2025 - 19:58 Source
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Renew Economy Monday, December 8, 2025 - 18:21 Source
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MacroBusiness Monday, December 8, 2025 - 16:00 Source

The latest Japanese GDP figures were the biggest catalyst here in Asia while a boost in tech stocks is seeing Chinese shares lift higher in afternoon trade. The possibility of an BOJ rate hike maybe lessening on the faster than expected retraction in GDP growth as the Trump regime’s tariff hits exports. Yen strengthened somewhat

The post Macro Afternoon appeared first on MacroBusiness.

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Renew Economy Monday, December 8, 2025 - 15:03 Source
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Renew Economy Monday, December 8, 2025 - 14:56 Source
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Renew Economy Monday, December 8, 2025 - 14:31 Source
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MacroBusiness Monday, December 8, 2025 - 14:00 Source

By Ross Elliott from The Pulse: Increasingly, I am curious why the presence of a train station on a map immediately conjures up in the minds of some urban planners images of potentially vast numbers of people transiting by rail—an opportunity too good not to capture. ‘Transit-oriented development’ as a concept seems in practice almost

The post Why the obsession with trains? Why not busses? appeared first on MacroBusiness.

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Renew Economy Monday, December 8, 2025 - 13:34 Source
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Renew Economy Monday, December 8, 2025 - 13:29 Source
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MacroBusiness Monday, December 8, 2025 - 13:00 Source

The Parliamentary Budget Office’s (PBO) 2025–26 National Fiscal Outlook shows that Australia’s combined national fiscal position has worsened compared to 2024, with deficits persisting across most jurisdictions, rising debt levels, and limited fiscal space for new spending. The report consolidates Commonwealth, state, and territory budgets to provide a whole-of-nation view of fiscal sustainability. The aggregated

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Renew Economy Monday, December 8, 2025 - 12:58 Source
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MacroBusiness Monday, December 8, 2025 - 12:00 Source

Australia has seen a major decline in revenue from tobacco excise in recent years, attributed to increases in excise. A legal packet of cigarettes now costs about $50 (of which $34 is tax and excise), compared to a cost of around $15 for illegal cigarettes, which are readily available. The growth in illegal cigarettes has

The post Illegal tobacco boom the hallmark of taxation policy failure appeared first on MacroBusiness.

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MacroBusiness Monday, December 8, 2025 - 11:30 Source

When the Nationals followed by the Liberal Party walked away from their commitment to Net Zero, it was swiftly branded everything from a gift to the Albanese government to flat-out political suicide for the Coalition. In a vacuum, it certainly makes it harder for the Coalition to win back the affluent urban seats now held

The post Immigration, Net Zero and the ballot box appeared first on MacroBusiness.

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MacroBusiness Monday, December 8, 2025 - 11:00 Source

Modelling by Infrastructure Australia in 2017 predicted that household water bills would quadruple over 50 years due to population growth and climate change, rising from $1,226 in 2017 to $6,000 in 2067 in real dollars. A 2021 analysis by the Productivity Commission (PC) also warned that the expected 11 million increase in Australia’s metropolitan populations

The post Sydneysiders face water shock appeared first on MacroBusiness.

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xkcd.com Monday, December 8, 2025 - 11:00 Source

Our models fall apart where the three theories overlap; we're unable to predict what happens when a nanometer-sized squirrel eats a grapefruit with the mass of the sun.

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