Blogotariat

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released dwelling approvals statistics for October, reporting 15,844 trend approvals, down 0.6% from September. Approvals in October were 4,168 (21%) behind the National Housing Accord’s five-year target of 20,000 dwellings per month. In the year to October, 192,100 dwellings were approved for construction, which was 47,900 (20%) fewer than

ANZ-Indeed job ads have commenced a new adjustment. ANZ-Indeed Australian Job Ads fell 0.8% m/m in November following an upwardly revised 1.9% m/m decline in October.The trend series fell 1.3% m/m, after a 1.9%m/m fall in October ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence is following suit. Consumer confidence declined 1.6pts last week to 85.5pts. The four-week moving

The post Aussie job ads tumble as AI cometh appeared first on MacroBusiness.

For years, MB has argued that the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) estimate of education exports is wildly exaggerated because it: Incorrectly includes income from international students working in Australia. Does not adjust for remittances sent home from Australia by international students or former students (which are an import). The ABS estimates that education exports

One Nation is eating the LNP alive. DemosAU MRP Model projects results for all 150 individual federal seats  One Nation rise: Approximately 1 in 5 Coalition voters from 2025 federal election now intend to vote for One Nation Final result: Labor leads Coalition 56 – 44 per cent 2PP Some folks still don’t get it.

The post The Aussie populist revolution is here appeared first on MacroBusiness.

Gas power's business model is disappearing. Solar has cut into daytime operation. Batteries are starting to take the rest. And that's bad news for Australian LNG.

Big battery dispatch overtook peaking gas generators for the first time on the main grid in November, and will rapidly grow to be the dominance player in the market.

DXY is fading away. AUD is rising. CNY helping. Commodities took a  breather. EM yawn. Junk better. As yields eased. Driving stocks. The Japanese shock appears contained in a currency sense. Japanese public debt is around $14tr, so you can imagine that any meaningful move in interest rates, especially a rapid one, is going to

The post Australian dollar weathers Japanese storm appeared first on MacroBusiness.

When Kaja Kallas steps in front of the cameras and warns that Europe must brace for war or that negotiations with Moscow are “naïve,” the media presents her as the principled voice of a small nation with a painful history. She is framed as a kind of moral compass pointing toward courage while the rest of Europe dithers. It is an attractive story. It is also incomplete in ways that matter.

The Old Europe Behind the New Flags

Ballooning state debt, soaring taxes, a stagnating economy, and rising crime have made me highly critical of the Victorian economy. One area where the state government has performed well is housing affordability. As illustrated below, Melbourne dwelling values have risen by only 23% since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020. This compares

A little bit of volatility across some risk markets here in Asia but generally equities finished where they started with the weak overnight lead from Wall Street as traders anticipate the upcoming rate cut at the Fed’s December meeting. The Australian dollar is still holding above the 65 cent level against USD as we get

The post Macro Afternoon appeared first on MacroBusiness.

Rooftop solar installs jump to their highest levels yet in 2025, with a return to form for the small-scale PV market in a year that has seen home batteries steal the limelight.

One of the negative outcomes from the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA), which took effect in 2005, was that it increased patent and copyright terms, raising the price of drugs and copyrighted products. Thomas Faunce from the Australian National University (ANU) assessed that AUSFTA “undermined Australia’s PBS” by “allowing the US to alter the

The post Don’t give ground to Trump on the PBS appeared first on MacroBusiness.

It was a revelation being at home with Jane through Covid. The first couple of weeks she worked from the second desk in my office, where I’m typing this right now. I quickly gained an appreciation for her ferocious work ethic, but also for how she had to deploy it in the face of constant demands on her focus from other people in her work life.

Eventually we moved her into a spare room and after that of course, she returned to her office in the world of the real things.

I retained my appreciation for just how lucky I was to work in my own space, by myself. And let me tell you, I’m feeling that right now.