Blogotariat

Via the ABS. Key statistics The April 2025 seasonally adjusted estimate: Fell 0.1% month-on-month. Rose 3.8% compared with April 2024. Pretty much straight down since the February sales pop. Maybe a bit election-affected?

The post Retail stalls appeared first on MacroBusiness.

The Queensland state government on Wednesday announced the opening up of nine new areas for gas exploration across the Cooper/Eromanga and Bowen/Surat Basins to boost future supply. The government asserted that the initiatives aim to unlock supply and stimulate new gas investment, thereby lowering energy prices. “The best way to bring down energy prices is

A wind turbine has been partially destroyed at a hybrid renewables project in Victoria, after a fire broke out in the turbine's nacelle on Wednesday night.

The ferrous complex continues to fade away with steel in the lead. CISA output is now down year on year.   The inevitable looms. Reuters. Also, speculation of incoming capacity limits were backed by Baosteel stating that total mainland production could fall by 50 million tons this year. There is no spur to a stronger

The post Axe hovers over iron ore appeared first on MacroBusiness.

Former Treasury Secretary Ken Henry’s recent interview with Joe Walker explained how the structural decline in capital deepening has driven the decline in Australia’s productivity growth: [Capital deepening] makes each hour worked more productive, right?.. And capital deepening is obviously driven by having a rate of national investment that is matched to the rate of workforce

Prior to the election, I drew attention to the differences between my calculations and those of the AEC for a number of non-classic seats that gained new areas during the redistribution. Originally I had a list of 14 affected seats, but one of them (Nicholls) has reverted to a classic contest.

There’s a variety of reasons why the AEC’s estimated margin in these seats is wrong. Antony explains the reasons here, and I also explained them here.

Overnight saw the Trump regime’s tariffs put back in place on appeal, causing more indecision and uncertainty in risk markets coupled with a series of bad domestic economic news for the USA. Corporate profits are down in their fastest drop in over 5 years while GDP estimates are for at least a 0.2% contraction as

The post Macro Morning appeared first on MacroBusiness.

The Productivity Commission (PC) released a research report entitled “Productivity before and after COVID-19”, which claims that Australia experienced a ‘productivity bubble’ during the pandemic, in which measured labour productivity rose to a record high between January 2020 and March 2022 before returning to pre-pandemic levels in June 2023. The PC claims that Australia is

The post The productivity bubble and bust appeared first on MacroBusiness.

The big news of the day is a possible reversal of ALL of the Trump regime’s tariffs (except steel/aluminium) due to a court order, although it remains to be seen if Don Taco will actually abide by the legal decision. This has seen a big relief rally across all risk markets and with the USD

The post Macro Afternoon appeared first on MacroBusiness.

Watt's North West Shelf approval exposes the deeper dysfunction at the heart of Australian environmental governance: where the laws are weak, the incentives perverse, and real power lies with the fossil fuel lobby.

New plans to develop an up-to 83 turbine wind farm and battery – backed by a global giant – have joined the queue for federal environmental approval.

Australia’s futures market expects the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to deliver another three 0.25% interest rate cuts this year, which would take the official cash rate down to 3.1%. The latest Statement of Monetary Policy (SoMP) from the RBA seems to support this notion, given that it significantly lowered its estimate of the neutral

The post Why interest rates are heading lower appeared first on MacroBusiness.

With an EPA and Nature Positive reforms seemingly scuppered last year, an unusual alliance wants Murray Watt to bring them back from the dead.