Blogotariat

JKM LNG futures are still signalling gasmageddon for Australia later this year. Adjusted for an AUD at 70 cents, plus regasification costs, imported LNG will still be coming in at about $19Gj versus $12Gj today. The gas cartel will respond to LNG imports by restricting supply so that global prices become the marginal price setter.

The post A second chance for Jim Chalmers to prevent gasmageddon appeared first on MacroBusiness.

Frustrated by his own experience trying switch electricity retailers, Matt Peterson has gone into business trying to save people time and, potentially, quite a lot of money.

From Goldman: From a macro perspective, we leave our forecasts for Australia unchanged given the outcome was not a surprise and the ALP’spost-Budget policy announcements have been fairly modest (0.0-0.1% of GDP). We note most of the policies announced in the Budget on 25 March, including income tax cuts for households, have already been legislated.

The post Labor win immaterial for rate cuts appeared first on MacroBusiness.

NAB chief economist Sally Auld has predicted heavy interest rate cuts this year, beginning with a 0.50% cut at the 20 May meeting. “We expect the RBA to cut by 50bps in May, followed by 25bps in July, August, November and February”, Auld wrote in her May update. “With the current setting of monetary policy

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Westpac published the following chart showing that the average minimum mortgage repayment has surged since 2022. “Over the two years to January 2024, the average minimum repayment increased by 42.2%, or about $754, while average incomes grew just 8.5% (or $641)”, Westpac noted. CBA also published the following chart showing that average loan repayments have

The post There’s no way out for Australian renters appeared first on MacroBusiness.

At the time of writing on Monday evening, there appear to be 17 close seats worth following over the next few days.

By my reckoning there are three types of seats worth watching:

Labor is entering its second term with climate and energy policies we can track with great accuracy and high frequency - here are some numbers to keep an eye on.

Over the past decade, the Australian economy has recorded some of the poorest productivity growth in the world and the nation’s poorest productivity growth on record. Last week, I presented five reasons why Australia’s productivity growth has declined, namely: The mining boom of the 2000s and the associated surge in the Australian dollar contributed to

The post The root cause of Australia’s productivity collapse appeared first on MacroBusiness.

After the Liberal Party’s crushing defeat in the weekend’s federal election, it wasn’t going to be long before the recriminations started. However, it is probably useful to go back to the election result to see how extraordinary it was. It is the first time since World War 2 that a first term Australian federal government has had a swing towards it rather than away from it. The swing against such first term governments at their next election has varied from 0.3% to 4.6%, and averages about 1%. In the weekend’s election, the swing toward the Albanese government looks likely to be about 4.5%1.

A remarkable before-and-after experiment provides conclusive evidence: the BBC favours the right and excludes the left.

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 1st May 2025

By Stephen Saunders The sanctimonious left-elite is euphoric, confident that Labor is set to inflict six more years of population replacement, energy malfeasance, and housing distress. When Labor unaccountably lost Election 2019, inhouse reviewers Craig Emerson and Jay Weatherill summarised the problems in 500 words. The key message: “Labor should position itself as a party

The ferrous complex struggles on. Flat steel demand is solid. Long not so good . Production is OK. But the trade war is yet to fully strike, including direct tariffs upon steel, and the steel production cuts that come with both, Not out of the woods here yet.

The post Iron ore struggles on appeared first on MacroBusiness.

The Department of Home Affairs has released temporary visa data for Q1 2025, showing a record 2,541,651 temporary visas on issue in Australia (excluding visitors). This figure was around 120,000 higher than the year prior and about 580,000 higher than Q1 2020, before the pandemic. As illustrated below, the surge in temporary visas since Q1

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