Unconventional Economist

Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also Chief Economist and co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.

Electric vehicle industry begs for subsidies

Electric vehicles have been heavily subsidised in Australia. A recent analysis by the Institute of Public Accountants estimated that the federal budget has lost approximately $564 million annually in tax revenue due to the Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) exemption for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs).

Why the obsession with small business tax cuts?

The Council of Small Business Organisations Australia (COSBOA) launched a campaign on Monday, calling on Labor and the Coalition to lower the company tax rate from 25% to 20% for the 2.6 million businesses with an annual turnover of less than $20 million.

Australian tenants remain under pressure

CoreLogic’s March housing results show that rental values are at record highs, having increased a further 0.6% in March.

Good news: Aussie inflation continues to fall

Last week’s softer-than-expected monthly inflation gauge from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) was matched by the Melbourne Institute’s (MI) trimmed mean inflation gauge for March.

How many times did Labor lie on energy prices?

In late 2021, the Labor Party released its Powering Australia Plan, which promised to reduce NEM wholesale electricity costs by $11 per MWh, from $62 to $51, by 2025.

Reserve Bank wrestles with surging unemployment

New Zealand’s unemployment rate increased to 5.1% in Q4 2024 from 4.8% in Q3 2024. In comparison, Australia’s unemployment rate was 3.9% in the fourth quarter of 2024 (4.1% in January), the largest difference since Q3 2012.

Albo’s Labor takes early election lead

With the federal election campaign in full swing and voters heading to the polls on Saturday 3 May, the first batch of opinion polling has Labor leading the Coalition and Anthony Albanese ahead of Peter Dutton as preferred prime minister.

Why Australia has a housing crisis

Alan Kohler produced an explainer video for ABC where he summarised Australia’s housing crisis with the following: “We know that dwelling approvals have been in trend decline for 10 years”.

Australian economy grinds out of recession

The Q4 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) national accounts, released earlier this month, showed that the economy edged out of per capita recession after recording 0.1% growth over the quarter.

Australia must halve international student numbers

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