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.

Weekend Reading and Media Appearances

International Reading: Donald Trump gets bad news on economy: poll – News Week Economist Warns That Elon Musk Is About to Cause a “Deep, Deep Recession” – Futurism Is DOGE Just Making Up Numbers And Hoping No One Notices?

Reserve Bank ends New Zealand’s house price crash

The Real Estate Institute of New Zealand’s (REINZ) house price index (HPI) for January was released this week.

Coffee inflation will bankrupt cafes

The latest insolvency data from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) shows that 1,420 businesses in the hospitality industry became insolvent in the first seven months of 2024-25.

Infrastructure waste buries Victorians in debt

Victoria’s public debt is already the highest in the country, and the state has the lowest credit rating.

NDIS jobs boom crashes productivity

Deloitte Access Economics has released its latest Employment Forecasts, which noted that “the market sector workforce experienced modest employment growth in 2024 with most job growth very much sponsored by the public sector”. “The non-market sector (health care, education, and public admin) drove most of the growth in the past year.

Jim Chalmers insults Australian renters

The gall of Treasurer Jim Chalmers is unbelievable. Following the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) decision to cut the official cash rate on Tuesday, Chalmers gave a “blunt” warning to landlords to pass the mortgage interest savings onto tenants.

Melbourne’s office market is a ghost town

Aussie real wages may not recover until 2040

On Thursday, I reported how the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) latest Statement of Monetary Policy (SoMP) suggested that real per capita household disposable income may not recover back to its Q2 2022 peak until the early 2030s.

Why the RBA will slash interest rates

Gareth Aird and Stephen Wu, economists at CBA, published a report (presented below) explaining how the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) February Statement of Monetary Policy (SoMP) lowered the neutral estimate of Australia’s cash rate to around 2.9%, down from its previous estimate of 3.5%.

Is NACC another useless regulator?

Late last year, the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) became embroiled in its own corruption scandal.

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