Australian Economy

This week, the Australian Treasury released monthly and quarterly data showing that net migration into Australia has rebounded and remains at historically high levels: The following chart shows that in the first 3.25 years of the Albanese government, NOM averaged a whopping 1,145.

The chart below of US manufacturing jobs may become very important.

Author Mark Twain once famously said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes”.

The latest SEC Newgate Mood of the Nation Survey, which was released in February before the United States and Israel attacked Iran, showed that Australians had entered 2026 with a “markedly darker outlook on their standard of living” amid “ongoing interest rate uncertainty and global economic volatility”.

As widely expected, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has raised the official cash rate by 25 basis points to 4.25%—a back-to-back increase.

It’s not a crisis, and there is no shortage of anything, except, increasingly, everything.

Gulf carnage is spreading fast.

Imagine, for a moment, a very different Australia.

When the war in the Middle East first broke out, I warned that Australia faced a triple energy threat of higher petrol/diesel prices, higher gas prices, and higher electricity prices.

As the world continues to assess the impact and implications of a protracted closure of the Strait of Hormuz amid the ongoing war in the Middle East, Australia is facing major challenges to its fuel security.

Proponents of high immigration claim that it is necessary to alleviate purported labour shortages and an ageing population.

Joe Walker interviewed former immigration department bureaucrat-turned-influencer Abul Rizvi last year.

In the weeks since news of the war in Iran first hit the airwaves, the Albanese government has been attempting to reassure the Australian public that there is no real concern about fuel supply in Australia.

Alex Joiner, chief economist at IFM Investors, published a short analysis of the impacts of rising energy costs on the federal budgets and on Australians as a whole: Joiner argues that the energy shock is “not bad for Australia” but “terrible for Australians”.

According to the CommBank Household Spending Insights Index, household spending in Australia fell in February 2026 for the first time since September 2024, capping a 17-month era of rise.

Australia’s “productivity tsar”, Professor Gary Banks, was the long‑serving founding Chair of the Productivity Commission (1998-2013).

Proponents of high immigration claim that it is necessary to alleviate purported labour shortages.

Yesterday, ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence dropped 3.7 points to 73.4 points.

Victoria’s 2025‑26 Mid‑Year Financial Report was released on Friday and showed that the state’s net debt has increased by $10 billion in six months, reaching $160.9 billion: Net debt as a share of the state economy has risen from 23.7% to 24.2% in six months.