Australian Economy

For months, I have been calling for the abolition of the pension income test so seniors can take on additional work without losing access to the Aged Pension.

Westpac’s credit card tracker is powering.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has hiked the official cash rate four times this year to a 15-year high of 4.60%.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for September 2026.

News is leading the charge, oddly.

Last week’s ultra-hawkish commentary from RBA deputy governor Andrew Hauser immediately sent expectations of interest rate hikes among economists and in financial markets skyward.

Recent Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) commentary on inflation and interest rates has been inconsistent, leading to wide swings in interest rate expectations.

I recently had a conversation with Cameron Murray about the economics of an ageing population, and some of his arguments challenged the way we usually think about demographics.

The analysis from CEDA argues that Australians are experiencing a renewed rise in economic hardship, with the country’s “misery index” returning to near post-pandemic highs after all improvements since 2023 were reversed.

The private credit market, which has grown to around $200 billion in assets, has become a key lender to developers as traditional banks pull back from construction lending due to tightening risk appetites.

CBA chief economist Luke Yeaman has written a report warning that Australia is approaching the most difficult phase of the inflation battle.

Some might say it is a Harbour Bridge-like project, visionary in its scale, and that it will remain in use far into the future.

Below is CBA economist Lucinda Jerogin’s round-up of this week’s economic data: Key points: Australia’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose to 4.7% in September on the back of a 39.4k decline in employment and the participation rate easing from 67.0% to 66.8%.

Thursday’s labour force shocker from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), which saw the nation’s unemployment rate rise to a five-year high of 4.7% (4.6% in trend terms), has tempered the financial market’s expectations for another interest rate hike.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the September labour force survey, and it was a shocker.

The Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) latest board monetary policy meeting minutes, released publicly on Tuesday, largely dashed hopes that interest rates might begin to fall early next year.

The Australian labour market is characterised by an exploitable class of temporary migrants, a situation that is generally thought to be undesirable.

Yesterday’s NAB business survey was pretty ugly.

In the modern Australian vocabulary, the term “third world” has generally been used with a negative connotation to describe part of the developing world, despite the term’s origin as meaning a nation not allied with the capitalist or communist blocs during the Cold War.

In the ongoing debate over the right level of migration into Australia, there have been a great many narratives trotted out in an attempt to make a case that the status quo is perfectly fine.

On 1 October, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese boasted on social media that banning card surcharges at stores would save Australians $1.6 billion a year: “Every time you tap, those little surcharges add up.

Institutional investors and commercial developers are increasingly allocating capital toward specialised storage developments to secure reliable cash flows.

A regulated online trading service is more than a forex broker.