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Michelle Grattan talks with Assistant Professor Caroline Fisher about the week in politics, including coronavirus, the Biosecurity Act and panic-buying, as well as the Australian economy.
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Chinese travellers help create about 0.6% of Australia’s GDP. How long we keep them out will make a difference to economic growth.
The Australian government’s ambition to exterminate all debt does not distinguish between ‘good debt’ and ‘bad debt’.
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The idea there is no government fate worse than debt is misleading at best.
Australia’s budget bottom line has been assisted by the price of iron ore, which spiked in 2019 as a result of the tailings dam spill disaster near the town of Brumadinho, Brazil, in January.
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Charter of Budget Honesty aside, we can expect assumptions that stretch credulity so the Australian government can maintain its surplus forecast.
In a speech on Wednesday night, Morrison will insist this bring-forward does not mean the government is panicking about Australia’s economic conditions.
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Following increasing calls for stimulus to be injected into the economy, the government will outline an infrastructure bring-forward of A$3.8 billion over the next four years.
The economy is weak, but it isn’t a crisis. Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy addresses Senators on Wednesday.
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Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy says its up to the Reserve Bank to boost the economy. In normal times, that’s not his job.
Interest rate cuts often lead to a boost in construction jobs as developers anticipate better conditions for selling properties.
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Record low interest rates will almost certainly drive up property prices. But they will also drive down unemployment and boost investment generally.
The most obvious reason for wage stagnation is the decline in unionisation over the past three decades. But you won’t hear that from government economists.
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After decades of research showing the link between union power and wages growth, government economists don’t want to talk about it.
Standard economics says a lot about what’s possible, less about what we will actually do.
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The Australian government’s approach to economic growth is strictly conventional, and may be leading to the wrong policies.
Are southern-born politicians talking about a state they essentially don’t understand?
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Two Queensland-based experts discuss what so many politicians and pundits get wrong about the Sunshine State – and what its citizens are crying out for.
There’s a retro quality to Stage 3 of the Coalition’s tax plan, one the parliament ought to carefully consider before saying yes.
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The Stage 3 cuts would make Australia’s income tax system the least progressive in 60 years.
The decline in household net wealth over the past 12 months is the third in the past 30 years. The other two were connected to the global financial crisis.
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Household wealth in Australia has taken its biggest dive since the global financial crisis. But it’s not all doom and gloom.
Reserve Bank Governor Phi;lip Lowe will keep cutting rates until he has forced inflation up and unemployment down.
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The Reserve Bank cut interest rates on Tuesday because we weren’t spending or pushing up prices at the rate it wanted. On Wednesday we might find things are worse than it thought.
The German model of balancing shareholder interests on company boards with worker representatives is again attracting interest in the US, Britain and Australia.
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Putting employee directors on Australian boards is seriously back on the agenda for the first time since the 1970s.
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All you need to know about the 2019-20 federal budget in our simple at-a-glance graphic.
A theme in Frydenberg’s speech was that the government was taking its initiatives all “without increasing taxes”.
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The government wants this election to be all about tax. The tax cuts you will get, now and later. And the “higher taxes” that Bill Shorten would impose.
It’s a bit of a mystery how the government has made net debt disappear, but there are clues.
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Peter Costello’s Future Fund is funding the apparent elimination of government debt.
Frydenberg’s tax cuts are retrospective, but no-one will be complaining.
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It’s a cash splash worthy of Rudd, and it will push an extra $3.5 billion into the economy within weeks.
The budget points to weaker times ahead unless wages and spending pick up.
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Booming global commodity prices have masked the impacts of a weakening economy. With luck, the budget will be the shot it needs.
The sea cucumber, or trepang, Australia’s first export to Asia.
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Trade tells a story of modern Australia that began long before January 26, 1788.