The unemployment rate jumped to 4.5% - the highest it’s been in 4 years. Many will call for the RBA to cut rate cuts to stimulate the economy - but this is not the solution. Debt is meant to cost and this perpetual demand for cheaper money isn't just kicking the problem down

The Kouk seemed to drop off my feed recently. So I thought it'd be a good time to look him up off the back of today's employment data. He didn't disappoint. Great satire.

Yep - propagandists pretend as if the RBA is the government when the data isn’t pretty. As if there’s nothing a government can do to improve productivity, increase supply capacity, reduce demand, give business confidence, increase disposable income, reduce operating costs,

It’s hard not to see conspiracy these days. The Taiwanese woman was stabbed in Melbourne 2 weeks ago – clearly caught on camera. The video circulated in Taiwanese media for those 2 weeks – but only just surfaced in Australia. Police arrested the offender on that same day 2

A truly depressing state of affairs. "If there was a prize for the nation’s worst economic performer, Victoria would be the winner. … earlier this year, S&P Global Ratings put the government on notice to control operating costs, find savings and slash debt or risk its rating

Herald Sun The Victorian Police Commissioner is in the same position as the Reserve Bank Governor. Their actions are consequential - but limited when the rest of government works against them. Mike Bush can’t drastically reduce crime when judges release the people they catch. And

Over the last decade, spending on welfare, housing, and homelessness rose ~45%. At the same time, poverty rose ~11% and homelessness service demand ~18%. Maybe policy aimed at ensuring affordability is more effective than throwing money away when people fall below the poverty

What will have the most enduring impact on our society from yesterday’s events is (some of) the mainstream media’s contribution to the mass gaslighting that’s been going on. For anybody - politicians, media, commentators - to think that this is how you curtail the movement or

I have a personal story about Purplepingers ☭. It'd surprise nobody who knows me that housing is the issue I feel most passionate about - and so I extend a lot of good faith to people who share my frustration about our housing crisis across the political aisle. I remember

A sure sign that supply won’t solve our housing crisis? This 15m of drain replacement at a local school has been going on for 3 months now - and I’m sure the paperwork to start took much longer than that. My 71 year old dad could do it by hand on a weekend and be paid enough to

Nice chart showing the historical correlation between permanent and long-term arrivals vs net overseas migration data. Source: AFR (via ABC)

This is a chart that will both please some and piss other people off. Personally, I’m happy about the stability - but not about the reasons why. Escalating crime, high taxes, high costs and bad sentiment lead to less investment - and therefore less competition and inflation.

A few thoughts on the Albo-Trump meeting: The rare earths deal is fair at face value as the taxpayer contribution from each country is equal and it flows into projects in each country. The long term outcome is good as it’s building our own processing infrastructure - which is

Albo needs to clearly explain what’s going on here. Whatever good will he earned with the US rare earths deal has evaporated. Is superannuation our money or not?

Perth house prices approaching a median of $1m. Nationally, they've been rising for 11 consecutive quarters - the longest continuous stretch of growth since 2015. I'm all for increasing supply and am tired of criticising the government on this issue, but clearly their policies

The expansion of the 5% home deposit scheme couldn’t have come at a worse time. It coincides with: Spring selling season Downward interest rate trajectory An uptick in permanent and long term arrivals data Growth in real wages Improved economic sentiment And of course,

This is journalistic gaslighting. It focuses on the Melbourne LGA, which isn’t the epicentre - as we know the crime we see in the Melbourne LGA and inner suburbs that get the headlines derives from low socio-economic outer suburbs (places like where I used to live) where most of

I think this current house price boom will properly kill the aspiration of home ownership in Australia. Despite it growing much further out of reach in recent years, friends my age and younger have still held some hope it’ll get better. But now I see the mindset shifting

If Aussies (through their elected representatives) have decided that immigration policy which adds more to demand than supply is an acceptable trade-off in a housing crisis - at what point do they decide that the current policy mix isn’t working? At what point do they come to