By Greg Jericho Australia’s economy is less an advanced economy than it is a petrostate style simple economy. That needs to change The announcement that the government would respond to the USA’s Inflation Reduction Act with the “Future Made in Australia” policy was a long time coming but welcome all the same. But while critics…
The Westpac-Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry survey of Industrial Trends shows a worsening in conditions for manufacturers in the year’s first quarter, and an outlook moving “deeper into pessimistic territory”. A summary reads that the quarter brought a “decline in new orders, a fall in output, a reduction in overtime and a material downsize…
A new quarterly survey by Westpac shows Australian businesses juggling reduced consumer demand and other challenges, though being “well positioned” at this early stage in the calendar year, according to the bank. “Progress on cost inflation is more than offsetting the decline in demand, meaning businesses have fared relatively well and have not yet had…
By Flavio Macau, Edith Cowan University and Deepa Bannigidadmath, Edith Cowan University As Australia’s housing affordability crisis worsens, governments are spending more on housing. Victoria’s Andrews government has announced a suite of reforms (such as boosting social housing and making planning processes faster) in an effort to get 800,000 extra homes in Victoria over the…
Manufacturing industry sentiment has fallen to levels not seen since the Global Financial Crisis, according to the ACCI-Westpac Survey of Industrial Trends for the September quarter. Released on Tuesday morning, the survey showed a decline in new orders, a net five per cent of manufacturers reducing headcount, and a net 35 per cent of manufacturers…
Australia’s expenditure on innovation public and private has fallen for the past decade, and continues to fall under the new federal government. Business expenditure on research and development (BERD) was up 14 per cent over 2021-22, new Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show, though the nation’s total spend on R&D as a proportion of GDP…
Australia’s overreliance on exporting largely undifferentiated commodities has been laid bare in data released by the Harvard Kennedy School which shows that the country’s Economic Complexity Index (ECI) rating has plummeted to 93rd, down 12 positions in the past ten years. The Harvard Index systematically ranks 133 countries by their ability to manufacture and export…
By Roy Green, University of Technology Sydney This week’s appointment of Wayne Swan’s former chief of staff Chris Barrett to head the Productivity Commission puts the annual Trade and Assistance Review it released this month under a more searching spotlight than usual. Remarkably, the Commission used the review to target one of the key policies…
In recent days @AuManufacturing readers have critiqued federal governments efforts to ‘reform the Productivity Commission (see below). Here in our final part of a series, Tim Buckley argues Australia cannot afford more of the same from the PC, which continued to misread profound societal and economic change underway globally. Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ announcement yesterday of…
By Peter Roberts The Treasurer Jim Chalmers has opted for gradualist reform of the much criticised Productivity Commission, appointing a former Labor Party staffer to be the commission’s new chair. Chalmers appointed Chris Barrett (pictured) as the new Chair and said ‘to build a stronger economy, we need to build stronger economic institutions – and…
