You’d be forgiven for thinking insurance is a pretty unexciting topic. For most people insurance is an irritating background character, far removed from any glamorous leading role. But perhaps we have been thinking about it in the wrong way… In…
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The COVID-19 pandemic has directly affected all industries, businesses, and workers in Australia throughout 2020. The Government’s response to the pandemic has highlighted the central role of manufacturing in recovering from this event and its importance in bolstering Australia’s economic…
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The 2020-21 Budget forecasts gross government debt to hit $1 trillion in the next year. In the coming months, we will undoubtedly see numerous stories about the need to get government debt back under control. A large proportion of Australians…
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The National Accounts released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics confirmed Australia has entered its first recession in 29 years. But how does Australia’s economic performance compare with other countries?
The COVID-19 crisis has had severe impacts on the domestic and global economies, and it has unleashed a plethora of suggestions about how Australia can return to pre-COVID-19 times when we were setting world records for the longevity of our…
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The OECD recently updated its comparison of global minimum wages for all countries that have a national minimum wage. In 2019, Australia overtook Luxembourg as having the highest minimum wage in the world. In the previous year’s comparison, Australia had…
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The JobKeeper wage payment scheme was introduced to help Australian businesses survive activity restrictions that have been introduced in response the COVID-19 pandemic that began to affect Australia through March 2020. It is a payment made to eligible businesses and…
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The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) recently released its estimates for retail sales in December. Nominal retail sales fell 0.5% over the month after seasonal adjustments. This fall mostly reflects the transfer of pre-Christmas sales from the usual shopping peak…
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Inflation data was recently released for the last quarter of 2019, closing out the most recent decade of price changes. This Data Story illustrates how the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is composed and what goods and services have become more…
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As another decade of disappointingly slow growth in Australia draws to a close, policy makers, business leaders and many others are pondering what needs to happen before growth picks up to the old pre-GFC levels that we had come to…
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