Everything worth knowing in less than a minute:
Stamp Duties Zombie on
No one wants them, the Feds want to kill them, but Stamp Duties won’t die. Why? Because thanks to them the states are rolling in cash. Figures show NSW took in a record $6 bn, and Vic took in a booming $4.2bn.
… and you just can’t talk sense to addicts.
All about Auctions
The national average auction clearance rate remains around record highs (78%), with evidence that the number of auctions each weekend is actually increasing, especially in Melbourne.
Household confidence steadies on rate cut…
and so does business confidence…
But we’re still waiting for a decisive rebound in both. What will it take?
Rental Growth slowing
National average rental growth is slowing (down to 1.7% y/y), but it’s driven by falls in Perth (4.2%), Darwin (-4.7%) and Canberra (2.6%).
The major capitals are still growing strongly. It pays to be fussy in a market like this…
Iron Inquiry looms…
The PM has backed calls for an inquiry into the nation's iron ore industry and oversupply.
Fortescue Metals Group's chairman Andrew Forrest has been doing an incredible job of getting everyone to see his own interests as the national interest. (Check out his website ourironore.com!)
WA Premier Colin Barnett labelled the proposal as “pointless”, and I’d agree.
But Atlas goes back to full production anyway
Atlas, an iorn ore junior who paused production when prices fell to recent lows, is now back in the game as iron ore prices hold above $60/t.
If prices hold, the whole inquiry could be redundant by the time it happens.
Budget goes warm and fuzzy
The ideology of the previous budget was swapped for careful politicking and a ‘something for everybody’ approach. It’s getting harder to tell Tweedledum from Tweedledee in Canberra these days.
My favourite post-budget moment: Hockey being interviewed on the 7.30 report:
Sales: The Government's spending as a percentage of GDP is 25.9 per cent. That is the same as the previous Labor Government (was) spending at the height of the global financial crisis.
Hockey: Not true. They got to 26 per cent.
Sales: You're at 25.9 per cent!
And if Abbott wants to be remembered as the infrastructure PM, he’s going to have to pull his finger out. CBA has this estimate of Australia’s infrastructure stock:
Pick of the Budget
But one bit of good work hidden in the budget detail was a plan to force people on a Significant Investor Visa (SIV) to invest the required money in start-ups. Previously they could just invest it in corporate bonds – effectively sticking in the back. Get the investors to actualy invest. Great idea!
Education Boom goes to High School.
Huge boom going on in overseas High School student numbers. In NSW, there’s been a 25 per cent increase in new, full fee-paying international students in just 12 months.
Each student pays up to $14,000 a year in fees to study in the public system, often on top of about $300 a week to live with an Australian family, raising at least $33 million each year, although the figure could be much higher.
60% of these students come from China.
Ireland goes Solar Farms
Ireland’s first solar farms could be operational by the end of 2016, with backing from Macquarie Bank.
So sunny Ireland is trying to become a world leader in solar tech.
What are we going to do? Grow potatoes?
Have a great week!
JG
Kathy says
How astonishing that Ireland and also Germany, countries not known for their abundant sunshine, are world leaders on solar energy.
I remember something that I think it was Robert Kiyosaki said once about Australia. We should be world leaders in solar energy production, and we should have sufficient solar panels in central Australia to provide not just all the energy needs of every Australian, but also be providing energy to South East Asia as well.
Rudolf says
Hi Kathy, great idea but unfortunately most of the power would be lost by long distance transmissions to the consumer. Sending power along transmission lines consumes power.
The longer the distance, the greater the power loss.
The only way to efficiently use electricity is to generate it close in to the consumer.
Rudolf says
Hi Jon
I believe another change in the budget was the application of GST on low value internet purchases from overseas……because the Australian retailers cry “foul” and say they are disadvantages by the current GST exemption such low value transactions………Pity these retailers did not have such concerns when they put their boots into Australian suppliers and manufacturers when these retailers started importing most of their goods. Retailers’ greed has much to answer for in the demise of Australian manufacturing, as has the Australian Government in not providing low cost hydro power infrastructure so we can export manufactured secondary products instead of just our ore.
There are plenty of sites along the Great Divide & up north for a string linked dams with power generators, and some of that mass of water can then be diverted inland into the Murray Darling Basin
for our farmers…….Wake up Canberra….Wake up Australians…We need jobs for our kids.
Paul Miles says
To me the recent Budget is a matter of credibility; but this doesn’t seem to matter to anyone else.
A year ago, we had a Budget Emergency caused by Labor’s Debt and Deficit Disaster. And the sky was already falling. That’s why we needed massive austerity immediately. And all those pesky poor people had to be hit hard to stop them being poor and lazy leaners, make them stop eating Cheezels, get out from in front of their X-boxes and get a job, thus lifting productivity to “Lifter level”. Higher income earners could pretty much go on doing what they were doing.
Now, a year later, even though our debt has doubled (in one year!), there is apparently no Budget Emergency (seems to have sunk without trace off Indonesia along with boats we don’t want to know about). And this government’s spending is now the same as Labor’s at the height of the GFC. (All right, yes, I admit it is a whole 0.1% less than it was under Labor!!)
The lack of business confidence I see all round me (and the closed shops) that have all increased in the last year are apparently all a figment of my imagination. Prince Phillip’s been knighted. Happy Days Are Here Again for Liberal backbenchers and people who are likely to vote for them everywhere.
The Infrastructure Prime Minister can go on pushing infrastructure on places that don’t want it (like the East West Link axed by the Victorian State Government, but for which Abbott is still offering $3 Billion)) and not give it to places that do. (Like the Queensland Government that needs money for infrastructure for the Commonwealth Games and extension of Light Rail on the Gold Coast. Light Rail that currently starts nowhere, ends nowhere, and connects neither airport nor heavy rail. After all, who needs infrastructure and transport for the Commonwealth Games?)
And all the armed forces and security services are getting everything they asked Santa for at Christmas, including all their most expensive toys. Everything’s just hunky dory!
But I’m confused and concerned about the difference in what they were saying then and what they are saying now. Do you think that if I started reading the Murdoch press, I wouldn’t have to worry about anything any more? (Well, except the terrorists in our midst!!)
Fortune Cookie says
The only thing this all seems to be pointing to is the old saying, “desperate times means desperate measures” . When you see that the Government is in need of Foreign investment, i.e. sales of Real Estate to foreigners only to help the govt bottom line and hungry developers etc, then you know things are very bad under the surface. Having to lower interest rates to lowest levels on record , trying to stimulate the economy with $20,000 tax write offs for small business etc etc, then it seems like there’s not much left in the tank, we’re running on empty, where to from here, sell off Australia to the highest foreign bidder, whole State by whole state, it’s quicker than selling off one house/ apartment at a time , and it speeds up the process. Control might as well be in foreign hand’s, it is already, isn’t it?
Forget about Patriotism, what the hell does that mean? Used to mean look after your own first and charity begins at home, fancy that when there’s a fast buck to be made, after all the economy is up the S*#*t.