Tag Archives: qld

Qld unemployment rate creeps up to 6.5 percent due to ongoing weakness in regions

NAB Chief Economist Alan Oster had a memorable quote regarding the latest NAB Business Survey results published in The Australian yesterday: “West Australia is going backwards, South Australia is in no great shakes and Northern Queensland is just as bad, … Continue reading

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ANU’s Ben Phillips quantifies the real per capita earnings declines in Qld and WA post-mining boom

ANU Associate Professor Ben Phillips, who was in the same UQ Economics Honours class as me, has released an excellent note Trends in Household Living Standards in Australia: 1990 to 2016, which shows significant declines in real per capita earnings … Continue reading

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Makin and Pearce confirm urgency of Budget repair in Conference of Economists paper

At the Australian Conference of Economists in Adelaide this week, Griffith University Economics Professor Tony Makin and ESA Qld Vice President Julian Pearce will present a very interesting paper titled Fiscal Consolidation and Australia’s Optimal Public Debt. Tony and Julian … Continue reading

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Qld has lowest annual growth in retail turnover among States and Territories

Weak economic conditions in parts of regional Queensland, particularly the Townsville, Central Queensland and outback regions, have no doubt contributed to Queensland having the lowest through-the-year growth in retail turnover among States and Territories, according to May retail turnover data … Continue reading

Posted in Macroeconomy, Retail trade, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Economic conditions partly responsible for return of Pauline Hanson and One Nation

Dennis Atkins had an excellent column in the Sunday Mail yesterday analysing the return of Pauline Hanson and One Nation, noting that One Nation voters had: “…rejected the Turnbull mantra of embracing the future because of anxiety about the cost … Continue reading

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Heavy construction decline has been greater in Qld than in WA

As I have discussed previously, relatively weak economic conditions in several Queensland regions, including Townsville and the outback, have been partly due to the mining downturn (see my post from last Saturday). At the same time as capital expenditure on … Continue reading

Posted in Macroeconomy, Mining, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

XRR business case should be released in full to give public comfort it is value for money

Yesterday, the Queensland Government sent the Federal Government the business case for the $5 billion Cross River Rail (XRR) project, but alas it has only provided the public with an inadequate, opaque four-page (not counting the cover page) summary of … Continue reading

Posted in Transport, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Qld returns to fourth place in population growth as WA falls back

The new population data released by the ABS last week reveal Queensland is still growing slower than the national average, and much slower than Victoria (see first chart below), a State to which we are still losing interstate migrants in … Continue reading

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Stark difference in unemployment rates between resources regions and rest of Qld

The Queensland branch of the Economic Society of Australia, of which I am the Secretary, was fortunate last Tuesday to host a presentation by Queensland Treasury official Greg Uptin on the economic forecasts underpinning the 2016-17 Queensland Budget. Greg gave … Continue reading

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Upcoming Qld Treasury briefing on Budget economic forecasts to ESA Qld

As the Secretary of the Queensland Branch of the Economic Society of Australia, I am very pleased that Greg Uptin, a senior Queensland Treasury official, will once again brief us on the Treasury’s economic forecasts underpinning the 2016-17 State Budget. … Continue reading

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