BULLOCK TO RESPOND TO WEAK ECONOMY
All eyes are set to turn to governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Michele Bullock, today when she gives a speech to the Anika Foundation. Yesterday, the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed Australia’s economy grew by just 0.2% in the June quarter, equating to 1% over the past year.
That sluggish growth and its impact has led coverage overnight, with The Australian leading with Treasurer Jim Chalmers saying his budget strategy had been vindicated as the country would likely be in recession if not for government spending. Yesterday’s growth figures were in line with the RBA’s forecasts and the paper said markets and economists had different predictions on what comes next. The money markets are reportedly predicting an almost 70% chance the RBA will reduce the cash rate from 4.35% to 4.1% in its December meeting, while the majority of economists think the earliest the bank will move rates is at its February meeting.
The data on Wednesday also showed household spending coming in notably weaker than forecasted, AAP highlighted, with the ABC quoting Westpac senior economist Pat Bustamante as saying it was a “big surprise”. He added: “In stark contrast [to the weakness in consumer spending], total new spending by governments continues to grow strongly and is now at a record share of the economy [27.3% of GDP, from a previous peak of 27.1% of GDP in the September quarter 2021].”
The Australian said Chalmers will pit his budget strategy against the Coalition’s push for greater budget austerity before Parliament returns next week. “We resisted the kind of free advice that … we should slash and burn in the budget and deliver some kind of scorched earth austerity,” the treasurer is quoted as saying. “That would have been absolutely disastrous for the economy, we now know that’s the case. We struck exactly the right balance in our budget and these numbers do vindicate the balanced approach we took.”
As the government attempts to spin the economic results and waits to hear what the RBA governor has to say about them at midday, it has yet again come under pressure to implement a complete ban on gambling ads — something it continues to resist. The call for the ban comes in a new report from the Grattan Institute, which also says there should be a mandatory pre-commitment loss limit for online gambling and poker machines and that the number of machines should be cut in each state, Guardian Australia reports. The new study found the average annual loss per adult in Australia was $1,635, significantly more than the average in countries such as the US ($809) and New Zealand ($584), the ABC said.
Grattan Institute chief executive Aruna Sathanapally said Australia had let the “gambling industry run wild, and gamblers, their families and the broader community are paying the price”, Guardian Australia reports. “It’s time our politicians stood up to the powerful gambling lobby and reined the industry in,” Sathanapally added.
The Sydney Morning Herald has broken down the country’s gambling losses and the industry’s political influence in a series of eye-catching charts here. And a reminder, Crikey’s Punted series can be found here.
CENSUS BACKLASH CONTINUES
On the theme of a government under pressure to make a different decision, numerous publications are leading this morning with the fact health and research organisations are calling for questions on gender and sexual orientation to be included in the next census after the chaos of last week (you can find a refresher in Monday’s Worm). A joint statement from the likes of the Kirby Institute, the Australian Human Rights Institute and the Centre for Social Research in Health, said the questions were needed to fill in gaps in much-needed research, Guardian Australia highlighted.
The ABC says the organisations warn excluding LGBTQIA+ questions from the 2026 questionnaire would put people at greater risk of “marginalisation and disadvantage”. The national broadcaster includes the full text of the statement in its coverage, which includes the organisations declaring: “Historical erasure and underrepresentation in data underscore the urgent need for an accurate reflection of population diversity. Including these questions in the 2026 Census is crucial to fulfilling Australia’s commitment to equitable public health and to enhancing our national data infrastructure … We call on our leaders to be clear and bold in ensuring no-one is overlooked due to data gaps.”
The federal government will be desperate to put criticism of recent decisions and the economy blame game behind it and may be pleased to see the coverage of its recent AI announcement this morning. AAP highlights the release of voluntary guidelines, including businesses being encouraged to warn customers when they are using artificial intelligence, to highlight its risks and to provide ways for people to appeal decisions made by AI. The newswire adds a four-week consultation would be held on mandatory restrictions on high-risk AI uses, such as facial recognition, medical devices and recruitment processes.
Guardian Australia reports Federal Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic released a discussion paper proposing 10 “mandatory guardrails”. Husic said in a statement the public was aware “AI can do great things” but wanted protections “if things go off the rails”. The paper says a European Union-style act of Parliament could be used to regulate minimum standards on high-risk AI across the economy.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
A social media craze involving people in Spain placing pineapples in their shopping trolleys has resulted in “chaotic scenes”, Sky News reports.
The trend involves single people going to Mercadona supermarkets between 7pm and 8pm and placing the fruit upside down in their trolley. They are then supposed to go to the wine aisle to find others doing the same. Apparently, if you then spot someone you like, you bump your trolley against theirs to start a conversation.
All of which doesn’t sound too harmful, but Sky reports police were called in Bilbao, northern Spain, after a flash mob of hopeful singles “overwhelmed” a Mercadona store. And the BBC revealed staff are unsurprisingly not too thrilled at having to collect discarded pineapples from around the stores at the end of their shifts.
The phenomenon appears to have been driven by a TikTok video from actor and comedian Vivy Lin.
Say What?
I don’t know whether to hug him or yell at him because — what a platform he ended up giving me, honestly.
Rachael “Raygun” Gunn
Australia’s infamous breakdancer spoke to The Project last night about the fallout from her viral performance at the Olympic Games. Guardian Australia quotes her as saying the vitriol she received was “pretty alarming” and that she had “mixed emotions” about a skit on Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show inspired by her performance in Paris.
CRIKEY RECAP
The WA government is a rotten plaything of mining and energy interests, operating as the policy arm, and private militia, of big miners and fossil fuel companies. By dedicating itself so determinedly to satisfying every demand emanating from the state, the Albanese government offers a national version of the WA disease, at huge expense to the taxpayer.
The only issue that is not up for debate is Labor’s changes to industrial relations laws, which have, unsurprisingly, prompted extensive complaints from mining companies. But in its union donors, Labor has a far more important constituency to please than mining companies on IR. Besides, it will be aware that it’s pro forma for mining companies — whose ranks include some major wage thieves — to claim any industrial relations changes will destroy mining, end investment, collapse the economy etc.
But on other issues, Labor’s precarious electoral state serves to massively magnify the malignant political influence of the resources sector and the media it controls. A government that is happy to curb the export revenue generated by foreign students can’t even bring itself to tax properly the export revenue earnt by fossil fuel giants from West Australian offshore gas projects, let alone curb those exports to reduce Australia’s disproportionate contribution to the climate crisis.
Many students and staff weren’t satisfied with the level of detail, or the framing of the declarations “as a sign of good faith and conscience”, as one protest organiser put it, but expressed hope it signalled a shift.
But new insights into an eight-year campaign by anti-war activists on the campus — including academics, students and professional staff — indicates a steadfast determination at the highest levels to maintain links to companies involved in weapons development, and signals substantial resistance to the second part of the protest agenda: divestment.
An investigation by The Citizen, exploring meeting notes and the recollections of key players in that campaign, including some senior academics, indicated that their repeated objections to the university’s association with weapons companies have been deflected or dismissed.
Continuing with its admirable commitment to bipartisanship in the exact ways its voters don’t want, Labor is seeking the opposition’s support for its watered-down, industry-approved version of the Environmental Protection Agency. And it’s not just the Coalition on Labor’s mind, apparently.
“If the Greens party doesn’t support the government’s EPA laws, this could be their carbon pollution reduction scheme mistake mark two,” Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said.
If you are among the huge chunk of voters for whom the CPRS barely rates as a distant political memory, worry not, Labor is always here to remind you (as are we). The CPRS — an emissions trading scheme for anthropogenic greenhouse gases — was widely regarded as an inadequate policy and friendless in all directions. After it was voted down in the Senate in 2009, including by the Greens, Labor replaced it with a more effective scheme.
That hasn’t stopped Labor from dedicating an exhausting amount of time on the subject in the nearly 15 years since. Here’s the story about how, as far as Labor is concerned, everything ever is about the Greens’ decision to vote against the CPRS.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Georgia high school shooting leaves four confirmed dead and nine injured (The Guardian)
‘From the river to the sea’ doesn’t violate Meta rules: Oversight panel (al-Jazeera)
‘Decades of failure’ by UK government led to Grenfell fire, report finds (The Financial Times) ($)
US announces plan to counter Russian influence ahead of 2024 election (The New York Times) ($)
‘Fake heiress’ Anna Sorokin will compete on ‘Dancing With the Stars’ amid deportation battle (Associated Press)
Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro declares Christmas to begin in October (Sky News)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Now the Australian economy is on its knees, will the RBA finally start cutting interest rates? — Greg Jericho (Guardian Australia): So far we have not gone into a recession — but only because our population has grown and the government has kept spending, mostly on healthcare and social assistance linked to the NDIS.
The next lot of GDP figures will contain the stage three tax cuts, which should boost household incomes. Similarly, a lack of any more interest rate rises should at least mean we’re no longer getting hit, even if the pain of all the punches remains.
But given the economy has clearly slowed sooner than the RBA expected, perhaps it might start to think about lowering rates sooner than previously anticipated.
The Libs had a man with a plan to fix their problems. If only they’d told him — Alexandra Smith (The Sydney Morning Herald): Dutton would not have cared much about NSW’s council-nomination debacle. He would, however, care that if the NSW division could not manage the simple task of lodging nomination forms, it was highly unlikely to be in a position to help win a federal election. The moderates, led by the godfather of the faction, Don Harwin, can accuse Dutton of political opportunism all they like, but the recent track record of the NSW division speaks for itself.
The NSW Liberals need a major overhaul and, with a looming federal election, Dutton could not afford to take any risks with a party that was not up to the job. But in taking first steps to clean up the party, he has faltered at the first hurdle.
To allay fears that he is purely trying to oust his factional opponents, Dutton should rethink the makeup of the committee imposed on NSW. That must include a woman, preferably one who has been consulted on her appointment before it is publicly announced.
