IMF INFLATION FORECAST
Treasurer Jim Chalmers is heading to Washington DC today for meetings with economic ministers and central bank governors amid some fairly sobering new forecasts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The Australian has led online overnight on the fact the IMF has downgraded Australia’s economic growth outlook to 1.2% this year, down from the 1.5% predicted in April (while the AAP points out growth is expected to rise to 2.1% in 2025). The paper said the IMF World Economic Outlook, released on Wednesday, also revised up the 2025 consumer price projections for Australia from 2.8% in April to 3.6%.
The Australian states the IMF has predicted Australia will be one of two advanced economies with headline inflation above 3% by the end of next year, claiming “Australia’s run of high inflation is on track to exceed all advanced economies except Slovakia’s”. The Sydney Morning Herald also points out unemployment is forecast to increase to 4.4% through the coming year.
As the G20 finance ministers gathered in the US just a fortnight before the American election, the IMF said that while the global battle against inflation had largely been won, risks remain, AAP reports. The newswire quotes Chalmers as saying ahead of his trip: “Conflict in the Middle East compounds the pressures already coming at us from the war in Ukraine, the slowdown in China, persistent global inflation, tepid global growth and sharp movements on stock markets. There is always a premium on responsible economic management and engagement but especially now, with all this uncertainty around the world.”
With the prospect of Donald Trump potentially returning to the White House and concerns over China’s sluggish economy, The Australian also quotes the IMF in warning “an intensification of protectionist policies would exacerbate trade tensions, reduce market efficiency, and further disrupt supply chains”.
Chalmers isn’t the only high-profile figure departing Australia today. King Charles III and Queen Camilla are heading to Samoa for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, having concluded their Australian tour.
With Senator Lidia Thorpe’s protest at Parliament House on Monday dominating the news yesterday, many places have led with rather fawning coverage overnight. The ABC led its site all Tuesday evening with “King Charles III and Queen Camilla have finished their Australian royal tour. Here’s the big moments from their final day”, The Sydney Morning Herald has four bylines for its wrap “Sausages, sheepdogs and Opera House sails: The royals’ big day out in Sydney”, while The Australian goes for “A poignant audience with Barbecue King in a neighbourhood so close to his heart”.
With regards to Thorpe, the AFR says the push for the Senate to censure her looks unlikely after shadow Foreign Affairs minister Simon Birmingham downplayed such a move. The paper quotes Birmingham as saying: “One of the problems is Lidia Thorpe would probably revel in being censured by the Senate. So we’ve got to think carefully about how we respond to this in ways that try to prevent such behaviour in the future, but don’t give her the oxygen that she so desires for these types of antics.”
The AFR reports opinion remains divided over Thorpe’s actions, highlighting Bigambul and Gomeroi Elder Barbara Flick defending the protest and former Labor senator Nova Peris and Uluru Statement architect Marcia Langton criticising it.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton yesterday suggested to Sunrise Thorpe should resign if she does not support Australia’s system of government, the ABC recalls, a call she immediately rejected (see Say What? below). Meanwhile, The Nightly decided to highlight the “outrage” caused by menu planners at Parliament House in Canberra after the royals were offered an “Anzac cookie” instead of an Anzac biscuit.
CRISAFULLI ‘PRO-CHOICE’
With the Queensland election just days away, plenty of attention has been paid to the final leaders’ debate last night, with most of the coverage focusing on Premier Steven Miles questioning LNP leader David Crisafulli on abortion laws.
The AAP states that after being asked more than 100 times about his stance on abortion ahead of the election, Crisafulli “finally provided a straight, one-word answer”. The newswire recalls the LNP leader has been under sustained pressure over the issue after claiming there would be no changes to abortion laws in the state but not explaining how he would guarantee it.
During the Sky News/Courier-Mail debate involving an audience of 100 undecided voters on Tuesday night, Crisafulli said: “There will be no changes to abortion laws if government changes in Queensland,” Guardian Australia reports. When asked by Miles: “Do you believe in a woman’s right to choose, yes or no?”, the ABC reports Crisafulli responded: “It probably won’t work for his TikTok, but yes. Oh, that got you, didn’t it.”
The broadcaster highlights that over 900,000 voters have already cast their ballots ahead of polling day on October 26.
Talking of delaying giving a straight answer, the AFR points out shadow energy spokesman Ted O’Brien has said he will release an economic case for the Coalition’s nuclear policy by the end of the year. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has repeatedly refused to reveal how much his plans to build seven nuclear plants would cost.
The paper said O’Brien claims his release will go beyond the initial costs of the nuclear plants and in releasing it by the end of the year he was allowing plenty of time for them to be scrutinised ahead of the federal election, due in May.
Finally, the ABC flags the Federal Court will today decide whether Bruce Lehrmann can continue with his bid for an appeal against the findings in his failed defamation case against Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
There was only ever one candidate for Lighter Note today, the global sensation that is Matilda Campbell. If you’re not already aware, Campbell, in her 20s, got stuck upside down for seven hours in regional New South Wales earlier this month while trying to retrieve her mobile phone.
Seven hours. Upside down. Seriously, just look at the picture. 10/10.
Campbell got wedged between two large boulders in the Hunter Valley on October 12 and after spending an hour in vain trying to help her escape, her friends rang the emergency services, Guardian Australia reports. The complicated ensuing rescue attempt involved moving a 500kg boulder and creating a hardwood frame to aid the extraction.
Peter Watts, a specialist rescue paramedic, is quoted as saying: “In my 10 years as a rescue paramedic I had never encountered a job quite like this. It was challenging but incredibly rewarding.”
Campbell, who escaped with just bruises and minor scratches, later posted on social media: “It’s safe to say I’m the most accident prone person ever. I am OK, just have some injuries I’m recovering from, no more rock exploration for me for a while!”
Her phone meanwhile could not be rescued.
Say What?
I really don’t care what Dutton says, I’m going to be in this job for another three and a half years and I’m not looking to be reelected, I’m looking to get justice for my people.
Lidia Thorpe
The Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung senator responds on the ABC to Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s calls for her to resign following her protest at the reception for King Charles III at Parliament House on Monday.
CRIKEY RECAP
Where’s Comyn and his media cheerleaders now to whinge about populism and unwarranted criticism of business? To lament that politicians — and not big business itself — are undermining faith in institutions? To complain that they make profits legitimately and not by breaking the law?
Here’s some useful advice for businesses complaining about being targeted by “populism”. Don’t price gouge and charge dead people. Don’t mislead customers. Don’t illegally sack workers. Don’t allow bullies and sexual predators to run rampant in your workplaces and use NDAs to gag their victims. Don’t declare war on whistleblowers. Don’t serially break the law. Don’t evade taxes. Make executives and board members, including founders, face consequences for their actions or inaction. Treat Australians, and Australian laws, with some respect, rather than as impediments to maximising your personal wealth.
You might find it works miracles for your community standing.
“There’s no transparency,” comments Greens Senator Barbara Pocock. “They simply want us to take their ruling on face value. Well, I’m sorry, but that is not transparency in my book.”
The evidence from this report suggests that if the NACC was constraining itself to one simple case it posed itself, it is unlikely to try unravelling and prosecuting a far bigger one. The establishment of the NACC was in part a bid to restore public confidence — these kinds of opaque reports achieve the very opposite of that.
“Having the NACC operate in secrecy works against integrity in government,” says Pocock. “I’ll be taking these issues up with ministers and department heads when Parliament resumes in November. Something needs to change here.”
Donald Trump and the billionaires around him are preparing, again, to steal the presidential election. The US political media, meanwhile, are approaching it with the same “nothing to see here” confidence they took to their fumbled reporting of Trump’s last attempted coup.
The result is a “sane-washing” of Donald Trump’s coup-planning; planning that is happening right in front of us. Discredit the vote in advance, claim victory early, disrupt the count to block the Electoral College (particularly in close swing states), lean into the power of right-wing media and public disorder, and exploit enough of the constitutional vagaries to have Trump declared elected.
Even the release over the weekend of 1,889 pages of heavily redacted evidence related to the ongoing criminal prosecution of Trump for illegally seeking to overturn the 2020 election didn’t shake up traditional media’s reluctance to see what’s right in front of them. Donald Trump is doing it again — this time with the active backing of the billionaire class, led by Elon Musk.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries arrested on sex trafficking charges (NBC)
A jittery Harris campaign makes big plans to clinch a narrow win (CNN)
BRICS summit brings Russia’s diplomatic heft into the spotlight (Semafor)
Ukraine’s population has fallen by 10 million since Russia’s invasion, UN says (Reuters)
Blinken urges Netanyahu to seek truces in Gaza and Lebanon (The New York Times) ($)
Australia says $4.7 billion long-range missile deal to boost deterrence (Reuters)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Stuntwoman Lidia Thorpe gets the headlines, but won’t get outcomes — David Crowe (The Sydney Morning Herald): The protest may be a sign of things to come for the monarchy. King Charles flies within days to a Commonwealth meeting in Samoa where one issue is whether he should apologise for slavery in British colonies. All three candidates to head the Commonwealth want reparations. Thorpe gave an Australian voice to this global argument about history.
Buckingham Palace supports a review into the monarchy’s historical links to slavery in the 17th and 18th centuries, but an apology is an incendiary issue for British political leaders. The United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer says there will be no apology and no reparations.
Thorpe certainly won the media moment on Monday, but this will be an empty victory. She is angry but not effective. She gets headlines, but not outcomes. While she has the tactics needed to get attention, she lacks the political support required to gain lasting change.
Why does big business want Australia to spend billions on not building houses? — Cameron Murray (Guardian Australia): Since April 2022, Australia’s central bank, the RBA, like others globally, decided that the inflation pulse must be tamed. With a record 240,000 dwellings under construction in Australia at that point, the best mechanism to do that was to make buying and building homes more difficult by raising the cash rate from 0.1% to 4.35%, quickly tripling mortgage rates from about 2% to about 6%.
It has worked to a degree, but even in June 2024 more than 220,000 homes were still under construction in Australia.
The housing shortage, crisis, or whatever term you want to use, is part of a global cycle. Yes, there are massively unequal effects from rapidly rising rents and prices on households across the country, and we should support these households. But removing taxes on property owners and spending billions not building homes is probably not the best way to help. When inflation falls and interest rates decline, home building will rise again, even without new tax breaks and subsidies.
