RENTAL BOOM OVER?
Australia’s rental boom is “well and truly passed the peak”, analysts have claimed, as new data shows rents grew at the slowest rate for the December quarter in six years.
The AAP reports CoreLogic’s latest report found rents grew 4.8% in 2024, compared to 8.1% the year before. During the past three months rents rose 0.4%, the slowest growth for that particular quarter since 2018.
Guardian Australia highlights how since the onset of the COVID pandemic rents in Australia increased by 36.1%. The site puts that at a rise of $171 a week, or $8,884 a year at the median level.
The ABC quotes CoreLogic economist Kaytlin Ezzy as saying the slowdown in 2024 was “primarily driven by an easing in overseas migration and an uptick in the average household size, and increased investor participation over the year adding to rental stock”.
CoreLogic said a lack of affordability had left some of those who rent unable to pay any more.
On the theme of the affordability of housing, The Australian Financial Review says “a global bond rout is complicating the task of central banks trying to cut interest rates” but adds analysts believe it won’t prevent the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) lowering borrowing costs in 2025. The paper highlights the changing nature of the US economy and flags that markets are now pricing in just one Federal Reserve rate cut in 2025, no sooner than September.
My colleagues Bernard Keane and Glenn Dyer have written about the impact of the US economy on the Australian dollar and domestic interest rates here. The next RBA interest rate decision will take place on February 18.
Depending on who you ask, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese could well be betting the house on the RBA cutting rates next month as he prepares to call the federal election. Today he’s in Tasmania with three ministers to make a series of infrastructure announcements (there’s a theme emerging in this not-yet-called election campaign isn’t there).
AAP reports Albanese will be joined in Tasmania by Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, Infrastructure Minister Catherine King and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke. The PM said ahead of the visit: “My government cares about Tasmanians. That’s why we are delivering on cost of living relief, investing in housing and infrastructure, child care and healthcare for Tasmania.”
On the other side of the aisle, Guardian Australia reports Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is hosting a fundraiser for wealthy supporters with Bennelong candidate Scott Yung next week. The site says “tickets for the private dinner with Peter Dutton, promoted in an email sent to Liberal supporters and seen by Guardian Australia, cost $10,000 a head”.
AAP also reports this morning that “state and federal leaders will regularly meet with police chiefs as Australia seeks answers to a rising antisemitism crisis”. Yesterday Albanese held talks with the premiers from Victoria and NSW as well as the Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw. A statement following the meeting said the governments had agreed for law enforcement agencies to share information in tackling antisemitism and referenced updating legislation, but didn’t specify what legislation.
Tuesday’s meeting came as Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus travelled to Israel to meet with officials and push for a peace deal, AAP added.
Outgoing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas was “right on the brink”, adding: “It’s closer than it’s ever been before”, The Guardian reports.
AUSTRALIAN ‘KILLED’ IN UKRAINE
Most outlets led at some stage overnight on the news the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has said it has “grave concerns” for the welfare of Melbourne man Oscar Jenkins, with reports suggesting he had been killed by Russian forces.
A spokesperson for DFAT said the reporting by Seven News had not been verified. The Australian government was making “urgent enquiries” into the reports, the ABC said. The broadcaster added the 32-year-old was serving alongside Ukrainian troops when he was captured by Russian forces last year.
Coalition foreign affairs spokesperson Simon Birmingham said if the reports were true, the government “should respond in the strongest possible terms” and expel Russia’s ambassador to Australia.
On Tuesday Ukraine declared it had launched its “most massive” attack of the war so far with targets struck deep inside Russia, the BBC reports. According to the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces, ammunition depots and chemical plants were hit across several Russian regions.
The attacks come as US President-elect Donald Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz told ABC News the incoming administration would be asking Kyiv about its military manpower.
He said Ukraine “could generate hundreds of thousands of new soldiers” if it lowered its draft age. “They certainly have taken a very noble and tough stand, but we need to see those manpower shortages addressed. This isn’t just about munitions, ammunition or writing more checks. It’s about seeing the front lines stabilised so that we can enter into some type of deal,” he said.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said there was no point lowering the conscription age from 25 to 18 as those on the frontline were already short of weapons, the BBC added.
Trump has said a meeting between himself and Russian President Vladimir Putin is being arranged and has previously claimed he will end the Ukraine war soon after returning to the White House, which is happening next week.
Talking of Trump’s second inauguration, Associated Press informs us former first lady Michelle Obama will not be attending the Washington event. The newswire said no explanation was given for why she would not be in attendance. The 60-year-old also missed the funeral of former president Jimmy Carter last week.
Those who will be in attendance on January 20 include former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, with Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton also there.
Finally, Vulture flags great grandfather Joe Biden is set to give his final interview as president to Lawrence O’Donnell, the anchor of MSNBC’s The Last Word, which will air on Thursday (local time). Should be an interesting watch.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
Societies are on the brink, the divisiveness has never been greater… pineapple on pizzas: you either love it or you want it to burn in hell for all eternity.
One restaurant has taken its displeasure of putting the fruit on pizza to the next level at the start of 2025 by telling customers they can order it, but it will cost them £100 (A$200).
The menu at Lupa Pizza in Norwich, England, literally reads: “Yeah, for £100 you can have it. Order the champagne too! Go on you Monster!”
The Guardian quotes the restaurant’s co-owner Francis Woolf as saying: “I absolutely loathe pineapple on a pizza”, with head chef Quin Jianoran adding: “I love a pina colada, but pineapple on pizza? Never. I’d rather put a bloody strawberry on one than that tropical menace.”
To be honest, the massive cynic in me says “well isn’t this a handy piece of free PR you’re all providing this restaurant for its very transparent stunt”. But also, maybe let’s just enjoy the lightness of it, even if it’s very obviously for the attention.
Say What?
But for Mr Trump’s election [in 2024] and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.
Jack Smith
The US Department of Justice has released the outgoing special counsel’s report into the attempts to convict the former and soon-to-be-again US president Donald Trump of allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election. The case has been dismissed, Smith has resigned, and Trump denies any wrongdoing.
CRIKEY RECAP
When it comes to whipping up a culture war to feed the media, Peter Dutton is the culinary master. Fresh off the back of eliminating the Aboriginal flag from his press conferences, a move no-one asked for, this week the opposition leader extolled the glories of “nationalism” while promising to ban councils from holiday citizenship ceremonies on any day other than January 26:
“It will be a sign of pride and nationalism in our country … The prime minister sent a signal to those councils that Australia Day didn’t matter and that it was something to be ashamed of. The prime minister doesn’t talk publicly about that, but that’s exactly what he did.”
It didn’t matter that by turning his attention to the date of Australia Day, Dutton was flogging a culture war horse not so much dead as already rendered into glue. It didn’t matter that the government has made no hint that it intends to change the date. By taking aim at Anthony Albanese over his government’s reforms, which allowed councils to hold citizenship ceremonies a few days either side of the 26th, Dutton was doing his annual act of charity for Australia’s news editors, kicking off potentially weeks of easy content.
But a paper can’t always rely on a single politician’s talking points to keep a story going, or heaven forbid it might seem biased or compromised. So here are a few other ingredients to spice up a story out of more or less nothing.
Labor’s approach to inflation has been managerialist: to tweak the regulatory settings of the economy and offer some small fiscal comfort to voters victimised by inflation caused by large corporations. At no stage has it embraced boldness or seen inflation as an opportunity, rather than a threat, that would enable it to pursue an agenda of rebalancing the economy toward the interests of workers and consumers and away from corporations. Even the Coalition has understood this opportunity and will go to the election with a sensible, centrist policy of adopting divestiture powers in relation to big retailers, while Labor settles for overhauling the merger assessment process in competition law.
Even as Labor appeared to bend over backwards to look after its Chairman’s Lounge mates at Qantas, the Nationals were talking about break-up powers there as well. Indeed, the government ignored a gift-wrapped chance for a significant intervention in domestic aviation via the administration of Rex, which could become the basis for a third, government-sponsored airline that can resist the anti-competitive behaviour of Qantas and Virgin and start offering consumers a real choice in an aviation market characterised by gouging and appalling service.
But such an intervention requires a change in mindset, from one in which the government simply tweaks the economic regulatory settings to one in which the government actively and aggressively pursues the interests of consumers and workers by directly intervening in, or re-entering, markets.
Dutton seems to be reading the political mood here — even if he doesn’t have any policies to back it up. As Redbridge research officer Alex Fein wrote in a recent, compelling blog post, “promises of private splendour” are gaining “ever more purchase” in these severe times, something the right and far right are much better at capitalising on than the left.
“I want future generations of Australians to not be denied the prosperity that previous generations of Australians knew,” said the man who last year flew across the country to spend an hour at the birthday party of Australia’s richest woman.
Dutton, like Trump, doesn’t really care about most people being denied prosperity — not if his track record is anything to go by. But as with Trump, it doesn’t really matter what he means. What matters is the feeling that better days were behind us, when a young Queenslander could — apparently — afford a house deposit simply by throwing newspapers, mowing lawns, and working in a butcher’s shop after school and on Saturdays.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Princess of Wales says ‘it’s a relief to now be in remission’ from cancer (Sky News)
Sam Kerr appears in court charged with alleged racially aggravated harassment (The Guardian)
China officials discuss option of TikTok sale to Elon Musk (The Wall Street Journal)
There is no safe word: How the best-selling fantasy author Neil Gaiman hid the darkest parts of himself for decades (New York Magazine)
Trump’s defence chief pick questioned over alcohol use and his views on women in military (BBC)
Mystery grey balls force closure of nine Sydney beaches (ITV News)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Peter Dutton’s greatest hits might get him elected but he’s not immune to the bad democracy trap — Rebecca Huntley (Guardian Australia): Media reporting about Dutton’s increasingly positive polling numbers usually carry the reflection that a Coalition win would upset almost a century of political history by unseating a first-term government.
Such a victory would be surprising but not shocking. Our political past may be a less and less reliable tool from which to understand the current political environment, precisely because of what Dutton identifies: a rise in polarisation and a fundamental shift in our relationship with information and communication increasing that polarisation.
Dutton strikes a confident pose in this speech. The party he leads is back in town and ready to win majority government. Not by default, on the back of a wave of antagonism towards the Albanese government, but because it has won, as Dutton puts it, “a civilised battle of ideas”. He says: “Oppositions can — and do — win elections.”
I’ve seen that once and once only in my 20 years as a social researcher. Kevin Rudd in 2007. And even then, public fatigue with John Howard as prime minister was at its highest point, along with frustration at his intransigence on climate change and his draconian WorkChoices laws. Rudd’s victory was still a symptom of voter dislike of the government.
It’s not a new thing that voters punish a PM they don’t like by voting for someone they don’t really know.
Get set for a bitter election campaign fuelled by fear, not hope — Matthew Knott (The Sydney Morning Herald):
The upcoming federal election looks set to be dominated by a grimly uninspiring question: Would you rather a weak prime minister or a nasty one?
The year has begun with a hard-edged, bitter energy fuelled by personal attacks, scare campaigns, antisemitic incidents and the inevitable January culture war debates over Australia Day.
With an election due by May at the latest, all signs point to an electorate that is grumpy, cynical and uninspired by politics. Instead of seeking to uplift a weary nation, the two major party leaders are reflecting voters’ weariness back at them.
A survey released at the end of last year by polling firm Freshwater Strategy found a plurality of Australians believed the situation was improving on just one of 12 topics: relations with China.
