Page 72 - Intergenerational Report News Today

MacroBusiness Access Subscriber Only Content at 1:40 pm on July 16, 2021 | 21 comments In the 20 years before COVID hit, Australia’s population increased by 6.5 million people, with Sydney and Melbourne each adding around 1.6 million and 1.8 million people respectively over that time. The experience on the ground was infrastructure bottlenecks, rising congestion, and reduced livability as our major cities were crush-loaded by the extreme population growth. Treasury’s latest Intergenerationa...

Source: Unsplash/Science in HD. Australian manufacturing today is at its lowest point ever. During its 1960s heyday, local manufacturing accounted for over 30% of GDP. Currently, that figure is just 5.6% of GDP. And that is despite a quadrupling of output since the 1950s. But it doesn’t need to be this way. The Australian government has committed to promoting and expanding domestic manufacturing in recent years. Based on the recent Ai Group’s Performance of Manufacturing Index, it appears t...

Why the RBA got it wrong on immigration and wages More migrants do not mean lower wages. The real picture is much more complex than the political debate allows for. Share Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe opened a can of worms last week on the Big Australia debate, surprisingly claiming immigration was one of several factors that had contributed to weak wages growth over the past decade. On cue, but somewhat taking Lowe’s comments out of context, anti-immigration One Nation leade...

RBA Governor Philip Lowe (AAP Image, Mick Tsikas) Australia’s economists are disputing links between high immigration and stagnant wages, after RBA Governor Philip Lowe reintroduced the theme in a recent speech. While Lowe wasn’t advocating for low immigration, he did conclude that foreign labour had been used to relieve wage pressure that may have otherwise led to higher wages. CEDA senior economist Gabriela D’Souza hit back this week, arguing that immigration has helped grow Australia a...

MacroBusiness Access Subscriber Only Content at 10:20 am on July 12, 2021 | 16 comments The AFR hit back hard against RBA governor Phil Lowe’s admission last week that Australia’s mass immigration program pushed down wage growth. The robber baron’s paper of choice published two spruik pieces over the weekend (here and here) ‘debunking’ Lowe’s argument, which were centred largely around former RBA board member Warwick McKibbin’s view that strong levels of immigration lifts the nati...

The federal government has defended high migration levels, after the RBA suggests closed borders are creating pockets of wage growth David Adams Brendon Thorne/Getty Images The federal government has defended Australias historic immigration levels after Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe commented on the ties between migrant labour and wages. As the international border remains closed, keeping many skilled workers out of Australia, the Department of Home Affairs poi...

Inside Ageing Sean Rooney, CEO, Leading Aged Services Australia (LASA) In this guest post, Leading Age Services (LASA) CEO, Sean Rooney outlines key topics to be addressed at their upcoming Roadmap to Reform virtual forum on July 15. Advertisement The Roadmap to Reform is a great opportunity to drive the transformation of our age services, following the Royal Commission’s final report and the need for change for ageing Australians. According to the latest Intergenerational Report, across th...

MacroBusiness Access Subscriber Only Content at 12:30 pm on July 7, 2021 | 5 comments The Grattan Institute believes that the Morrison Government’s ‘car park rorts’ scandal is a symptom of a wider problem: that infrastructure projects tend to be rushed through without proper planning or scrutiny:   “Australia’s state and federal governments have developed a costly habit of rushing major transport projects to market… invariably the taxpayer is left to pick up the tab”. “The pork...

MacroBusiness Access Subscriber Only Content at 10:00 am on July 6, 2021 | 16 comments The latest Intergenerational Report (IGR) from the Australian Treasury warned incessantly that Australia faces an ageing population timebomb in the decades ahead that will slow economic growth and derail the federal budget’s return to surplus. Given the Treasury’s bluster over an ageing population, it is hard to believe that policy makers still allow migrant Australians to import around 9,000 elderly pare...

Two major reports released in the past week shine a light on Australia’s future. The fifth Intergenerational Report addressed the sustainability of the Australian government budget through to 2060 based on current economic and demographic trends. In the context of COVID-19’s disruptions to the national economy, it received much press attention. It made little comment on young Australians, beyond noting they make up a smaller proportion of the population than ever before. Yet young Australi...