Let's all be more positive towards nature. But how?

Have you heard about Nature Positive? It’s a global movement to stop all the damage we’re doing to the natural environment – to forests, rivers, plants and animals – and start reversing that damage. It’s an idea whose time has come. And it’s coming to Australia next week.Tuesday week will see the world’s first global Nature Positive Summit in Sydney, hosted by federal Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek and...

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What goes on in the Reserve Bank's mind

By MILLIE MUROI, Economics WriterSo far, the Reserve Bank is winning. Every time we’ve had a new inflation read or jobs data, the country has held its breath … and exhaled a sigh of relief. Things are a little tougher for a lot of people, and a lot harder for some. But inflation, our public enemy number one, is gradually slinking away, and a historically high bunch of us have jobs.The Reserve Bank might not be high-fiving itself...

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Why the big parties' professed housing fixes won't work

I’m sorry to tell you, but it’s becoming increasingly likely that next year’s federal election campaign will feature a fight over which side has the better policies to end the housing crisis. Why is that bad news? Because neither of the major parties’ proffered solutions would do much good.The Albanese government wants to introduce two schemes – Help to Buy and Build to Rent – but these are being blocked in the Senate by the...

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How to avoid being conned by business lobby groups

The obvious question arising from big business’s onslaught against Anthony Albanese and his government is: do Australia’s voters know which sides their bread is buttered on? Sorry, boss, I think they usually do.Last week the (Big) Business Council let fly against Albanese & Co. with both barrels. According to its chief executive, rather than feeling confident in our growing national prosperity, many of the big-business chief...

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Why the planet needs the economy to go round in circles

By MILLIE MUROI, Economics WriterFor as long as humans have walked the earth, we’ve grappled with this dilemma: how to satisfy our unlimited wants and needs with limited resources. Eventually, people started putting pen to paper, and called the study of this problem “economics.”Over time, we’ve become better at making – and doing – more: by piecing together machines that can dig more out of the ground, stripping the soil, and...

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The best thing our pollies have done in decades is also the worst

With the coming departure from politics of Bill Shorten, it’s time to talk about his former bouncing baby, and now obese adult, the National Disability Insurance Scheme. To his credit, his final act has been to put it on a strict diet.The NDIS is one huge contradiction. Its introduction, in 2013, is Julia Gillard’s short-lived government’s greatest achievement, and Labor’s biggest extension of our welfare state since the introduction...

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All the reasons house prices will keep rising until we wake up

Contrary to popular opinion, the cost-of-living crisis will pass. But the housing crisis will go on worsening unless politicians – federal, state and local – try a mighty lot harder than they have been.The cost of home ownership took off – that is, began rising faster than household incomes – about the time I became a journo 50 years ago, and is still going. Even the (unlikely) achievement of Anthony Albanese’s target of building...

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Economists have a glaring problem: themselves

By MILLIE MUROI, Economics WriterEconomists don’t often get the chance to look at themselves. They spend their lives keeping a close eye on the actions, behaviours and motivations of others: people like you and me. But the self-reflection they have done recently points to a glaring issue.When I was first getting my bearings in economics nearly 10 years ago, there were four giant posters at the front of my classroom. The heads...

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Our gambling obsession is doing great harm to addicts and their families

I grew up in a strict, Salvation Army household where there was no drinking, smoking or gambling. My parents wore their uniforms everywhere they went. Women wore no makeup or jewellery. Young boys like me weren’t allowed to go to the pictures.My parents were strict, but loving. I had no problem with any of this except the ban on movies. We kids played cards, but not with ordinary playing cards. Why not? Because people might think...

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If there's no 'price gouging' how come interest rates are so high?

The nation’s economists have a dirty little secret. They all believe that what the punters denigrate as “price gouging” is actually a good thing, part of the mechanism by which a market economy returns to “equilibrium” (balance) after it’s been hit by an inflationary shock.But they have a visceral hatred of terms such as “price gouging” and “profiteering”, and are always producing graphs and calculations purporting to prove that...

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Our economy has turned into a tortoise. The RBA will be pleased

By Millie Muroi, Economics WriterMost of us know the age-old saying: slow and steady wins the race. Numbers released into the wild on Wednesday show the Australian economy is definitely a tortoise – but it should make the Reserve Bank pretty happy.The national accounts – data gathered and shared every three months by the Australian Bureau of Statistics – gives us one of the most detailed pictures of how our economy has been tracking....

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Albo’s quiet quest: stop wasting so much taxpayers’ money

If you’ve gained the impression that Anthony Albanese’s government is one that knows what it should be doing to fix our various problems, but lacks the courage to do anything that might be controversial – even just including questions in the census about people’s sexual orientation – I can’t tell you you’ve got the wrong idea.What people outside Canberra often don’t realise is how obsessed governments, of either colour, become...

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GDP is going backwards. That doesn't mean your life is, too

By Millie Muroi, Economics Writer If gross domestic product – better known by its nickname GDP – were a perfect reflection of our quality of life, we would be in trouble.It’s a rough measure of how much we produce, earn and spend, and it grew a measly 0.1 per cent in the first three months of this year. If our population hadn’t boomed at the same time, Australia would be in recession. In fact, in per-person terms, we’ve...

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How GPT (not that one) could help fix our inflation problem

By Millie Muroi, Economics WriterChatGPT is not the answer to Australia’s productivity problem. At least, not yet.But I asked ChatGPT what its chances were of productivity improving in Australia – if it was a betting man. The answer? 70 to 80 per cent.Productivity growth excites economics nerds, like those at the Reserve Bank ... and just about no one else. But it matters for everything from your mortgage to the prices you pay...

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Think you've snagged a bargain online? It's you who's been snagged

By Millie Muroi, Economics Writer In a cost-of-living crisis, I’m sure I’m not the only bargain hunter who has put giant e-commerce sites Temu, Shein and Wish to the test.I’ve heard all the arguments against shopping online, and like most of my generation, I’ve shrugged off most of them, too. It’s how we do things when money is tight. Get with the program, or get old.One friend splashed cash on a giant stuffed pig from Temu...

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RBA worries too much about expectations of further high inflation

Other central banks have started cutting interest rates, yet our Reserve Bank is declining to join them because, as governor Michele Bullock explained on Friday, it doesn’t expect our rate of inflation to fall back to the mid-point of its target range “in a reasonable timeframe”.Its latest forecasts don’t see the “underlying” (that is, smoothed) annual inflation rate returning to 3 per cent until the end of next year, and reaching...

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