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9 Sep Australia’s industrial strikes have not disappeared — but they have collapsed 8 Sep Australia’s governments do not have a revenue problem. They have a spending addiction. 8 Sep Housing approvals still below 1.2 million-home target pace

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Labour Market

Australia’s industrial strikes have not disappeared — but they have collapsed

Australia’s industrial disputes data show a recent lift in activity, but the deeper story is the extraordinary long-run decline in strikes and working days lost since the 1980s.

Australia’s governments do not have a revenue problem. They have a spending addiction.

New ABS Government Finance Statistics show total government revenue increased by 6.6% in 2025–26, adding $66.5 billion to government coffers. Tax revenue grew even faster, rising 7.0%. Yet government expenses increased by 8.2%, or $84.4 billion. The result was a net operating deficit of

Australian Housing Approvals

Housing approvals still below 1.2 million-home target pace

Australia’s housing approval pipeline is recovering, but the latest ABS figures show approvals are still running about 8% below the annual pace implied by the National Housing Accord target.

ANZ

ANZ under Nuno Matos: growth remains a work in progress

ANZ has kept pace with the major banks in investor housing under Nuno Matos, but APRA data show weaker relative growth across business lending, owner-occupied mortgages and deposits.

NAB

NAB under Andrew Irvine: business banking strong, investor housing the weak spot

More than two years into Andrew Irvine’s tenure, NAB is outperforming the banking system in business lending but losing ground in investor mortgages.

Benchmark Indicators

Australian economy at a glance

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Political Data Alerts

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Priority monitoring and rapid analysis of the releases that matter to government relations, corporate affairs and policy teams.

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Westpac

Westpac under Anthony Miller: business growth strong, housing still lagging

Westpac is growing strongly in business lending and deposits under CEO Anthony Miller, but APRA data show it continues to lose relative ground in housing.

Strong growth in instant payments - NPP

Australia’s payments transformation continues, with rapid growth in real-time NPP transfers, rising card spending, fewer ATM withdrawals and another sharp fall in cheque use.

The Productivity Commission just updated its dashboard - not good

The Productivity Commission’s latest dashboard shows whole-economy labour productivity fell 0.2% over the year to June 2026. Labour productivity measures the amount of economic output produced for each hour worked. More concerning is the longer-term result. Over the past five years, Australian labour productivity has declined

United States

US gas prices remain above $4 with 58 days to midterms

US regular gasoline remains above $4 a gallon. With 58 days until the midterms, prices are 33% above their level immediately before the 2024 election.

Labour Market

Why does public administration capture 8.8% of employee compensation from 5.9% of hours worked?

Public Administration and Safety accounts for less than 6% of Australian hours worked but almost 9% of employee compensation — the largest positive gap of any industry. The statistic raises an intriguing question about why.

Australian Jobs Growth

Australia’s jobs boom is increasingly a care-and-government story

Australia added about 1.29 million main jobs between June 2022 and June 2026. Health, education and public administration accounted for roughly 689,000 of them — 53.4 per cent of the total increase.

Australian Non-market Employment Growth

One-quarter of the economy generated almost half of the growth in hours worked under Labor

Nearly half of the increase in hours worked since Labor came to office has occurred in health, education and public administration. ABS data shows non-market hours grew 18.9%, compared with 7.6% across the market economy.

Cash Distribution System

Background: Armaguard designation

The RBA has brought Armaguard inside Australia’s new Cash Distribution Framework only a week after the legislation commenced. Here is why cash distribution is under pressure, what the new powers do and what the change means for Australians.

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