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29 Aug Mining’s skills problem is unusually specialised 29 Aug Australia versus America: ten numbers that tell a different economic story 28 Aug The strange death of Australia’s standard variable mortgage rate

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Australian Economy

Mining’s skills problem is unusually specialised

New ABS data shows that mining’s workforce problem is not simply a shortage of labour. Among mining businesses experiencing skill shortages, 77.3% say specialist skills or knowledge are required — the highest proportion of any industry.

Australia versus America: ten numbers that tell a different economic story

Australia and the United States currently have remarkably similar headline inflation and wage growth, but beneath those numbers the two economies are moving in quite different directions. July consumer price inflation was 3.5% in Australia and 3.4% in the United States, while wages increased by exactly 3.2%

Banks

The strange death of Australia’s standard variable mortgage rate

RBA Table F5 is a monthly dataset of indicator lending rates. In plain English, that means it reports the headline rates lenders advertise across products such as small business lending, housing loans and credit cards. Within the mortgage series, two terms matter. A standard variable rate is the lender’s

Debit Cards

Australians make three debit card payments for every credit card payment

Australians make more than three debit-card payments for every credit-card payment, but international payment habits vary enormously.

BIS

Australia has fast payments — but other countries use them much more

Australians made 1.66 billion fast payments in 2024, but BIS data show usage per person remains well below several international leaders.

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BIS

Australians make 768 cashless payments a year

New BIS data show Australians make more than two cashless payments per person every day, with cards accounting for three-quarters of transactions.

General Insurance

Home insurance premiums keep rising — but APRA data show no profit windfall

Home insurance is becoming increasingly expensive, but new APRA data show the householders insurance service result fell from a $1.15 billion profit to a small loss in 2025–26.

Life Insurance

Mental health claims are becoming a superannuation cost problem

Mental-health-related TPD claims are surging, placing pressure on insurance premiums inside superannuation and creating a new tension with retirement adequacy.

Private Health Insurance

Private health costs are rising — but insurer profits fell 16.6%

APRA data show private health insurance claims rose faster than premium revenue in 2025–26, while industry after-tax profit fell 16.6%.

Private Health Insurance

Private health cover grows as hospital out-of-pocket costs jump 7.5%

More Australians are holding private health insurance, but APRA data show average hospital out-of-pocket costs rose 7.5% over the year to $513.24 per episode.

Competition

How concentrated is Australia's MySuper market?

Australia’s MySuper market contains 52 products, but assets are much more concentrated than that headline number suggests. The ten largest products hold 74.5% of MySuper assets, while the market has the same concentration as roughly 13 equally sized products.

Superannuation

What do we know about superannuation fees? Some core data

APRA publishes detailed information on individual superannuation funds and their basic superannuation products (called MySuper products). Bringing those datasets together provides a useful starting point for understanding how large Australia's major funds are, what they charge members for administration, and whether greater scale is associated with lower fees.

Reserve Bank of Australia

Three (blunt) politically relevant messages from the latest RBA Minutes

The latest RBA Minutes contain three unusually clear political messages on interest rates, Australia’s productivity problem and the weakening housing market.

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