Benchmark Analytics

Independent economic and financial services analysis

Original analysis of new Australian economic and financial-services data.

Subscribe Explore Political Data Alerts

Latest updates

1 Sep Victoria is approving more homes than NSW despite having 1.5 million fewer people 1 Sep Queensland's government budget starting to get out of control 1 Sep Morning cartoon

Latest analysis

Housing

Victoria is approving more homes than NSW despite having 1.5 million fewer people

Victoria approved more dwellings than New South Wales in July despite having around 1.5 million fewer residents. On a per-capita basis, its approval rate is approximately 25 per cent higher.

Queensland

Queensland's government budget starting to get out of control

Queensland recorded an $8.4 billion operating deficit and $19.1 billion of net borrowing in 2025–26, giving it the largest borrowing requirement relative to revenue of any Australian state or territory.

Morning cartoon

Investor housing credit hits the brakes as tax and rate changes bite

The first clear signs of Australia's investor housing slowdown are now appearing in the stock of mortgage credit. Reserve Bank of Australia data released on 31 August show investor housing credit grew just 0.46% in July, around 0.3 percentage points slower than in June and the

Economy

Australia's two-speed business economy: mining profits surge while retail profits slump

Australian company profits rose in the June quarter, but the headline disguises a sharp divide: mining profits surged 6.8% while retail profits slumped 5.2%.

Political Data Alerts

Know what the new data means.

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

Explore Political Data Alerts

More analysis

Australian Mortgage Market

Macquarie's housing loan book just grew 25.9% in 12 months

Macquarie added $38.2 billion to its housing loan book over the year to July 2026, accounting for almost a quarter of the increase across Australia's banking system.

Australian Economy

Household spending rebound makes the RBA’s job harder

Household spending has risen strongly for three consecutive months, with discretionary expenditure now growing faster than spending on essentials.

Australian Economy

Labor’s investment boom survives a data-centre hangover

Private capital expenditure fell in June, but the headline masks strong annual growth, rising investment intentions and an extraordinary data-centre investment cycle.

The UK economy looks very weak

Australia and Britain face many of the same economic problems, but the latest data show Australia currently has the stronger economy — accompanied by a more difficult inflation problem. Australian real GDP grew 2.5% over the year to the March quarter, compared with just 0.9% in Britain. Australia'

Australian mortality data

Dark stats - Key findings from the latest mortality data

The latest ABS data show a growing number of deaths as Australia ages, but declining underlying mortality rates across most major measures.

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

Independent economic and financial services analysis

Latest analysis

Know what the new data means.

More analysis

Independent analysis when decisions matter

Never miss new Benchmark analysis