Bad news unemployment is above what was expected and at the 2027 budget and RBA estimate level however we are in May 2026, putting some questions over our 'experts' and if you can 'really' trust any of the BS they spill. The silver lining for mortgage holders this will likely hold off a rate hike.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-21/unemployment-rate-jum…
Yep.. and dont forget usually those migrants are having a lot babies….
After ALP's shambolic budget this year, running a small business in this country is also about to become far less attractive. So I would only expect to see more small businesses sold off & fail, or to never be started going forward. That means fewer employment opportunities.
Strong disagree.
This ALP budget has significantly levelled the playing field for small business vs. other investments, and will push much more money into small business.
Previously, if you invested in property, you could offset operating losses against your personal income (i.e. negative gearing). You could not do that with small business losses. In other words, if you invested in a small business instead and you happened to make an operating loss in a year, you would not be able to offset that against your personal income.
Now, small businesses are treated equally against other forms of investment (notably real estate). Making property investment less attractive is overall great for small business - real estate is a terribly unproductive asset, it's almost purely speculative, rental yields are abysmal, and pushing investor money out of real estate will mean that money gets invested in more productive assets, e.g. small businesses, which are comparatively now more attractive.
In addition, small businesses are now able to access huge instant asset write-offs which will encourage investment in long term assets that improve productivity and output - this is now up to $20k, which is huge for many small businesses. Two-year loss carry-back is also great as it encourages more risk taking and investment - if you take a big risk or take on a big depreciation bill from large CapEx, you can offset against taxes paid over two years (instead of just one previously).
CGT broadly a non-issue for most small business that run in the family and will be passed down from generation to generation. No changes to inheritance taxes are still extremely favourable for privately held small businesses.
All of the small business owners whinging about the budget have no idea what they're talking about, and likely could not give one example of how they would be adversely impacted. More likely than not, they will access ALP policies such as the instant asset write-offs. Shit talk the ALP, then silently take advantage of ALP policies.
small businesses are now able to access huge instant asset write-offs
Introduced in 2015-16 by Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey. It's been renewed under 'temporary' arrangements ever since. So it's been in place for 10 years already. That the current government intends to make it 'permanent' is just a formality at this point.
ALP policies such as the instant asset write-offs
Yeah, nah. As I already said, the instant asset write off was an LNP invention.
Mate, you've got a real short memory, it was introduced by Gillard and the LNP whinged about it the entire time before repealing it.
Tell me, how exactly can the LNP campaign on repealing something 2 years before they 'invented' it?
https://www.smartcompany.com.au/startupsmart/tony-abbott-and…
@Jolakot: Context, my dear Jolakot. Context.
The Coalition opposed the policies at the time of their introduction, as they were linked to the carbon tax.
I was mistaken though. It was actually Howard who introduced it and it started out at $1k. https://www.accountantsdaily.com.au/business/20129-some-cert…
Abbott later increased it to $20k from 2015/16.
@tenpercent: That's money well spent by Gina Rhinehart then, that you still believe it was ever about the carbon tax a decade later!
The instant asset write off was to be 75% funded by the Minerals Resource Rent Tax and 25% by carbon tax, they could have given it a haircut from $6500 to $5000 and killed the carbon tax to fully decouple them.
The coalition with help from billionaire mining magnate Clive Palmer killed the minerals tax claiming the loopholes he put into it made it ineffective, which killed the program.
People have short memories.
I was mistaken though. It was actually Howard who introduced it and it started out at $1k.
You are still mistaken, instant depreciation of lower value assets was introduced in 1915 by the Fisher Labor Government.
You are still mistaken, instant depreciation of lower value assets was introduced in 1915 by the Fisher Labor Government.
Is that the same thing though? If it is, then you too were mistaken. Gillard… lol.
The Fisher Labor Government (back when Labor was still for the workers) has more in common with Pauline Hanson's One Nation than with Albo's ALP.
| Fisher Labor Government | One Nation Party | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 1908–09, 1910–13, 1914–15 | 1997–present |
| Core Philosophy | Australian nationalism, worker empowerment | Australian nationalism, citizen empowerment |
| Approach | State-led nation-building | State-led protection of national interests |
| Fisher Labor | One Nation |
|---|---|
| Government-owned banking: Established the Commonwealth Bank (1911) as a "people's bank" to guarantee depositor security, provide affordable banking services, and keep financial power in Australian hands | Government-owned banking: Advocates for a "People's Bank" to "utilize the credit of nation for the benefit of the people" — ensuring government serves the public interest rather than private banking profits |
| Paper currency: Australian Notes Act (1910) provided for Commonwealth note issue, securing monetary sovereignty | Cash mandate: Supports mandating cash acceptance to protect financial access for all Australians, including elderly and regional communities |
| Fisher Labor | One Nation |
|---|---|
| Nation-building infrastructure: Trans-Australian Railway, construction of Canberra as national capital, Royal Australian Navy | Nation-building infrastructure: Project Iron Boomerang/East West Line — a visionary rail corridor linking Queensland's coal fields with Western Australia's iron ore, with steel plants at both ends |
| Economic development: Active government role in building national infrastructure to unite the continent | Economic development: Active government role in building strategic infrastructure to process resources domestically and create jobs |
| Fisher Labor | One Nation |
|---|---|
| Protectionism: Australian Industries Preservation Act, Navigation Act (1913), land taxes to break up large estates, tariffs to support local industry | Protectionism: Opposes foreign ownership of Australian land and resources, supports local businesses, wants multinationals to pay "fair share" of tax |
| Anti-monopoly: Sought federal powers to regulate monopolies (1911, 1913 referenda) to protect workers and small businesses | Anti-corporate: Criticizes corporate influence, wants to ensure government services like NDIS benefit people not corporate profiteers |
| Fisher Labor | One Nation |
|---|---|
| Price controls: Responded to Labor calls in 1915 for price controls to protect families from war profiteering and cost-of-living increases | Price caps: Supports short-term price caps on rent and gas prices to help families with cost-of-living pressures |
| Fisher Labor | One Nation |
|---|---|
| White Australia Policy: Immigration policy designed to preserve British/European culture and values while maintaining a cohesive national identity; used dictation tests to ensure immigrants could integrate into Australian society | Opposition to multiculturalism: Preserving Australian values, social cohesion, and integration; seeks to reduce immigration cap to 130,000 to match infrastructure capacity and housing availability |
| Population policy: Supported managed immigration levels to maintain cultural continuity and prevent competition with Australian workers | Sustainable population: Wants to reduce immigration to protect Australian workers from downward pressure on wages and to ensure infrastructure and services can support the population |
| Fisher Labor | One Nation |
|---|---|
| Constitutional referenda: Held multiple referenda (1911, 1913) to expand federal powers over trade, commerce, corporations, industrial matters, monopolies, and railway disputes | Citizens Initiated Referenda: Advocates for direct democracy allowing citizens to propose legislation or referendum questions, giving people a direct voice |
| Federal power expansion: Sought to increase Commonwealth authority over states to enable national economic coordination | Federal action: Supports strong federal leadership in areas like banking, infrastructure, and immigration to serve national interest |
| Democratic reform: Attempted to overcome constitutional constraints through popular vote to empower the people | Democratic reform: Seeks to give citizens direct say over laws that affect them. Wants Citizens’ Initiated Referenda. |
| Policy Area | Shared Approach |
|---|---|
| Banking | Government-controlled national banking to serve public interest over private profit |
| Currency | Support for physical currency and monetary sovereignty |
| Infrastructure | Ambitious, nation-building projects to unite and develop Australia |
| Trade/Industry | Support for local industry, economic sovereignty, fair taxation |
| Immigration | Focus on managing immigration levels to protect workers and maintain social cohesion |
| Democracy | Direct democratic mechanisms to empower citizens |
| Market Intervention | Government action to protect families from cost-of-living pressures |
Separated by a century, both the Fisher Labor government and One Nation represent Australian nationalist traditions that prioritize national sovereignty, economic self-determination, and democratic empowerment:
Fisher built state capacity to unite the new Commonwealth, using government ownership and protectionism to secure Australian economic independence and create lasting institutions.
One Nation seeks to preserve Australian identity and the Commonwealth's economic and cultural sovereignty in an era of globalization, advocating for government intervention to ensure the nation's resources benefit Australians first.
Both share confidence in government action to serve the public interest, support for Australian-owned enterprises, protection of local industry and workers, emphasis on social cohesion, and mechanisms for direct democratic participation to ensure political power remains with the people.
The Fisher Labor Government (back when Labor was still for the workers) has more in common with Pauline Hanson's One Nation than with Albo's ALP.
Obviously.
Albo's ALP is governing in the 21st century.
Pauline Hanson's One Nation is an irrelevant party harking back to the past, so it's no surprise then that there's significant overlap with what we were doing in the 1910s.
Imagine glorifying the 1910s. You'd probably be in the process of getting shipped off to Europe to fight a war Australia had no business being a part of, being hung out to dry by the "motherland" we were trying to help, and basically left to be ambushed by enemy forces. Even if you survived by some miracle, you'd probably die of the Spanish flu. Why anyone would want to be compared favourably to whatever nonsense was happening in 1910 is beyond me.
@p1 ama: I got the AI to note the commonalities. Of course there are many differences too. The point wasn't "the 1910s were so great". The point was that Labor used to be (e.g. under Fisher, as brought up by Jolakot, not me) strongly pro-Australia and fiercely pro-working class, but today they’re the opposite. Meanwhile today it is One Nation has taken up the mantle instead.
If you want your cost of living to keep soaring and you want your wages and bargaining power as a working Australian to be undercut by masses of cheap foreign labour, then vote 1 ALP. If you don't want that, then choose someone else.
If you want your cost of living to keep soaring and you want your wages and bargaining power as a working Australian to be undercut by masses of cheap foreign labour, then vote 1 ALP. If you don't want that, then choose someone else.
The dichotomy is not that simple though. Ultimately, unless productivity grows, we basically have two paths:
Use immigration as a way of increasing our economic output by increasing labour supply as opposed to labour productivity - this is the situation you describe where ultimately wages will be pushed down and costs will be pushed up locally
If you were to become more protectionist, and have less immigration, then we would basically see the AUD tank, and given we are import dependent, we would see rampant inflation, and erosion of real wages
Immigration is a symptom, not a root cause - it's actually broadly irrelevant, as you can just always scale the economy by the number of people. Imagine we have double the output, double the capital, double the people, double everything - nobody would be better or worse off.
The underlying issue is stagnant productivity. We have too many people employed in service sector jobs, all of our major corporations are in highly inefficient, labour intensive, low growth industries. We are not innovative. We have a culture of corporate risk aversion. We have arduous red tape that makes it incredibly difficult to do anything. Our society actively punishes people who are creative, different, smart, or push boundaries (i.e. the tall poppy syndrome). We have a public sector that has basically become like an employer of last resort. We have people who have not upskilled since the 20th century, and are protected by complex enterprise agreements.
Goes to my next point which is:
The point was that Labor used to be (e.g. under Fisher, as brought up by Jolakot, not me) strongly pro-Australia and fiercely pro-working class, but today they’re the opposite. Meanwhile today it is One Nation has taken up the mantle instead.
I'm not an ALP hack - I just think there are no better options.
In a way I'm the opposite to One Nation - they're economically protectionist and socially conservative. I'm economically liberal and socially progressive. I also find some supporters of One Nation to be a bit disingenuous - the whole immigration thing seems like a dog whistle sometimes. People who are anti-immigration for social reasons pretend to be against it for economic reasons to make themselves look better.
Ultimately, the ALP are not as economically liberal as I would want - I've been hoping for a productivity, simplification, "get things done" agenda, paired with generational tax reform which will drastically lower income taxes and make up the difference with consumption and inheritance taxes, and closure of complex tax loopholes.
The LNP are a clown show at this point. I'm probably closer politically to teal independents, who are probably closest to the ALP these days.
@tenpercent: Thanks for sharting out this AI slop for us. Very educative!
Seriously though, I find it interesting that right-wing / anti-government types are heavily and enthusiastically outsourcing their thinking to AI chatbots. Log onto any right wing facebook page and it's full of numpties posting AI slop. I bet most of them don't even realise — or care — how fake it all is.
posting AI slop
Is your display pic AI generated?
I think you'll find 99.999% of my comments are purely NI. I post one AI assisted response (as distinct from AI generated) because I CBF responding the unintelligent brainwashed slop I was replying to and suddenly I'm supposedly "enthusiastically reliant on AI chatbots". FFS.
Feel free to refute anything I actually posted though without resorting to ad hom, if you can.
Log onto any right wing facebook page
I don't use fartbook, so I wouldn't know. That seems to be something you're into.
anti-government types
I realise you're possibly only intimating, but just to clear things up: I'm anti- this government.
@tenpercent: The whole premise of your, uh, "AI-assisted" comparison is stupid, as another user has already pointed out. Labor has evolved with the times, and continues to be "strongly pro-Australia and fiercely pro-working class" in the year of our lord 2026 — despite the moaning of the wealthy elite and their lackies that own the Australian media. Stay mad about it.
@Ozybargdias: Inviting an additional 1.3 million more people into the country to compete for jobs and housing, putting downward pressure on wages (primarily low skilled or unskilled) and putting upward pressure on cost of living is explicitly not "pro-working class".
This. This budget is trying to steer people to invest in businesses - that's where money should be made. De-couple housing from being an inflated asset. People were complaining about housing. Now they're trying to fix it, and aren't happy about it.
You'd do a better job of that by retaining the CGT discount for those other asset classes then. Instead they've made Australia's business environment substantially less competitive than other similar jurisdictions. They're only promoting investing into superannuation by disincentivizing investing in anything else.
Instead they've made Australia's business environment substantially less competitive than other similar jurisdictions.
This budget exactly identifies it and addresses it. See the budget papers.
Everyone is a budget expert now because it cuts their benefits. Which is what the country exactly needs now. No one system is perfect, and you can't fix a country with a single budget. At least accept they're trying to put it on the right track.
They're only promoting investing into superannuation by disincentivizing investing in anything else.
Not true. They've cut the easy money loophole.
Everyone is a budget expert now because it cuts their benefits.
I don't know if you're directing that toward me, but I'm personally not directly impacted very much by this budget apart from capital gains post June 2027. I am, as is the rest of the country, indirectly impacted by the effect it will have on cost of living and investment in this country.
At least accept they're trying to put it on the right track.
I fundamentally disagree with you there.
I feel like this has brought other investments down and small business up marginally.
I don't think people will see the risk profile of running a business worth it over other investments. Property and shares are less attractive than before but I don't see taking the risk of running a business as becoming the new way to invest.
Costello's kids(assets.crikey.com.au) (born primarily between 2004 and 2008), an estimated total of 1.5 million Aussies, are just now graduating from university, finishing traineeships or reaching adulthood and entering the job market.
I thought most of Howards baby bonus kids were out stealing cars, wielding machetes and doing home invasions, at least they are according to every local Facebook crime page.
thats melb for ya
No we imported the ones stealing cars and wielding machetes and doing home invasions
It's definitely going to get worse before it gets any better…
After ALP's shambolic budget this year, running a small business in this country is also about to become far less attractive. So I would only expect to see more small businesses sold off & fail, or to never be started going forward. That means fewer employment opportunities.
it isnt just this they artificially increase the min wage like 15% which Zero improvement in productivity all this did was fuel inflation as businesses passed on the cost
further pumping us with needlessly high migration to avoid a 'technical recession'
throw in the shit load of financial damage Net Zero is doing
we actually might be seeing the 'worst' government this country has ever had - i honestly dont know how anyone who has a little bit of common sense can support the Federal ALP and if you're in Victoria i dont know how anyone can support the ALP at all or ANY party that lines themselves with their communist ideology
Pauline talked about taxing LNG and starting a Sovereign wealth fund similar to Denmark and i actually found myself saying i agree with you and 'perhaps' you are the change Australia needs
It is also good to see the LNP starting to realise that their job isnt to be ALP-Lite but to be the 'opposition' the budget reply was great hopefully it results in better government in the future
I agree with most of what you said, except this:
It is also good to see the LNP starting to realise that their job isnt to be ALP-Lite but to be the 'opposition' the budget reply was great hopefully it results in better government in the future
The LNP is just realising that right leaning people have an actual, viable option now, rather than the incessant centrists in the liberal party, so they're getting worried and making a bit more noise than usual, but you can rest assured that that's all it is; noise. They won't be following through on their promises, the last 20 or so years have shown us that, they're only worried now that their easy game of musical chairs with labor might be coming to an end.
Don't let them get away with their BS.
rather than the incessant centrists in the liberal party
Lol, the Liberal party has been dominated by far right fundy christians for a while now. The only party plagued by ineffectual centrists has been Labor.
What you're talking about is the rise of a party not afraid to be openy ignorant and racist - not to mention corrupt, taking bribes from billionaire mining magnates and oh, yeah, going to prsion for electoral fraud. But yeah, morons who need help tieing their shoes will vote for her because they want an excuse to be openly racist again.
Pauline talked about taxing LNG and starting a Sovereign wealth fund similar to Denmark and i actually found myself saying i agree with you and 'perhaps' you are the change Australia needs
Like most politicians, she’s full of hot air. But now she’s found something she can use to con more people than usual.
Like most politicians, she’s full of hot air. But now she’s found something she can use to con more people than usual.
Unlike the Uni party and the Greens she has never held real power to make decisions
i agree with you but considering the promises this current government has broken i think i'd rather Pauline over Albo by a country mile
Id at the point where anyone supporting this government still is probably a rusted on ALP shill and not worth debating with they're probably the worst government i have ever seen - between ALP Vic and ALP Federal the country is going down the toilet
Even if you look at the backlash and the 'same' shill who defended ALP in every post are trying to spin one of the biggest blunders of a budget in history - i mean it is embarressing when people defend bad politics like a football team
Based
AI is irrelevant, you can always outsource the job to third worlders. That's what CommBank does. Saving millions in employment payment and making record profits.
Also, those in unemployment are doing great. They probably have investments and assets somewhere or a second income online.
Really it's probably 1% that's really affect
AI isn’t coming for my job. I’ve had 3 recruiters call this week. Apparently being able to fix things still beats prompting a chatbot. I must get around to taking my number off Seek.
AI isn’t coming for my job.
But some of those millions of people who do lose their job to AI, they will be coming for your job instead.
As far as I am concerned, AI can have my (fropanity) job… I welcome these "AI" bots taking my job :D
Good luck to them, I say. We all got made redundant and replaced with cheaper labour. The savings were immediate, the consequences took a few months to arrive and dwarfed the savings.
@JIMB0: Local stealership here has replaced all their "experienced" techs with 2nd and 3rd year apprentices and "Uncle Ians" after they had a huge round of "downsizing" and making life unbearable for all their top level guys, who just all up and left (as intended) and now the complaints I hear with people coming to me about how they were treated and the quality of workmanship I see on cars that were put through their new "cheaper" workshop, I would be pissed if they did some of these things to my car.
I welcome the enshitification of these places, because they treat their workers like shit so they leave and they can just employ more at minimum wage as replacements, but spend all their time on social media complaining about how "no one wants to work any more" when they cant get any replacement staff…
AI will quit if it gets my job.
Trendlines are what matters. It's only a question of when a machine can be used to erode the price of your labour, not if.
I doubt it. I fix the machines. When the machine that replaces me breaks down, they’ll still need someone to fix that too. AI also needs a big dataset of how to fix things, of which none exist other than ametures on YouTube videos and forum post. Like I said, good luck to them.
@JIMB0: The machines and AI don't even need to be directly threatening your area of expertise. What happens when tens of thousands of others who did lose their jobs directly because of AI and robotics go on to retrain and there is a sudden influx of people in the labour market who can fix stuff? You might have experience on your side but if you're not even in the ballpark on price you will lose customers/jobs to others willing to work for less and your ability to increase the price of your labour every year will diminish.
@tenpercent: Lol. Someone with soft hands who’s spent their entire career in front of a computer is hardly going to step into my role. Like I said, good luck to them if they try, they can have it. I've made plenty of money doing 2am call outs so hardly need to work these days anyway and quite enjoy my current schedule of doing whatever I want whenever I want.
When the machine that replaces me breaks down, they’ll still need someone to fix that too
You're lacking imagination, they'll just get the machine-fixer-fixer to do it. If that breaks, they've proactively built all the way up to the machine-fixer-fixer-fixer-fixer-fixer-fixer-fixer-fixer-fixer-fixer-fixer-fixer-fixer-fixer.
When the machine that replaces me breaks down, they’ll still need someone to fix that too.
Why can't they just replace it with an equivalent model from the factory and throw the old one in the bin, just like any other cheap whitegoods?
We don't fix, we replace with new. Repair is already highly niche in many domains.
AI also needs a big dataset of how to fix things
This is already a solved problem.
We can put the simulated robot into the simulated scenario and then run it a million times an hour, limited only by our compute. How long do you think it takes to evolve everything the robot needs to do the job? Probably days at most.
Still, outside of simulated data, if the people they're currently strapping a go pro to in India and having fold shirts isn't enough training data, we can always strap a go pro to you and get it. You were just a resource to your employer yesterday, you'll be one today, and the day they can find an equivalent elsewhere you'll be out of a job.
Like I said, good luck to them.
Trillions of dollars of break neck research is not happening because of luck, it's happening because these players understand where this is likely to go.
There's an element of moon-shot here on the basis that we don't know what the upper bound of capability is, nor if there is some unknown showstopper, but if it just continues as is that's going to be good enough to completely alter our world in ways that are basically impossible to predict. It is very hard for me to believe that employment won't be massively impacted as a result.
@tenpercent Sounds like you have a beef with migrants. According to treasury modelling released in 2021 under FIONA (Fiscal Impact Of New Australian), migrants add $198,000 per lifetime capita whereas Australian born residents are a negative $85,000 cost to the budget bottom line. I'll take a migrant any day. The issue with unemployment is a combination supply/demand, productivity and technology shifts. Your level of understanding of economics matches your nickname.
Sounds like you have a beef with migrants.
Not at all. They're taking advantage of what has been offered to them. I won't fault any person for that. Instead, I do have a beef with successive LNP and ALP governments for flooding the country with too many people too quickly and at a time when there is a physical shortage of dwellings to house everyone in the country. And at a time when rampant inflation should have been expected (e.g. covid borrowing = money creation —> more money chasing the same amount of stuff —> inflation). And at a time when a surge in the working age population was to be expected.
treasury modelling released in 2021 under FIONA
Did they factor in the economic drain that exploding house prices and sky high rents has? To be quite frank, it is rather wasteful that such a large proportion of our population must spend so much money on housing leaving so little left over to be spent or invested in more productive and economy stimulating ways. How about the medicare and other indirect economic costs due to the mental health impacts of living in constant financial stress because your government can't stop bringing in more people to compete for scarce houses and jobs? How about the economic cost of homelessness as locals are displaced from the housing market (or were those costs misattributed to the unfortunate locals to skew their economic cost to the budget bottom line)?
whereas Australian born residents are a negative $85,000 cost to the budget bottom line.
Perhaps so many young Australians wouldn't be unemployed and receiving Jobseeker payments and on mental health care plans (costing the taxpayer money), and instead would be gainfully employed and contributing more to their country of birth if the government had pulled back on the mass migration sooner. Any demographer worth their salt should have been able to predict the surge in young people entering the workforce about now (Costello's kids).
It sounds like you have a beef with Australians.
The issue with unemployment is a combination supply/demand, productivity and technology shifts.
Yes. I said that. Supply of housing is less than demand for housing. Supply of workers is higher than demand for workers. And AI and robotics (technology shifts) are displacing people from the workforce. You've just summarised what I already said into a single sentence. I'll concede you have outdone me on the brevity front. But I think I win on the detail.
Your level of understanding of economics matches your nickname.
Weak ad hom. Try harder.
I do have a beef with successive LNP and ALP governments for flooding the country with too many people too quickly and at a time when there is a physical shortage of dwellings to house everyone in the country. And at a time when rampant inflation should have been expected (e.g. covid borrowing = money creation —> more money chasing the same amount of stuff —> inflation). And at a time when a surge in the working age population was to be expected.
But there's also the flip side of the coin. Without immigration, Australia faces a pretty grim demographic future.
The median age of Australians has risen dramatically over the last 30-40 years, and the percentage of Australians who are of working age has actually fallen significantly. This is primarily driven by Australians living longer, but not necessarily retiring much later. To illustrate the point, life expectancy has increased 7-8 years in this period, whilst the retirement age has increased 2 years.
In other words, the trend is towards a smaller and shrinking percentage of the population supporting (directly or indirectly) a larger and growing percentage of the population.
Aside from NDIS, services used by the elderly dominate our spending on social services - the aged pension, and Medicare (which is used disproportionately by the elderly) are the most expensive programs (perhaps unsurprisingly).
Immigration ended up being the favoured policy to combat this issue - you're bringing in people of working age, who (on average) pay more in taxes than they take in government services, and are broadly providing the aggregate labour we need to keep the whole system going.
None of this is to say immigration, in aggregate terms, is "good" or "bad", just that this is the situation we're in and all of the options we take have trade-offs.
It's worth putting all of this into some international context. It's difficult, which is why there's arguably no developed country that has "solved" this issue - sustainable economic growth, affordability, whilst maintaining a high standard of living. If anything, the standards of living in Australia are some of the highest in the world. Most developed countries are facing similar challenges to Australia and most of them are faring much worse.
Sounds like you have a beef with migrants.
no one has 'beef' with migrants we pretty much almost all at migrants the issue is high migration is making almost every major problem we have worse ie cost of living, housing, over-crowded infastructure etc
people who cant understand or refuse to accept this fact is honestly braindead
The only braindead here are those that know the problem is "supply" yet focus the solutions on the "demand" ;)
The only braindead here are those that know the problem is "supply" yet focus the solutions on the "demand" ;)
Might be the most ignorant comment i have ever read on ozbargain
Even in our fast building years in which most of the new supply was plagued with build defeacts we wouldnt be keeping up with current demand (and we are no where near that supply output)
In addition every government housing taeget has fallen well short of estimates whilst everyone migration forcast has landed above estimates
Hey one nation, can you stop with the crp yet.
Of course unemployment is up.
Net overseas migration is still bringing in many hundreds of thousands of people per year; many more people per year than the entire population of the Greater Hobart metropolitan area
“Mass” Migration has been happening for years now and only today you get one tick up in the unemployment rate and you guys pounce on it like a seagull on a chip. The unemployment rate is still near historic lows.
“Mass” Migration has been happening for years now and only today you get one tick up in the unemployment rate
I'm glad we can agree on what the problem is.
Yes, many years of mass migration, as I said. That first led to the number of family units in the country exceeding the number of dwellings available; hence skyrocketing property prices and rents. Now the number of people has exceeded the number of jobs available; hence stagnating wages and rising unemployment. It's only going to get worse from here.
What's next? Fuel rations? Bread queues? Brownouts? This government is running the country into the ground.
Inflation still above the 2-3% target and will probably persist that way for a while given Hormuz etc
even without the hindsight of the last 9ish months the RBA should not have cut rates. Hold then 1 more hike this year is my guess
So unemployment Will probably creep up to 5% TBH
Might put a hold on next interest rate increase for a month or two…
But inflation is high at 4.6% and going higher.
RBA will be confused what tto do???
Their employment mandate is secondary to inflation really
and they’ven’t an unemployment target
so yes they will hike even if unemployment exceeds 5%
They've already admitted raising rates does nothing to curb oil price related inflation. Very blunt tool given it hits about 30% of the population while making the rest richer.
oil price related inflation is 100% a global issue and even if they hike rates to 50% tomorrow oil price inflation will still be there.
So unemployment Will probably creep up to 5% TBH
im going to say it will go higher then 5% we will have a 'stagflation' situation in which we have higher unemployment and higher inflation both the RBA and the Treasurer are f—ken idiots
both fuelled inflation - 1 with spending the other with rate cuts pre-election to look after her mates who gave her the job when we certainly didnt need a cut
Dont worry the new amazing budget plan 2026 edition will fix everything
Wait for 2027… That's when they tax 47% of your Super…
20 + 27 = 47.
I think you’re onto something here
Don’t give them any more ideas…
“No Jim that’s not how indexation is supposed to work!”
Unemployment Rate Jumps to 4.5 Per Cent
I guess we better import another million people asap!
2 million! From Africa!
Not now. Ebola outbreak over there and not enough vaccines.
No vaccines at all apparently, it's some brand new Ebola strain that they have no vaccine or medication for yet. It must be very scary for the people affected.
@Kail: Yes. Whilst this is truly terrible for those souls, it is just one more reminder of how lucky we really are to be able to live in Australia.
have not been able to do career change in long time. uni studies are seemingly all dog $h!t too. lack of employment is everywhere
I’ve never had trouble finding employment with my trade. Turns out being able to make broken things unbroken is still in demand. The hardest part of uni has been watching people pay money to become less employable.
Turns out being able to make broken things unbroken is still in demand.
You're able to reverse entropy ??? 😲
You’re going a bit too deep there jv. I think he means he can fix stuff
@cashless: I think we found Christopher Pyne's secret OzBargain account…
Entropy can only be reversed locally, resulting in a greater increase elsewhere. Reducing it globally is against the law.
just need to fund the NDIS some more
/s
Fortunately the current government is doing something (no joke).
PS, drew pavlova's carbon copy videos (of the American guy in philly), claim the current government is doing nothing… while he explicitly references the ndis and government websites as the way he found dodgy providers… I.e. he walked into active investigations, decided to tamper with evidence and then turned around and used his tampering of evidence as a way to show the government that he is unhappy about how the investigations are going… You can't even pretend to be this stupid.
PS court cases, especially fraud cases, don't take seconds to get a verdict (admittedly to the dismay of the uneductaed public).
Fortunately the current government is doing something (no joke).
Nah they're not really
they have cut projections, but they haven't actually reduced the expenditure.
The expenditure on NDIS is just projected to still grow at 10% instead of 20% (not accurate figures but the point is the same).
They haven't saved any money or cut back, it's still an insane expense on the taxpayer
Well the legislation hasn't passed yet and the coalition is seemingly not wanting to help pass it…
Labor will have to get help from the cross bench who is made of the greens, David pocock, some other independents and one nation… Yeah, not great odds…
Also if you plan to have a family and plan to save some future expense by shopping at Aldi instead of Woolworths, that plan is orders of magnitude better than not planning.
Further, cutting projections means reducing currently planned expenditure…
Also if you plan to have a family and plan to save some future expense by shopping at Aldi instead of Woolworths, that plan is orders of magnitude better than not planning.
I'm glad that we agree successive Lab-Lib governments have been flying blind and writing blank cheques for NDIS spending. It's about time they came up with a sustainable funding plan. I'm less optimistic about interpreting their vague intention to cut back on the growth rate in NDIS spending as an actual plan to do so. It's more like: "We're paying too much at Woolies. Gosh gee I have no idea how to reduce the spending so let's just set a firm non-binding target to spend less in 2027 than we said we were going to spend in 2027 back in 2025. Alright, now that we solved that, let's move onto how we can destroy the entire investment landscape in the country except for that one part where our President Swan and many of our oldest and dearest comrades now work?"
In my opinion NDIS needs a complete redesign from top to bottom. Gillard going with the public-private partnership model was a stroke of idiocy (nearly a copy/paste of Howard's closure of the CES and replacement with the private for-profit Job Network; in the NDIS case there wasn't much to close already, but they established the private for-profit system we all know and love hate today). The current setup has the stink of "money for the boys", especially when more than a few multi millionaires have been minted at the taxpayers' expense acting as private middlemen. There shouldn't be a single person inbetween the government and the disabled people in need who is making a private fortune at the taxpayers expense.
@tenpercent: Spot on.
Public private partnerships are the single stupidest and most corrupt way to go about a government program/department/agency/etc.
Every provider should be a public servant who gets a wage in line with other public servant - no per job or hundreds of dollars per hour compensation (assuming generic core supports).
Here's to hope, but I'm glad there is some work being done now, especially as I have a family member who is fully dependent and their funding was cut a while back.
The person determining budget approvals was interstate and has never seen said family member (like has literally never with their own eyes seen the person they are working with). The decision needed to go to the ART and was overturned.
That's bad on its own but say a doctor says you have mild autism… it's basically a red carpet to infinite money.
admittedly to the dismay of the uneductaed public
Ironic.
Boy do I love typing on a phone with shite autocorrect.
Then again it is ultimately my obligation to proof read and thus my fault
I'm getting record high job applications these days. Several a week. It used to be several a year.
Bar for entry to submit an application has dropped significantly.
Custom resumes and CVs are trivial generate thanks to LLMs.
Just my 2c
These are walk ins and I'm not hiring 😅 Certainly heaps of AI written resumes though. Still very poorly done and straight to the shredder.
Some people really need to go outside and touch grass.
Waiting for each piece of news on inflation/employment/whatever which you have no control over leads to a pretty unhappy life.
Don't bother… They just need a reason to hate the Irish— wait, I mean Greek— SHIT, I mean CHINESE, HOLD UP, I MEA—-
Old mate Pauline wrapped it all up nicely for you. She mentioned them all in Parliament. But she didn't mention the Irsh, Greeks…I suppose when she said Africans, she meant to exclude Sth Africans but just forgot.
The usual thick headed people comment as usual like moths to the zappers.
Reading an ozbargain thread these days is just finding out how the same 5 people are going to rephrase their same opinions. It's boring.
Totally agree! People freak out of interest rate rises, ok it's annoying and makes life tougher but individually it's out of my control, same with unemployment, it just is what it is. Same with "are we in a recession??" discussions, does it matter if we meet the technical definition and someone stand on a desk and says "we are in a recession"? No, it doesn't. Life will be the same as the day before and it's out of your control.
Thank goodness they're bringing in another million Indians this year.
I think they're coming from a lot of places, eh?
I'd never even heard of these folk until yesterday.
Hopefully they all end up with somewhere safe to live and aren't made to feel unwelcome when they do arrive.
Are a million Indians in the room with you right now?
Of course unemployment is up.
Net overseas migration is still bringing in many hundreds of thousands of people per year; many more people per year than the entire population of the Greater Hobart metropolitan area.
Costello's kids (born primarily between 2004 and 2008), an estimated total of 1.5 million Aussies, are just now graduating from university, finishing traineeships or reaching adulthood and entering the job market. In fact the biggest cohort, some 300,000 born in 2008 are turning 18 this year. They've just finished high school, now they're looking for work. The government should have known that we would have an influx of up to 300k locals into the job market in 2026 and 1.5 million over several years throughout the mid 2020s. They should have put the brakes on importing so many workers many years ago in anticipation of this moment, but instead we are importing yet another 300k net this year.
On top of this massively increased competition for jobs is the fact that more and more people are losing jobs due to AI and due to belt tightening as a result of years of economic stagnation.
After ALP's shambolic budget this year, running a small business in this country is also about to become far less attractive. So I would only expect to see more small businesses sold off & fail, or to never be started going forward. That means fewer employment opportunities.
In just a few years the masses of unemployed proles will sorely regret their (and/or their parents') voting choices in the late 2010s and early 2020s.