Jeor

Yeah, they shouldn't have appealed for a time out in that circumstance. Matthews was already on the field and there was an obvious accidental reason why he was delayed in taking the crease. I didn't actually see it but I wonder what discretion the umpires have to advise (or at least clarify) with a captain as to whether they want to withdraw the appeal.

I agree. I think the "bad news is good news" vibe is going to come off the boil pretty soon. Yes, the jobs numbers mean that the Fed probably won't raise rates again, but conversely it also sounds like the real economy is going to start tanking soon and that's not good for anyone - and the bad news will be bad news.

I think they'll probably do one more rate rise (but probably not two like others are predicting). The new RBA governor Bullock needs to show her inflation-fighting credentials, and standing pat at this next meeting would send a bad signal. Petrol was a big component of inflation which doesn't really lend itself to rate rises (which aren't going to crimp demand for petrol or make it cheaper) so that might be the only thing on a technical basis that argues for continuing the pause. Albo and Biden loving it up again. Albo has spent a lot of time on foreign affairs and overseas trips. It's good PR and I think he has generally done a good job in foreign affairs, but sooner or later voters are really going to want him to focus on domestic issues (but not the Voice, as shown at the referendum).

Yes, campaigning badly and campaigning against it are not morally equivalent, I'll agree with that. But in terms of the contribution towards the final result, I don't think it's the right allocation to blame it all on Dutton/media types. There's plenty of blame to share around and Albo/Yes carries a fair chunk of it.

I think the blame lays equally at the Yes campaign's lacklustre messaging as well as the No campaign's appeal to the worst in voters. For the Yes campaign to blame Dutton, Murdoch, and the media is, at best, a copout to me (and for the record, I was a Yes voter) and at worst, duplicitous and trying to paper over their own failings. The fact is, the Yes campaign was abysmal and Albo/Labor were incompetent. Many people thought Albo should have never proceeded to the referendum (or done constitutional recognition only) as there were plenty of warning signs before the date was locked in; the fact that now a 39/61 vote stands in history is partly due to his obstinacy as much as any racist signalling and scare tactics. Labor are not clean in these methods (Mediscare, anyone?) and should have expected a very tough campaign the minute Dutton opposed it. But there wasn't a unifying or cut-through message that Yes could give. On the one hand, the Voice was a momentous, fundamental change that would lift the admittedly very poor indigenous outcomes on most things; on the other hand, it was only an advisory body with very little power and no one should be scared of it. In the end, Yes couldn't really explain how both of those arguments could work together. The Australian voters have said they don't like the idea of a constitutionally-enshrined Voice (which had little detail as to how it would work and who would be on it). That's actually a pretty narrow thing to have said no to. I think everyone would agree that more needs to be done, it's just that this particular thing isn't it. There's also hope in that Yes voters were young people and wealthy people. Those two ends of the political spectrum are rarely united and show that these issues mean a great deal to two sections of society that will have a lot of heft in the future.

With stocks they always say to hold onto your winners and let them run, but bonds and fixed income is a different game - you need to anticipate changes and make movements accordingly. Sounds like a good idea!

The Yes campaign has obviously taken the Republic referendum to heart and deliberately decided not to offer any details for fear that it would turn off voters who wanted a "yes" in a different form (or providing a bigger target for "No" to attack). But the opposite tactic (offering no details) is now obviously a bad choice too. For referendums to succeed, they either need to be lay down miseres or the campaign has to pitch it somewhere in the middle - a broadly appealing proposal with enough meat on the bones. Hard to pitch!

This might surprise people (though hopefully not, given I am a moderate Liberal voter and consider myself relatively sensible) but despite my doubts about the detail, I voted Yes. To be honest, my wife convinced me and I felt bad if I voted no and cancelled hers out! There might be a few people in my boat who break for Yes at the end but, like @Paxter says, I'm sure we would be a small group compared to the undecideds who will break for No.

Yes, ordinarily cash would be a bad investment during a period of inflation. But when equities are vulnerable, property (particularly commercial property) is also weak, and bonds are tanking, I guess it's the best of a bad lot. Well picked, @Paxter! There are definitely some headwinds coming up. The odds of a US government shutdown are still very high given the Speaker shenanigans, we now have more geopolitical instability (Middle East) and with bonds going down the toilet, I wouldn't be half surprised if there's another banking failure or financial crisis around the corner. Currently my share portfolio is very conservative and I don't intend on changing it too much in the coming months. 40% in cash (bearing 5% interest), 20% in a global ETF. The remaining 40% is split evenly between a telco, oil/gas, bank and major rare earths miner. I'm comfortable with the first two companies, though I'm watching the bank and the mining company carefully.

Maybe just a little For what it's worth, rent controls (which I take to mean a cap on the amount that rents can be increased in a given period) aren't terrible if the cap is reasonable enough. I don't think the rental crisis and soaring costs in Australia can really be fixed by controls/freezes. Supply is the biggest problem, including associated issues such as NIMBY planning blockades. In a place like Sydney, they also need to make some areas more commuter-friendly.

The Stage 3 tax cuts might be disagreeable but I wouldn't consider them kooky. Modifications to income tax cuts are commonly debated and implemented. Rent freezes don't really fall into that category. Now, franking credits...that might potentially fall into the kooky category.

It's one way of doing things, and a legitimate way to build the political brand, but I think the Greens still throwing out the odd kooky policy will prevent them from being a mainstream party. To be fair, the two-party system is fairly entrenched in Australia so it's not the only thing holding them back. However, at a moment when the primary vote in the two major parties seems at a low ebb, and when climate change becomes more and more in-your-face, we need the Greens to knuckle down and force some progress, so my personal view is they should consider seizing the day by adjusting the way they operate and presenting themselves as a serious, practical alternative.

No one sensible would. But then again, the Greens proposed just as much when they spoke of freezing rent...one reason why they still can't quite be viewed as a mainstream party.

Yes, I agree there still aren't many options for controlling inflation. Price controls are far worse than raising rates as it has the end-result of constraining supply even further as businesses decide it's not worth producing. Rising rates really split the economy into winners and losers depending on who has debt or not. I know Philip Lowe gets a lot of flak for making the (blatantly incorrect) call that rates wouldn't go up until 2024, which goaded households into taking on more debt (to buy property etc). However, to play devil's advocate, if you took Lowe at his word, the error is not that rates went up, but that rates went up this early. In all cases, households should have planned for rates to rise (you shouldn't really plan your finances around a 0.1% cash rate) at the very least in three years' time as Lowe said. Unless they were planning to pay off a massive chunk of their debt in those three years grace period they thought they had, I think a lot of these overextended households would have been in trouble regardless, maybe just a bit later on in the piece. One situation that I'd have sympathy for is a family who had just had children, wanted to buy a bigger house and had the 2nd parent not working, figured this was their chance to get on the property ladder, and then figured that after 3 years the second parent could go back to work and double their income. That won't have worked out well now.

Australian, 37 years old and my wife's 42. We have two kids (10 and 2) but are still hoping we might be able to retire relatively early in the piece. In Australia, the retirement system (superannuation) basically mandates all employers to pay 10.5% of your salary each year into a superannuation fund which invests your money for you (or you can choose to manage it yourself). When you turn 60 you are then able to access this money as an income stream. Given my wife is 5 years older, I've been doing spousal transfers to her superannuation account so we can access the money sooner (assuming she doesn't divorce me before then!). Beyond super, we're also fortunate to have had incomes that allow us to save money and invest it. My wife has put hers into an investment property while I have a share portfolio. We still have a mortgage on our home (low fixed rate) but hope to pay it off in the next 3-5 years after which we can really boost our savings/investments even while looking after the kids for the next 15 years. I'm a high school teacher working in a management role, and so I expect when I retire I'd probably still do a couple of days of casual (supply) teaching on the side which is not bad money for relatively low-level work ($500/day). Assuming we downsize our house once the kids move out (hah!) we should be able to retire early (55-60) with money in superannuation, downsizing, investment property and shares, especially if I reduce our drawdown rate by doing casual teaching for a few more years.

Markets are at another turning point. Lots of comparisons to 2007 GFC with bond yields soaring, rate cuts looking less likely and everyone holding their breath to see if something breaks. The US government shutdown will possibly come into it too if it goes on longer than a couple of weeks - apparently the military won't get paid.

I think we're seeing that rates are a poor tool for controlling inflation. And it also hurts a specific portion of the population (mortgage holders) who can least afford it while leaving vast tracts of the country untouched (wealthy retirees with paid off homes). However, controlling inflation is a devilishly difficult task as it has so many different causes and the government and RBA are not always able to control any of them. However, I do think the ultra-low 0.1% interest rates were not a healthy option for the economy and normalising rates is better in the long term (although I think we can all agree the infamous forward guidance and the speed of the rises have left a lot to be desired). Having the cost of borrowing so low encouraged people to take on too much debt and caused various asset prices (particularly housing) to soar too high. Petrol prices are an interesting one. I think the current rise in prices actually helps the RBA as it has the same type of effect of rising interest rates - as a general fixed cost in household budgets it takes away spending power from other things.

I don't know, I think a wage-price spiral is starting. I'm in the education sector and this is definitely happening. Public schools in NSW recently got a (deserved) annual pay rise of approximately 12% at the lower end (75K moving to 85K for a grad teacher) and 8% at the top end (113K moving to 122K). Teachers have been voting with their feet and leaving the profession in droves because the cost of living is biting chunks out of their pay, especially if you live in Sydney. This is scaring the independent sector (schools which pay above the public school rates) and many of them are moving unilaterally to raise teacher pay even though the independent schools MEA doesn't expire until the end of 2024. Anecdotally I've heard some independent schools are going up by 10% as of Term 4 to hang onto their staff. Education is a different sector to most and the teacher shortages are very acute, which puts all the bargaining in the hands of the workers. So it's not surprising they're getting large pay bumps. But it's definitely happening sector-wide. I can understand in some white collar financial/consulting-type industries there might not be as much of this effect happening as they cut costs etc, but I think the large public sector jobs, and more heavily unionised industries are going to drive up wages by a fair bit.

It's one of the issues with referendums, I guess. Constitutional recognition couldn't happen any other way, but a Voice could have been legislated and I doubt anyone would have been particularly surprised if Albanese had done that. Labor won the election, they were very clear about having a Voice as part of their platform, so it would have been a relatively simple matter of legislating one. Now unfortunately it looks like they aimed too high for what the Australian public are ready for. It's a bit like tax reform in that what's good for the country is not necessarily appreciated by the Australian population as a whole. So a government will hope to win an election in spite of it and implement it, then hope that after it happens people will realise it's not that bad. BTW I realise this is a higher order issue than tax reform, so the analogy isn't meant to be 100%...but it's the signature dilemma of government - popular policies aren't necessarily good ones and vice versa.

I agree, I hope it all settles down quickly. People aren't likely to be surprised if the result is No, and it might start looking like a foregone conclusion, which may lower the stakes a bit and keep it lower-key.

Bump...! Rocky couple of months but the real economy is still bumbling its way along. Global interest rates look like they're roughly at their peaks but cuts are probably still a long way away. Personally I'm a bit torn; I have a bit of cash sitting on the sidelines but I'm just not convinced now is a great time to put it to work. I may regret that in a few months' time...

The strategy needed to include a lot more of a grassroots feel to it. At the moment the biggest proponents of "Yes" are Labor politicians and big business. This has the effect of making it feel like a lot of virtue-signalling rather than, as you say, more of a genuine belief in it. A better Yes campaign would have put a wide variety of indigenous leaders (not just Noel Pearson) front and centre, with Labor and large corporations playing more of a supporting/background role.

You always have to take news.com.au with a grain of salt but the research this article cites is interesting. The article implies that the "No" case is resonating more with people while the "Yes" campaign has gone off in the wrong direction and missed the mark when trying to persuade voters. The "No" case has been pretty clear with its reasons and they all work "together" in the sense that they create enough doubt to persuade enough people to vote no. No campaigns have an easier time creating doubt, they can throw enough stuff at the wall and something can stick. The "Yes" case on the other hand has made some claims that seem to work against each other - that it is an advisory body only (and hence nothing to be scared of), but also that it will result in positive, practical outcomes - implying that it is more powerful than any other initiatives that have come before it. Finally I think all the corporate sponsors etc have backfired. As the article states, big companies aren't exactly peoples' favourite cup of tea these days, especially in a cost of living crisis, so they aren't the most persuasive yes campaigners going around.

It does have the potential to be quite the official slap in the face to indigenous Australians. For this reason I do think Albanese should have given some serious thought to delaying or scrapping the referendum for now, not that he will now he's committed to a date. A failed referendum will set this process back by another 10-20 years before you can think of trying another one and you have all the collateral of a failed vote to deal with. I would have thought you could legislate the Voice first, and then after a few years when people see it's nothing to be worried about, the referendum would have a better chance of passing. Of course this is easier in hindsight now that support is slipping so low, last year when it was at 60% a referendum sounded like a good idea, so I'm not saying it would have been an easy decision.

Yes I'm assuming WA will fall into the No camp. The recent debacle with land rights did not help. But while it will be defeated on the state count, the national vote might be closer. Though they have small populations, I assume ACT and NT will be heavily in favour and I expect the national Yes vote will be closer (probably within a 45-55 split).