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Craig Emerson

This Month

RBA governor Michele Bullock.

RBA should cut rates and not be fooled by trimmed mean inflation

The actual inflation rate Australian consumers and businesses feel is now within the designated target range of 2-3 per cent. The RBA should not ignore this.

December 2024

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has announced a new effort at national competition policy.

Trump won due to worker resentment. Could the same happen here?

Beyond the effects on measured productivity growth, when it comes to shared prosperity, we also need to look at the role of pure profits.

In a speech on Thursday, governor Michele Bullock doubled down, stating that the Reserve Bank judges “that conditions in the labour market remain tighter than what would be consistent with low and stable inflation”.

Reserve Bank is needlessly smashing jobs

By arbitrarily and wrongly defining full employment, the RBA will cause misery for vulnerable working Australians and small business owners that is entirely avoidable.

November 2024

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the APEC summit in Lima.

Australia a beacon for free-traders as Trump erects tariff walls

Australia is championing free trade at APEC and the G20 meetings. China’s practical support will now be critical.

Should the RBA join its peers and stop worrying about food price inflation?

What is the Reserve Bank waiting for? The data says cut

If Martin Place insists on holding the cash rate until unemployment rises substantially, it risks plunging Australia into a painful recession.

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October 2024

The WTO now faces the gravest crisis of many that it has dealt with.

How Australia can help save rules-based trade

The global trading system of trade rules faces its gravest crisis since its inception. There is a way out and Australia can help.

The summit-driven reform politics of Hawke and Keating are unthinkable now.

Who killed economic reform? There are plenty of suspects

Modern elections have become a race to rule policies out, not a way of launching big ideas.

September 2024

 Taxpayers in NSW and Victoria are being called upon to pay coal-fired power stations to stay open.

Dutton’s nuclear folly is an economy wrecker

Under the Coalition, Australian manufacturing would face a decade of uncertainty and taxpayers would finance the renationalisation of electricity generation.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has been getting plenty of advice on how to manage inflation.

Rate decisions have to follow the data, not the dogma

Leading economic indicators have to be our guide, and they are all pointing towards an avoidable recession.

August 2024

Andrew Hauser says we must beware of overconfident economic commentators.

Why you should hear out Andrew Hauser

The recessionistas out there should be listening to the RBA deputy governor’s warnings against overconfidence in predicting the economy.

Australia can start marketing wine in China again after tariffs were removed this year.

High-level dialogue shows China chill is ending

The resumed annual face-to-face meeting of government and industry has been crucial to stabilising the relationship.

There is no need for the RBA to have another stab at raising rates.

RBA must say no to the Recessionistas out there

The Reserve Bank is taking its dual mandate seriously and seems to be ignoring the incessant clamouring for another rise in the cash rate.

July 2024

Stage three tax cuts are part of a steady improvement of the economy.

Albanese can’t afford distractions now

The prime minister has to shrug off culture wars and Green taunts to focus relentlessly on an improving economy.

The MAGA and Brexit movements disobey the commonsense rules of economics.

Economic logic always trumps junk politics

Brexit, MAGA trade policies, and the Coalition’s nuclear power push will fail because they make no economic sense.

June 2024

The new code views penalties as essential to working effectively.

Why this is a practical, workable supermarket code of conduct

The new code offers the best of both a mandatory and voluntary system of compliance for the supermarket giants.

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 Contemplate Australia’s history: unemployment exceeded 10 per cent in the recessions of the early 1980s and the early ’90s.

Recessions are nasty and shouldn’t be engineered to tame inflation

Talk of a need to increase the cash rate is misguided – especially so when the main culprits behind the 3.6 per cent inflation rate are identified.

May 2024

We must protect Australia’s free and open economy

Australia prospered in an open postwar world economy. But a new generation has less faith in it.

Critics of the Albanese government’s gas strategy seem content for governments to prolong the lives of coal-fired power stations at taxpayers’ expense.

Gas critics are signing up for coal and candles

The climate movement needs to ask itself what is worse: gas in the new energy mix, or coal that lingers for longer.

April 2024

Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ budget will not be inflationary.

RBA must ignore the band of economists pushing a rate rise

The Reserve Bank should not be firing up its interest rate models on the strength of inflation that is now steadily dropping into target range.

Compulsory grocery code strikes right balance

The interim report seeks to prevent big supermarkets from abusing their market power while rejecting populist policies such as forced divestiture of stores.

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/by/craig-emerson-h1fprr