Politics – Page 6 – Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog

Save Free Speech: Fight The Disinformation Bill!

This is an edited version of a recent live show I did on Adam Stokes channel relating to the Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024 which on the 19 September 2024, the Senate referred the provisions of the bill to the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee for report by 25 November 2024.

You have JUST SEVEN Days! as submissions close on the 30 September 2024.

This bill would severely curtain unfettered free speech by putting onerous responsibilities on social media platforms across issues as wide as electoral, health, social and economic. In practice the Government will define “truth” and will essential silence alternative voices.

You have a limited opportunity to make your views know before 1984 type conditions arrive!

Adams Live stream: https://youtu.be/jhiRS7_TE9Y

https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/MisandDisinfobill

Contact details:

Committee Secretary
Senate Standing Committees on Environment and Communications
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600

Phone: +61 2 6277 3526
ec.sen@aph.gov.au

https://citizensparty.org.au/media-releases/say-no-albaneses-orwellian-disapproved-information-censorship-bill

About this inquiry: The bill proposes to amend the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 and would make consequential amendments to other Acts to establish a new framework to safeguard against serious harms caused by misinformation or disinformation.

The bill would provide the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) with new regulatory powers to require digital communications platform providers to take steps to manage the risk that misinformation and disinformation on digital communications platforms poses in Australia. These would include obligations on providers to assess and report on risks relating to misinformation and disinformation, to publish their policy in relation to managing misinformation and disinformation, and develop and publish a media literacy plan.

The bill would also provide ACMA with new information gathering, record keeping, code registration and standard making powers to oversee digital communications platform providers.

http://www.martinnorth.com/

Window Dressing: The Ozzie Inflation Battle Raises Burning Questions For Us All!

In the past 48 hours we had a no change interest rate decision from the RBA and monthly headline inflation which dropped within the target 2-3% target range from the partial services heavy monthly data release, thanks to temporary Government handout to ease costs of living so window dressing the results, but which the RBA says they will look through in the policy deliberations.

The RBA, is facing increasing pressures at home to lower borrowing costs, with politicians sparring over the outlook on interest rates ahead of an election due by May 2025. But Bullock said the RBA won’t be dragged into politics as it is splitting with a global easing cycle as it waits for inflation to abate.

So today I want to look at the RBA statement, then delve into the detail from the inflation numbers and finally try to figure out what this all means.

The RBA last month warned the rapid rise in government outlays was one of the factors prolonging high inflation. The bank’s statement was a political headache for Dr Chalmers, and Ms Bullock subsequently softened the central bank’s stance, saying government spending was not the “main game” for inflation.

At the federal level, government spending on childcare, aged care and disability care surged by more than 20 per cent over the past year, while spending on public servant wages jumped 14.5 per cent. Spending on the NDIS has been a major driver of the explosion in government spending. The scheme, which is forecast to cost $49 billion this financial year, is growing at about 20 per cent per year and is on track to cost more than the age pension within a decade.

Since the 2019 calendar year, the underlying cost base in the construction sector has grown by a whopping 36 per cent, compared to around 21 per cent in the non-mining market sector as a whole.

As the public sector expands, productivity growth would temporarily slow as more resources poured into sectors such as healthcare and education, where productivity is about one-third lower than the private sector.

Seven Days To Stop 1984!

In this special show I am joined by Robbie Barwick from the Australian Citizens Party, and Economist John Adams, from In The Interests Of The People to underscore the need for people to make their views known to Government on the Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024 which on the 19 September 2024, the Senate referred the provisions of the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024 (the bill) to the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee for report by 25 November 2024.

You have JUST SEVEN Days! as submissions close on the 30 September 2024.

You have a limited opportunity to make your views know before 1984 type conditions arrive!

https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/MisandDisinfobill

Contact details:

Committee Secretary
Senate Standing Committees on Environment and Communications
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600

Phone: +61 2 6277 3526
ec.sen@aph.gov.au

https://citizensparty.org.au/media-releases/say-no-albaneses-orwellian-disapproved-information-censorship-bill

The bill would also provide ACMA with new information gathering, record keeping, code registration and standard making powers to oversee digital communications platform providers.

http://www.martinnorth.com/

Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/

Lies, Statistics And The “Facts” About Foreign Students And Rents…

If you want a case study of how data is used to mislead, rather than help define a problem, then look no further than the recent stoush surrounding foreign students and their impact on the housing crisis.

We have as you know seen a massive upswing in migration to Australia, after the drought through the COVID years. The current high levels continue as the latest stats show with the current Government target set to be blown past by the end of the year.

A significant element in the numbers relate to overseas students arriving in Australia ostensively to study, but often as a proxy to gain longer term residency.

Overseas students typically spend several years studying in Australia. This means that many among the record wave of students that arrived last year will be here for some years to come.

A total of 767,120 people arrived in Australia on temporary student visas over the 12 months ending June 2024. These were spread across higher education, vocational education and training (VET), schools, and English language courses.

Some argue that from a purely economic perspective, a high number of international students is good for Australia’s economy and that Education is Australia’s second largest export, bringing in around $36.4 billion over the 2023 financial year.

Universities Australia chief executive Luke Sheehy said international enrolments should not be blamed for housing woes. “Using students as cannon fodder in the migration battle risks the viability of our universities and as national accounts show, the growth of our economy,” he said.“International students contributed more than anything to Australia’s GDP growth last year.

While it was certainly one of the factors that prevented Australia from entering into a technical recession last year, the truth is this is a statistical trick, as we have highlighted before, because many overseas students also work in Australia, and often send funds back overseas. See my recent discussions with Cameron Murray and Tarric Brooker, who have pealed back the truth – though the same lie about the economic contribution of foreign students is trotted out regularly by academics trying to defend their mismanaged of the economics of education, and to resist the proposed cap on students ahead.

The move has sent the education sector spinning, at a time when Government funding for universities is taking a back seat, and when nabbing vast numbers of overseas students have been required to make university budgets work. And of course, a whole new industry designed to pull overseas students into the country, with dubious educational value is in question.

http://www.martinnorth.com/

Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/

Find more at https://digitalfinanceanalytics.com/blog/ where you can subscribe to our research alerts

Today’s post is brought to you by Ribbon Property Consultants.

If you are buying your home in Sydney’s contentious market, you do not need to stand alone. This is the time you need to have Edwin from Ribbon Property Consultants standing along side you.

Buying property, is both challenging and adversarial. The vendor has a professional on their side.

Emotions run high – price discovery and price transparency are hard to find – then there is the wasted time and financial investment you make.

Edwin understands your needs. So why not engage a licensed professional to stand alongside you. With RPC you know you have: experience, knowledge, and master negotiators, looking after your best interest.

Shoot Ribbon an email on info@ribbonproperty.com.au & use promo code: DFA-WTW/MARTIN to receive your 10% DISCOUNT OFFER.

Broken City!

Home builders are falling off the perch at an alarming rate with high rates of insolvency among construction firms, many of whom were homebuilders, to 3,000 in the past year. While many of these were small firms, we are still seeing a spate of larger firms going under. We are encountering more people in our 1:1 discussions with people coping with half built projects, no builder to take over the work, rising costs and blown out completion dates. No wonder people prefer to buying existing property.

The latest quarterly data on the value of construction work done also fell by 0.1% over Q2 to be 2.9% lower year-on-year.

More broadly, The Albanese Government is a complete mess on housing with the three bills that comprise its $32bn Housing for Australia plan blocked in the senate. These include The Help to Buy shares equity scheme. The Housing Future Fund equity investment vehicle to build just 13,000 houses per year. And the Build to Rent legislation which is designed to assist corporate to get tax breaks to build and then rent units, probably at higher than market rents. After all they are designed to make profits for those investing corporates and superfunds.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has threatened to use the Senate’s obstruction of Help to Buy as a trigger for a double dissolution election. Welcome to that time of the political cycle where we find ourselves burrowing into the election date speculation rabbit hole.

The real fix of course is to cut immigration significantly, as this would ease the rental shortage and lower rental inflation; which in turn would take pressure off the RBA to hold rates higher for longer enabling builders to clear the huge backlog of approvals and easing pressure on households. And on that front, Moody’s says that Australian mortgage delinquency rates, which increased over the June quarter, will continue to rise moderately over the rest of this year as high interest rates and sticky inflation put financial stress on households.

Standing back, the policy errors made by the current government are literally hitting home, and with the prospect of more political tricks on all sides of politics, the real impact on people will continue. They should be held to account for their mistakes.

http://www.martinnorth.com/

Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/

Find more at https://digitalfinanceanalytics.com/blog/ where you can subscribe to our research alerts

Today’s post is brought to you by Ribbon Property Consultants.

If you are buying your home in Sydney’s contentious market, you do not need to stand alone. This is the time you need to have Edwin from Ribbon Property Consultants standing along side you.

Buying property, is both challenging and adversarial. The vendor has a professional on their side.

Emotions run high – price discovery and price transparency are hard to find – then there is the wasted time and financial investment you make.

Shoot Ribbon an email on info@ribbonproperty.com.au & use promo code: DFA-WTW/MARTIN to receive your 10% DISCOUNT OFFER.

Look Who’s Wealthy Now!

One of the factors I see in my household surveys is wealth transfer from one generation to another, stoked by the paper wealth created by the massive upswing in home prices. We see more first-time buyers being assisted by the Bank of Grandparents, alongside the Bank of Mum and Dad. This means there is a historic wealth transfer is under way in Australia, for those fortunate enough to have parents or grandparents with assets, tough on those with none of those onramps to property and wealth. With a large chunk of that wealth stored in residential property assets, the shift is already reshaping property market activity, and will intensify in the years to come.

In my surveys I encounter a theme quite often, households who cannot get into the property market while their friends and colleagues seem able to do so. So how come some can and some cannot?

Well, it could be that others are simply just better at saving. Hustling. Investing. Negotiating salary. The second: they’ve got a loan of cash injection from the Bank of Mum and Dad or Grandparents (though often its not clear whether they will have to pay it back. And third, they are a beneficiary of the great intergenerational wealth transfer.

Demographic research firm McCrindle just published a report and they say Baby Boomers are passing on an estimated $6.2 trillion of capital to their children and grandchildren.

Since 2013, the percentage of 25 to 34-year-olds who think that Australia is a land of economic opportunity, where hard work brings a better life, has fallen from 80 per cent to 51 per cent. The same trend was observed across all age groups.

“Belief in the fair go … appears to be declining. We estimate that overall agreement that Australia is a land of economic opportunity has declined by 16 percentage points since 2013,” the researchers found.

http://www.martinnorth.com/

Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/