Leith Van Onselen

The private credit market, which has grown to around $200 billion in assets, has become a key lender to developers as traditional banks pull back from construction lending due to tightening risk appetites. However, the recent collapse of property developer Bathla Group has thrown the sector into disarray, and “the golden age of private credit

I explained on Monday why Australia’s inflation problem is primarily domestically driven, in response to Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ claims that the war in the Middle East, not excessive government spending, was driving inflation. Former RBA governor Phil Lowe and other economists last week debunked Chalmers’ claims, insisting that excessive federal government spending is driving up

The private credit market, which has grown to around $200 billion in assets, has become a key lender to developers as traditional banks pull back from construction lending due to tightening risk appetites. However, the recent collapse of property developer Bathla Group has thrown the sector into disarray. Bathla Group entered voluntary administration in late

The business lobby, policymakers, and the federal government have long argued that Australia needs to run a mass immigration program to overcome future skills shortages. The argument generally goes something like this: Australia’s population is ageing fast, and with the large baby boomer cohort heading into retirement, Australia faces an acute shortage of workers. Australia

On Tuesday, Bathla Group — one of western Sydney’s biggest home builders — entered voluntary administration after running out of cash, leaving $3.6 billion in private‑credit debt, 2,000 homes mid‑construction, and 15,000 planned dwellings in limbo. The failure threatens to disrupt the Albanese government’s national housing targets and could trigger major losses across dozens of non‑bank

Graduate (485) visas have been the second-fastest-growing category of temporary visas since Labor came to office in mid-2022. According to the Department of Home Affairs, the number of graduate visas on issue ballooned by 172,000 between Q2 2022 and Q2 2026, an increase of 175%. Pauline Hanson has demanded that all secondary applicants on student

Justin Fabo from Antipodean Macro published the following chart last week, illustrating how Australians are paying among the highest mortgage rates in the world: The gap in mortgage rates between Australia and New Zealand has also widened. Australia’s weighted-average mortgage rate was 6.28% in May, 1.45% higher than New Zealand’s 4.83%. Australia’s world-beating mortgage rates

Realestate.com.au reports that Australians — including high‑income professionals earning six‑figure salaries — are increasingly turning to van and caravan living as soaring rents, mortgage stress, and rising living costs make traditional housing feel unaffordable or not worth the pressure. Money.com.au’s survey shows: Almost 1 in 10 Australians lived in a caravan in the past year.

The electricity “death spiral” arises when demand for power declines, due in part to customers taking up solar PV, leading to higher prices to cover fixed network costs. That is, the more people that take up solar power, the faster the decline in electricity demand, and the more fixed costs must be spread over a

This week, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released data on net permanent & long-term (NPLT) arrivals, which remained at historically high levels in February 2026. In the year to February, 479,000 NPLT arrivals landed in Australia, a whisker below the all-time high level of 498,000 recorded two years prior in February 2024. The latest