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Jan 6, 2025 | 
afr.com | Craig Emerson
As Reserve Bank board members return from their holiday break, they will confront a momentous decision – whether to reduce the cash rate for the first time in more than four years – at their February meeting. Despite the private sector recording zero growth in the September quarter last year, the board decided against reducing the cash rate at its December meeting. Loading...
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Dec 1, 2024 | 
afr.com | Craig Emerson
A thorough reading of the Reserve Bank’s November statement on monetary policy should distress anyone concerned about needlessly throwing vulnerable Australians out of work. The board is committed to increasing the unemployment rate to 4.5 per cent from its present 4.1 per cent for no useful purpose.
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Nov 17, 2024 | 
afr.com | Craig Emerson
At no time in three-quarters of a century has the world’s support for free trade been so weak. It is in this bleak environment that the leaders of 21 APEC economies met over the weekend in Lima, Peru. When they meet in Seoul next year, with a new US president, their task will be even more daunting. Reasonable people will ask: why bother? Loading...
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Nov 3, 2024 | 
afr.com | Craig Emerson
When the Reserve Bank Board meets this week, it will grapple with an official inflation rate within its target range and its preferred measure – the trimmed mean – just above it. While inflation hawks in the last few months have demanded the bank increase its cash rate two or three more times, guaranteeing a recession, reasonable people can ask of a cut: if not now, how soon? Loading...
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Oct 20, 2024 | 
afr.com | Craig Emerson
Never since its inception in 1948 has the global rules-based trading system been in so much trouble. If Donald Trump wins the US presidency on 5 November, it will be dealt another heavy blow. We need to be thinking now of practical ways of keeping it alive for better days. The US and the EU have imposed high tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, purportedly on the basis that the Chinese government subsidises their production.
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Oct 6, 2024 | 
afr.com | Craig Emerson
As the demands for economic reform grow ever shriller, identifying the reform killers becomes ever easier – they’re everywhere. Without an attitudinal change in Australia’s democratic institutions, reform is dead. Academics prepare pretty papers detailing essential reforms and lazily blame parliamentarians for refusing to commit political suicide by implementing their prescriptions.
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Sep 23, 2024 | 
afr.com | Craig Emerson
Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s CEDA speech on Monday provided no more detail on the Coalition’s nuclear policy. Dutton had already confirmed he would renationalise Australia’s baseload Australia’s power generation. His speech simply reaffirmed it. Sir Robert Menzies, a champion of free enterprise, would not recognise the modern Liberal Party.
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Sep 8, 2024 | 
afr.com | Craig Emerson
In a recent column I defended the speeches of deputy Reserve Bank Governor Andrew Hauser, where he criticised others for being so certain about their monetary policy prescriptions. His advice was to follow the evidence. Yet now, Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock, appears to be ignoring the evidence of a rapidly slowing economy, declaring interest rates will remain high for longer and not ruling out further cash rate increases. Chalmers has responsibility for economic policy in the government.
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Aug 25, 2024 | 
afr.com | Craig Emerson
“Sook” is a sledge that was used in federal parliament in the sitting fortnight that just ended. It could be used, too, to describe money market operators who’ve been offended by recent speeches given by the Reserve Bank’s deputy governor, Andrew Hauser. Hauser’s objective in using language such as “false prophets”, “charlatans” and “buffoons” was not to create a new class of sooks but to warn against overconfidence in predicting where the economy is heading. Loading...
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Aug 11, 2024 | 
afr.com | Craig Emerson
The Australia-China High-level Dialogue to be held in Adelaide this week will be the first on Australian shores in more than four years. The dialogue’s resumption last September in Beijing signalled progress in the stabilisation of Australia’s relations with China. The Eighth Dialogue is an opportunity for further improvements in the relationship.
