The Bearing

party-policy

Will banning smart glasses do anything

Smart glasses are unsettling — but the ban proposed to stop them would leave every phone camera, dash cam, and hidden wearable completely untouched.

Labour Market

Tip for dodgy employers - don’t advertise dodgy jobs

Australia's job-ad enforcement programme is catching wage thieves before they hire — but it still depends on victims to make the first move.

Government Spending

Who wants a 28 per cent pay rise?

Victoria just handed specialist health workers a 28% pay rise. The workers may well deserve it — but who pays, and when, is a different question entirely.

Fiscal Policy

Luck or legislation? 14.8 per cent growth of the Aussie Future Fund.

The Future Fund posted 14.8% returns — but so did the broader market. Is the government's mandate change the cause, or just a bystander to a bull run?

Regulation

Queensland rushes critical minerals laws through parliament

Queensland just made it faster to approve critical minerals projects. The question is whether slow approvals were ever the real problem.

Fiscal Policy

Inflation slides again. Will the spending slide too?

Australia's inflation is falling — but the government is spending in ways that could reverse every gain the RBA has fought to make.

Regulation

Cash is king. Except the e-prince makes the rules.

When a government orders private firms to keep running a service the market is abandoning, who actually ends up paying — and does cash survive?

Fiscal Policy

The debt trap: why governments can't just print their way out

Australia's debt is approaching $1 trillion and costing $20 billion a year in interest — so why do some economists say the solution is simply to print more money?

Immigration

America's visa tax could be Australia's gain — if we're brave enough to take it

A $100,000 H-1B fee has spooked thousands of US tech workers into looking for a new home. Australia has the visa system to catch them — but not the politics.

Health Policy

In case of electoral emergency: Fix the kids’ teeth

Victoria has a $150 billion debt problem. Its government's pre-election answer is free toothpaste. What that choice reveals about the Carroll government's position.

Labour Market

Union muscle: how industrial disputes turned to intimidation

A defence contractor found a tracking device under his car. His dog was taken to the vet. What is the Queensland CFMEU inquiry actually surfacing?

party-policy

Greens want to stop the data-centre rollout.

AEMO's pipeline of data centre projects doubled in a year. The Greens want to pause all of it — but the costs of that call are hiding in plain sight.

Regulation

Woolworths tries the jingle cure for Darwin loitering, and annoys everyone else

A Darwin Woolworths is looping its own jingle outdoors to drive away loiterers — but who leaves first, the troublemakers or the paying customers?

Immigration

Immigration vibes beats immigration policy

Every party has an immigration number. None of them will say which visas get cut to reach it — and that gap is the whole story.

Labour Market

Queensland dodges medical officer strike with 91% vote for pay deal

A 91.5% yes vote sounds like a formality — but getting there required four months of negotiation and a deliberate choice by both sides.

Regulation

ESG red tape to be examined. Why not try something radical instead?

Australia is reviewing its ESG rules — but what if the whole disclosure-first model is the problem, not just the paperwork?

party-policy

Big tobacco could save the day for the government budget.

Australia's tobacco tax is so high it has built a billion-dollar black market — and the fix might be the last policy anyone in Canberra wants to touch.

Housing

A 10% property crash would ripple far beyond real estate — here's where the pain hits

Australia's households hold 55 cents of every dollar of wealth in property — so what actually happens when that number starts moving the wrong way?

party-policy

One Nation's super-for-housing plan risks inflating housing prices further

Superannuation sitting idle feels like an obvious fix for housing unaffordability — but the economics of every similar scheme suggest buyers end up paying twice.

Government Spending

Specific Future Funded in Australia makes a big bet

Australia is pouring $11 billion into specific industries — but is betting on winners the fastest route to lifting a stalling economy?

Housing

Let's hope the fed's $30m red tape scissors for WA will work

Perth's planning system has 800 land-use definitions and 269 zones. Canberra is paying $30 million to fix it — but will the scissors cut or just add new loops?

Fiscal Policy

Credit agencies validate Chalmers, but the real test is what happens next

Australia's AAA credit rating is real — but what exactly is it measuring, and does it tell us anything about what comes next?

Government Spending

Queensland settles $66m Fortescue dispute in secret, keeps the land

Queensland says it kept value from a $66m failed hydrogen bet — but the settlement terms are secret and the assets have never been valued against the original outlay.

Taxation

New tax improvements for small business benefit tax accountants

The government says 85,000 businesses will benefit from reintroduced loss carry-back — but the franking account condition buried in the design tells a different story.

technology

The AI race just got crowded—and Apple hasn't shown up yet

The AI race has more serious contenders than it did a year ago — and the company with perhaps the strongest hand still hasn't played it.