More parents are missing school payments as they struggle with massive mortgage payments. Cashed-up baby boomers are here to help.
For Treasurer Jim Chalmers,this budget is existential. Bad decisions could increase unemployment or provoke more interest rate rises. Both would be political nails in the government’s coffin.
Stage one of the Labor government’s flagship Metronet project climbed $2 billion in 2023 alone,taking the total cost of the network to around $11.5 billion.
Support for parents of school children and housing affordability will be priorities in a state budget that will show Victoria’s net debt hitting a new peak.
Rental prices for units have skyrocketed since COVID-19 lockdown,and house rents have jumped too. Is any relief in sight?
The Coalition’s plan to allow Australians to use their super for housing would disproportionately help wealthier people buy more expensive homes.
Landlords have hiked rents more than 70 per cent since their COVID low point,with Perth’s now the third-most expensive rental market in the country.
Timing is important – and that’s one of the clear shortfalls in the federal government’s surprise for young people with student loans.
Chief executive Andrew Irvine reported a 13 per cent tumble in half-year profits,but said households were mostly proving resilient in the cost-of-living crisis.
Retail spending growth over the year to the end of March was just 0.8 per cent – the weakest growth on record outside the pandemic and the introduction of the GST in 2000.
Plans to move out of the city and buy a home in the regions come very close to stacking up - if workers can pull it off.