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The Reserve Bank held the cash rate at 4.35% yesterday in a unanimous 9-0 decision, up from the 8-1 split we saw in May. The shift to consensus signals that the Board has aligned around a “wait and see” approach; three hikes in the books, now assessing whether they’ve done …read more
The Crisafulli Government released the tender for the head contractor of the Cairns Hospital Expansion on 11 June, advancing a $1 billion-plus program expected to generate around 3,800 construction jobs for Cairns and Far North Queensland. Funded through the fully-funded Hospital Rescue Plan, the project is described by the government …read more
On 12 June, a frontier AI model that businesses had only just begun building into their workflows simply disappeared, not because its maker chose to retire it, but because a foreign government ordered it switched off. It is a small story with a large lesson about how we now depend …read more
The Conus Trend series for April comes in at 104, down 11.4% year-on-year and the lowest reading since January 2025. That number is not the story this month. The Trend is still absorbing the 468 Woree unit approvals from July 2025, and the unadjusted series is being dragged lower by …read more
The headline monthly CPI Indicator for April came in at 4.2% y/y with a monthly rise of just 0.4% (after 1.1% in March), a touch softer than the market had been looking for (around 4.4%). The bulk of the easing came through Transport, which fell 2.7% m/m after rocketing 9.2% …read more
Buried in the Statement on Monetary Policy released last week is an ‘In Depth’ chapter on the impact of higher global energy prices on the Australian economy. It is worth reading on its own merits, but it is worth reading with one specific question in mind: what does this mean …read more
The RBA Monetary Policy Board lifted the cash rate by 25bps to 4.35% on Tuesday, the third consecutive hike of 2026 and the third consecutive line-ball call delivered with the same answer. The vote, however, was anything but line-ball this time: 8-1 in favour of the hike, with one member …read more
Last week’s March quarter CPI release threw up two different stories depending on which line you read. The new monthly CPI Indicator had the Trimmed Mean unchanged at 3.3% over the year to March. The quarterly series, still published as an appendix to the main release and the measure the …read more
The latest ABS Labour Force release for March, combined with our Conus/CBC Staff Selection Trend series, shows the Cairns labour market has continued the recovery that started late last year. Trend employment in Cairns rose to 145,730 people in March, up 1,980 (+1.4%) over the year, and the Trend unemployment …read more
The ABS is modernising its Labour Force Survey from the April 2026 reference period. Over the next five months (April through August), headline releases will be pushed back by one week, and six regular tables will be paused. Normal service resumes with the September reference month release in October 2026. …read more
We are proud to have CBC Staff Selection as supporters of the Conus/CBC Staff Selection Trend Employment and Jobseeker data series