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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
Despite the fact that the headline CPI for February dipped slightly from 3.8% to 3.7%, inflation is clearly still a problem. This monthly data read will not be showing the effect of the oil prices prices we have seen during March. In addition, the Trimmed Mean measure of core inflation …read more
What happens when an economist sits down for a podcast interview with an AI? I have been using AI extensively in my consulting work for well over a year now. Not as a delegation tool, but as something closer to a collaborative partner. I use it to research, to bounce …read more
We are proud to have CBC Staff Selection as supporters of the Conus/CBC Staff Selection Trend Employment and Jobseeker data series