Summary
Thanks for following along the blog on a rather quiet final Friday for the year.
Here are the main takeaways:
Brisbane is the most expensive city for petrol, according to an NRMA analysis of 2023 petrol prices across the nation. Perth was the cheapest, followed by Adelaide.
Refugee health is “two to three times worse in offshore detention”, according to a new research paper in the International Journal of Migration, Health and Social Care.
New Year’s Eve could be a wet one for parts of eastern Australia, with more severe storms forecast for NSW over the weekend. Meanwhile, northern Australia can expect fierce heatwave conditions.
Queensland’s power demand is expected to spike again as a heatwave rolls in. This comes after the state had one of its heaviest days for power demand yesterday, with supplies nearing record levels, according to the Australian Energy Market Operator.
And for the year the ASX200 was on track to finish up 7.8%, after losing 5.5% in 2022.
That is all for today – have a lovely evening and new-years-eve-weekend.
Updated
Storm insurance claims top 18,000 as catastrophe-declared region expanded
The severity of this summer’s thunderstorms has prompted the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) to expand the region declared as an “insurance catastrophe”.
It now includes New South Wales and Victoria along with Queensland for the storms since 23 December.
The ICA said in a statement:
This decision reflects the escalating severity of the situation, the high volume of claims already received, and the anticipated impact of further extreme weather events forecast for the coming days.
The declaration typically means the industry has stepped-up resources to cope with a flood of claims, including expediting support for affected communities.
As of earlier today, insurers had received 18,174 claims related to the storms across the three states, with 10,716 claims in the Gold Coast region alone.
Ongoing power outages had also hampered access to storm-hit areas, the ICA said, so presumably the tally will increase once electricity is restored.
Updated
