What we learned today, 9 January 2023
With that, we will wrap up the blog for the night, here’s what happened today:
Prime minister Anthony Albanese and WA premier, Mark McGowan, today visited flood-affected areas of the Kimberley, which is facing an unprecedented emergency, announcing support for that region and for the Victoria Daly region of NT.
A review of Australia’s controversial carbon credit system has recommended significant changes to how it is managed, but dismissed whistleblower claims that the scheme lacks integrity and is not delivering real cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
Climate change minister Chris Bowen said there was “absolutely” a link between the warming planet and the latest bout of record flooding to hit Australia.
The property market recorded its biggest ever decline, as the Reserve Bank’s aggressive interest rate hiking cycle bites.
Labor announced it would expand an existing government program that offers full or partial rebates on new or existing properties for first home buyers if elected in NSW.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers wrote in the Australian newspaper that “we can batten down the hatches, build buffers against some of this uncertainty” in 2023.
The Nationals called for mandated domestic mobile roaming in 2023.
Former prime minister John Howard has backed NSW premier Dominic Perrottet’s cashless gaming card proposal.
NSW recorded two drownings, including a woman at Gordons Bay in Sydney and a man at Jervis Bay.
Updated
Downward arrows for housing approvals and energy prices
We noted here last week that Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart in 2022 had their biggest calendar year drop in house prices, according to CoreLogic, whose data goes back to 1980. And today we learned the fall from the price peak is now at a record level too.
There’s other downish news on the property front, with the Australian Bureau of Statistics today giving us their first data for 2023. Housing approvals in November fell 9% in the month alone, and were 15.1% lower than a year earlier.
CBA, which had forecast a 2% drop, said approvals were running at the lowest since 2020 (excluding January 2022 when the Omicron wave was cresting).
“The softening of building approvals through 2022 has mirrored the broader cooling of the housing market and we expect approvals to remain softer than the decade average in 2023,” CBA economists said.
NSW had the biggest drop among the states, with approvals off more than 18%, with WA’s down 17.5%. Trend data suggest Victoria “has more momentum than the other states”, as population growth recovers there after the Covid disruptions, CBA said.
Meanwhile, on the energy front - that other big issue from the end of 2022 that will extend into 2023 - wholesale future prices continue to sink, according to the ASX. (The government intervened in December to cap gas and black coal prices to drive down the cost of wholesale prices that will eventually feed into a slower growth in retail power prices.)
Also helping lower prices will be greater penetration of renewable energy where the cost of fuel is effectively zero - in contrast to sky-high gas and coal prices. At points of today, the share of clean energy was more than 60% in the national electricity market thanks to a particularly sunny day.
With most of Australia basking in sunshine, it's perhaps not surprising that renewables had a big day. At one point, almost 2/3 of the electricity across the NEM came from clean energy (left). Meanwhile, wholesale power prices continue to trend lower, particularly in Victoria. pic.twitter.com/rGMLJWbHME
— @[email protected] (@p_hannam) January 9, 2023
That’s a cue to go for a swim, if I don’t say so myself.
