Featured Opinion
Penny Wong’s week of new foreign policy reality
The foreign minister is repairing relations with China while unsentimentally hedging against its military might. Eruptions from Paul Keating and Donald Trump are simply part of that reality.
Editorial
Green policy car crash complicates Labor’s election outlook
A series of competing and interlinked priorities are colliding in Labor’s Senate, where all eyes are turning to the next election.
Senior correspondent
The Wang-Wong doctrine: embrace and fight at the same time
China and Australia’s foreign ministers are both adept at the art of making frenemies. It’s working for now, but for how long?
Columnist
Cleaner cars a politically charged driving test for Chris Bowen
The climate change and energy minister should be cut some slack. He is in the minority attempting hard and unpopular reform, such as the new clean fuel policy.
Political editor
Central banks may be repeating their pandemic errors
Central banks delayed rate increases after the pandemic on the basis they could not forecast the future, but now use rubbery projections to rationalise rate cuts.
Columnist
Why good news for jobs is bad news for rates
The government is celebrating robust jobs figures and a fall in unemployment. But Labor and the Reserve Bank will be quietly worried that this is only going to delay any cut in interest rates this year.
Columnist
It’s official: Fed confirms interest rates to stay higher for longer
The central bank is sticking to its forecast for three interest rate cuts this year, but buoyant economic activity means declines will be more modest.
Columnist
Labor’s home-grown foreign policy storms ambush Wong
No other Australian foreign minister has had to deal with a former prime minister - and reforming Labor legend no less - publicly second-guessing the government of the day’s foreign policy.
Editorial
Yesterday
- Opinion
- Chanticleer
The core problem with the case against Apple and the supermarkets
We know how Apple uses its power to keep us in its infamous ‘walled garden’, but we all love Apple products.
- Updated
- James Thomson
- Opinion
- Chanticleer
Why good intentions are no match for housing’s grim reality
Big house price gains in 2025 and 2026 look likely as Australia’s housing supply crisis gets worse.
- James Thomson
- Opinion
- Chanticleer
Why ASX investors may need to get used to expensive stocks
ASX-listed stocks have never been this highly valued. But one strategist says that’s because companies have never been this well-run.
- James Thomson
- Opinion
- Satire
Kevin and the Donald rewrite the diplomatic dictionary
A pedant’s guide to what the former US president really meant in his comments on the Australian ambassador.
- Rowan Dean
- Opinion
- Chanticleer
Goldman Sachs says private equity is in a show-me-the-money moment
The long drought in private equity deals has investors asking to see cash returns, says Goldman Sachs’ co-head of private equity.
- James Thomson
- Opinion
- Investing
Want better returns? Cut back on shares, bonds
University endowments and the Future Fund indicate that long-term bets on private equity and other unlisted assets produce better returns.
- Jonathan Kearns
- Analysis
- International affairs
With Russia distracted, China makes its move in Central Asia
China is the only major country to recognise the Taliban government in Afghanistan, a move that could give it access to large lithium and copper deposits.
- Geoff Raby
This Month
- Opinion
- The AFR View
Jobless rate shows RBA right not to rule anything in or out
The near 50-year low of 3.7 per cent should silence those who want to suggest that the Reserve Bank’s 13th cash rate increase last November was some sort of monetarist mistake.
- The AFR View
Why gas exports make a false famine
Readers’ letters on Santos boss Kevin Gallagher’s gas export warning; a recent example of nuclear dangers; another entry for the list of politicians’ biggest mistakes this century; and pleas from our regular correspondents go answered.
- Opinion
- Chanticleer
Macquarie infrastructure bigwig retires
Grant Smith, who heads up Macquarie’s infrastructure and assets investment activities, is retiring after a hugely successful 28 years.
- Anthony Macdonald
- Opinion
- Nuclear energy
Nuclear vs Renewables shouldn’t be Ford vs Holden
Reducing the complexities of national energy policy to a clean energy brawl is the last thing Australia needs in the middle of the biggest industrial rebuild in the nation’s history.
- Matthew Warren
- Opinion
- Super wars
Time for super performance test facts and myth busting
The latest Treasury review should find what we already know: that the current test has delivered for members.
- Karen Chester and Brad Ruting
- Opinion
- Chanticleer
First look under the hood of Chemist Warehouse is striking
Sigma Healthcare gave investors a little taste of the growth inside the country’s biggest pharmacy retailer on Thursday. The numbers are impressive.
- Updated
- James Thomson
- Opinion
- Chanticleer
The moment Jay Powell sent the bulls running
Jerome Powell seemed like he was speaking from the same say-nothing script as Michele Bullock. But then he set markets alight with a bizarre statement.
- James Thomson
- Opinion
- US election
Why no one will lend to cash-poor Trump
The Republican candidate’s financial difficulties pose risks for America as well as for himself.
- Edward Luce
- Opinion
- SMSFs
Be careful with property valuations this SMSF audit season
Property valuations are becoming more problematic and will attract the attention of the Tax Office.
- Peter Burgess
- Opinion
- Super Q&A
Why super isn’t supposed to make you super rich
There were opportunities in the past to make exceptionally large contributions to tax-advantaged super accounts, but those days are over.
- John Wasiliev
- Opinion
- Electricity
How much could you save if you went nuclear?
If you are a Victorian the price you’d pay for a unit of electricity from a nuclear reactor would be 39 per cent higher than what you’ll pay under the recently unveiled regulated default offer.
- Tristan Edis
- Opinion
- Chanticleer
The real story behind Healthscope’s restructure
As the Brookfield-owned Healthscope enters restructuring talks with its army of lenders, a much deeper crisis is playing out across the private hospital sector.
- Updated
- James Thomson
- Opinion
- Foreign relations
Keating complicated Wong’s job on China. Then came Trump and Rudd
As she negotiated a visit by China’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Penny Wong also had to pick her way through critical comments from Paul Keating and from Donald Trump on Australia’s US ambassador Kevin Rudd.
- Jennifer Hewett
