Latest
- Updated
- Employment
Rate rise chances grow as employment jumps
The market is pricing in a one-in-five possibility that the RBA will increase the cash rate when it meets next month, after strong jobs numbers in June.
- Updated
- Michael Read
One in 40 highly indebted homeowners are behind on their mortgage
Banks expect home loan arrears to increase further as more borrowers struggle to deal with high interest rates and cost-of-living pressures.
- Updated
- Michael Read
How the RBA became a global outlier in its inflation fight
This week on The Fin, economics correspondent Michael Read explains why inflation has proved stickier than expected and raised the stakes for the RBA’s big bet.
The battle for Australia’s new submarines
A new book reveals the problems Australian political and military leaders faced in making the most important naval acquisition in a generation.
- Andrew Fowler
Chief justice intervenes in tax plan for judges
Federal Court Chief Justice Debbie Mortimer has also banned judges using their travel allowance for conferences.
- Michael Pelly
This could be the funniest business book you’ll read all year
Former Australian trade negotiator Dmitry Grozoubinski has written a tome about international trade policy. And for that, he’s very, very sorry.
- Hans van Leeuwen
Opinion & Analysis
Don’t put all energy transition eggs in one green basket
The energy revolution is producing militant evangelists and sceptics of individual technologies. Andrew Forrest’s hydrogen retreat shows policymakers need to be more open-minded.
Editorial
Picking green over blue is stalling our hydrogen superpower hopes
Labor’s tax incentive scheme maintains the habit of describing identical molecules with colours of the rainbow. It is out of step with Australia’s competitors and customers
Energy expert
Democrats try to stop the slide as Biden isolates
Nothing has gone right for Joe Biden since his disastrous debate with Donald Trump last month. His COVID diagnosis may be the last straw for a distraught party.
Columnist
CFMEU scandal should force rethink on super fund boards
Union-backed industry super funds have pushed hard to lift governance and accountability at public companies. Shouldn’t they want to improve their own governance, too?
Columnist
Yesterday
- Opinion
- The AFR View
Don’t put all energy transition eggs in one green basket
The energy revolution is producing militant evangelists and sceptics of individual technologies. Andrew Forrest’s hydrogen retreat shows policymakers need to be more open-minded.
- The AFR View
- Opinion
- Hydrogen
Picking green over blue is stalling our hydrogen superpower hopes
Labor’s tax incentive scheme maintains the habit of describing identical molecules with colours of the rainbow. It is out of step with Australia’s competitors and customers
- David Heard
- Opinion
- US election
Democrats try to stop the slide as Biden isolates
Nothing has gone right for Joe Biden since his disastrous debate with Donald Trump last month. His COVID diagnosis may be the last straw for a distraught party.
- Jennifer Hewett
- Opinion
- Chanticleer
CFMEU scandal should force rethink on super fund boards
Union-backed industry super funds have pushed hard to lift governance and accountability at public companies. Shouldn’t they want to improve their own governance, too?
- James Thomson
- Opinion
- Trade deals
The world needs to prepare for a US-China trade war
Democrat and Republican policymakers believe Washington must impose huge restrictions on Chinese technologies, including electric cars and solar panels.
- Kenneth Rogoff
- Opinion
- The AFR View
CFMEU’s industrial power has corrupted
The scale of the systemic wrongdoing that has been uncovered demands a fuller judicial inquiry that must also probe the institutional enablers of the CFMEU’s crimes.
- The AFR View
- Opinion
- World politics
Why does France’s far right get stronger with each election?
The Western nation has not responded well to the challenges of globalisation, which is a problem that also applies to the whole of Europe.
- Adrian Blundell-Wignall
This Month
- Opinion
- US election
‘We have a country to save’: Republicans rally to a reborn Trump
The Republican National Convention is showcasing a party dominated by Donald Trump and his views, while the disarray in the Democrats just keeps coming.
- Jennifer Hewett
Interest rates might need to stay high to tame inflation: IMF
The IMF’s warning comes as economists await June quarter CPI numbers, which will be decisive in determining whether the RBA raises interest rates in August.
- Michael Read
Deloitte 1, Jim Chalmers 0
Deloitte is sceptical of the government’s Future Made in Australia policy. Did that lead Jim Chalmers to slap down its economic forecasting too?
- Myriam Robin
- Opinion
- Education
Time running out to fix school funding sticking point
Here we are, 12 years later, with at least one school generation having finished their education, and there’s still no needs-based Gonski funding for disadvantaged students.
- Doug Taylor
$2400 a night: Hotel prices soar as Origin fans flock to Brisbane
A perfect storm for the blockbuster rugby league series decider has sparked a surge in hotel rates across the city.
- James Hall
- Opinion
- US election
Donald Trump goes for broke with Vance
Vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance is more evidence of how confident the Trump campaign feels about its election prospects.
- Jennifer Hewett
- Opinion
- Inflation
Why Trump and other trends all point to higher inflation
Societal forces from politics to geopolitics to de-globalisation to ageing and climate change are creating conditions that push towards higher inflation.
- Raghuram Rajan
China’s front-row seat to Darwin’s air force manoeuvres
It wouldn’t be “appropriate” for China to participate in Exercise Pitch Black. But it can easily watch.
- Myriam Robin
CSL wins global avian flu vaccine contracts
Australian pharmaceutical giant CSL is to supply up to 45 million shots of its avian flu vaccine to Europe and the US as health authorities prepare for possible human infection from the dangerous H5 strain.
- Tom Burton
- Exclusive
- Australian economy
Rod Carnegie’s seminal lunch with Paul Keating
Paul Keating reveals, for the first time, the pivotal conversation about the Australian economy with Rod Carnegie at lunch in Melbourne almost 50 years ago.
- Tony Boyd
- Opinion
- US election
Trump’s survival will turbocharge the Republican convention
The former president’s narrow escape from death is giving new life to his campaign, and Joe Biden’s address calling for unity won’t fix the extreme division in America.
- Jennifer Hewett
- Opinion
- The AFR View
American democracy dodged a bullet too
The failed attempt to take out Donald Trump might put him back in the Oval Office.
- The AFR View
- Opinion
- Letters to the Editor
Shooting boosts Trump campaign
Letters from readers on the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, company tax and intergenerational inequality.