Weekly Update: 03.06.2022

Parliamentary Update:

• The Albanese Government has reached a clear majority in the House of Representatives with 77 of 151 seats.
• In the Senate where 39 votes are required to form a majority, Labor’s most obvious path to passing legislation will be through their 26 seats, The Greens 12 seats, and David Pocock’s 1 seat, or Jacquie Lambie Network’s 2 seats. The Coalition are likely to reach 31 total seats, and One Nation 2 seats. Two Senate seats remain in doubt (the sixth spots in South Australia and Victoria, where Liberals are currently ahead).
• The First Albanese Ministry was sworn in on Wednesday. Of particular note, Housing has been elevated and new Housing Minister Julie Collins will have a seat at the Cabinet table. Clare O’Neil received a significant promotion to become the new Home Affairs Minister. Download PDF
• The Prime Minister has announced that the opening date for the 47th federal Parliament will be Tuesday, 26 July. Treasurer Chalmers will make a significant statement on the state of the Budget in this first week of Parliament. Proposed parliamentary sitting dates have not yet been circulated.
• New Administrative Arrangement Orders were released on 1 June and come into effect on 1 July 2022.

Economic Update:

• The ABS released quarterly GDP figures. The Australian economy rose 0.8% in seasonally adjusted chain volume measures. In nominal terms, GDP rose 3.7%.
• Imports of goods and services rose 8.1 per cent and detracted 1.5 percentage points from GDP. This was the largest rise since December 2009.
• Household saving ratio decreased to 11.4% from 13.4%.
• Home building slowed for the second quarter in a row, falling 1.0%. Shortages of skilled labour and raw materials and unfavourable weather on the east coast subdued growth. The impact of the HomeBuilder program continued to dissipate.
• Record credit growth was seen in April 2022: the highest lending acceleration since 2008. Total gross loans & advances in April-22 grew by 0.8% month to month, and the year in year accelerated further to 9.2% as demand remains high. Read more.

Regulatory Update

• APRA has released its ADI statistics. Total residents assets increased by $45.4 billion (or 0.9 per cent) in April, largely driven by an increase in loans and finance leases.
• The ACCC has instituted proceedings against Mastercard for anti-competitive conduct, in late 2017, in its response to the LCR initiative.

Communications

• The ABA is hiring. Three senior policy positions in customer, economic and future policy have been announced.

Events:

• June 22: Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins in conversation with Anna Bligh, at the ABA Offices. A small number of tickets are still available.

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