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The current timber shortage reflects both a lack of sufficient supply of local plantation softwood (pine) and insufficient imports of hardwood sawn timber.
Despite all the debate and discussion about Covid-19 and working from home (WFH), the increase in the overall proportion of people working from home won't be as great as much of the media might have you think.
Even with youth unemployment out at 10.5 percent, with the Reserve Bank of Australia warning unemployment is likely to worsen, rural Australia’s most pressing problem is a chronic shortage of labour.
As the pandemic continues to dominate people's lives and our national conversation, Australians are starting to get angry at Australia's failing response.
Even the FWC, by delaying wage increases in industries most affected by lockdowns, has given some acknowledgement that their latest decision poses risks to small businesses.
Most of the price increases in the last year are in the petroleum sector and in the energy sector. The ones that are outside that group were still automotive.
Few are aware of the work of Richard Cobden and John Bright in repealing the Corn Laws in the 1840s, and the exponential prosperity which flowed from their free trade policies.
Business investment has since sunk to a historical low of around 10 per cent of GDP. The budget papers anticipate an anaemic 1.5 per cent increase in business investment next year.
