Saul Eslake

Whereas today,

and especially younger people get their news, if they're interested in it at all, from a much more fragmented range of media, in particular social media, and that just simply makes it harder to communicate a message than it was 25 and 40 years ago.

I believe that they do.

In particular, I think that they will contribute to solving a problem that has been getting more critical in Australia every year almost for the last 35 years, which is...

deteriorating housing affordability and declining home ownership.

These changes are not going to solve the problem on their own.

They're not as important as increasing the supply of housing is to solving the housing affordability problem.

But by reducing the demand for properties that we've already got from investors, they will make it easier for people aspiring to own their first home to achieve that goal.

Thank you for having me, Sasha.

It's been a pleasure.

Yes, it does.

Oil power the global economy.

When there is an interruption to the supply of oil and or a significant increase in the price of oil, the consequences are far reaching.

And that is what we are starting to see in the wake of the conflict which broke out in the Middle East last weekend.

In addition to all of the tentacles that you just mentioned then, there's another one that's particularly important, and it's a lesson to be learned from the spike in oil prices that occurred in the wake of Putin's invasion.

up to $120 a barrel briefly three or four months after the initial invasion of Ukraine.

And that's, of course, higher than oil prices have reached so far, although if the conflict continues for weeks, as Donald Trump has suggested it might, then that previous level

for households is another round of electricity price increases if the elevated level of oil and natural gas prices on global markets persists for longer than a few weeks.

that's right and that's an important distinction economists distinguish between a supply shock and a demand shock a demand shock is an increase in national income that people spend to buy more goods and services

And that tends, in the absence of any reaction from monetary or fiscal policy, to result in both stronger economic growth and higher inflation.