New Zealand’s March quarter log extractions were down 4.1% compared to the December quarter of 2018, with the major grade – export logs – down 5.4%. Most export logs are despatched to Ch…

Imports of sawn softwood products have begun to soften in line with the falling domestic market. Meantime, average import prices have also begun to decline, but to date have eased lower, rath…

Sales of domestically processed saw softwood products were 8.6% or more than 272,000 m3 lower in 2018-19, than those recorded for the previous financial year. At 2.901 million m3, total sale…

The latest Household Income and Labour Dynamics Australia (HILDA) survey demonstrates that in real terms, Australia’s median household income fell $542 from 2009 to 2017. That is, the spen…

Australia’s inflation rate snuck up to an annualised 1.6% in the June quarter, recording relatively healthy growth of 0.7% in the June quarter. Regardless of what appears to be an improving i…

Housing finance continued to decline in May, with the total value of residential loans for new acquisitions falling 2.4% on the prior month, slipping to AUD $16.519 billion. In general, it wa…

New building activity continued to decline in 2018-19, falling an estimated 12% to around $110 billion, according to BIS Oxford Economics. The underlying data series appear to support the c…

Australia’s residential dwelling approvals plunged in June, in a demand shock that most predicted, but few understood would see activity fall so low. At an annualized 185,825 approvals wer…