Ross Gittins
Ross Gittins is the Economics Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald.
Ross's articles (137 total)
House prices are falling. Now we’ll find out who really wants affordability
Australia cannot make housing more affordable while protecting homeowners from falling prices. The current downturn may reveal how serious politicians really are about fixing the system.
Labor’s carbon offsets look better on paper than in practice
Labor’s latest carbon offset proposal shows how economic ideas that work neatly on paper can deliver far less environmental benefit when put into practice.
Australia is running deficits – and leaving the bill to the kids
Australia is running budget deficits. That means today’s taxpayers are not fully paying for the services they receive – and younger generations inherit the debt.
Australia’s federation has survived 125 years of economic shocks
Australia’s economic history shows that major shocks often come from overseas, but better policy settings over the past three decades have helped keep unemployment, inflation and debt under greater control.
Want to lift productivity? Force businesses to give workers a big pay rise
Weak growth, falling real wages and poor productivity are linked, and one way to force business to invest and improve efficiency may be to lift wages across the economy.
The productivity obsession has a measurement problem
The focus on productivity as the key to economic growth ignores the fact that we can't directly observe productivity. We need better ways to measure improvements in overall living standards.
We’re running late on climate, but not out of time
Overshooting the 1.5 degrees target for limiting global warming is not good news but there is progress on renewable energy and electrification.
Gambling reform was quietly taken out with the trash
Labor’s response to calls for a ban on gambling advertising was announced quietly and falls well short of the Murphy report’s recommendations, leaving children, young men and problem gamblers exposed to ongoing harm.
Normally, I’m a friend of the taxman. But now ...
The Tax Office has a duty to collect what is owed, but rising complaints show the system risks becoming heavy-handed, opaque and too hard to navigate for taxpayers trying to do the right thing.
Why are voters cranky enough to turn to Hanson? I have a theory
One Nation’s polling surge reflects deeper disillusionment with the major parties, but the real test is whether Labor has the courage to press ahead with housing tax reform despite the inevitable scare campaign.
Budget 2026: It pains me to say nice things about politicians, but this is a good budget
The federal budget takes long-avoided steps to curb housing tax concessions, rein in spending growth and reduce intergenerational unfairness – despite the political risks.
Lovin’ democracy? You’re probably doing all right, then
Australia remains one of the world’s stronger democracies, but rising economic stress and inequality are shaping how people feel about it.
Cost of living? We should be more concerned about something else
While cost-of-living pressures dominate headlines, deeper shifts are reshaping Australian politics – with Labor consolidating the centre and the Coalition struggling to respond.
Best of 2025 - More Boomers are choosing not to retire. Why? They don’t want to
As the great bulge of babies born after World War II has moved through their life course, the world has changed to suit them and their needs.
The RBA says changing rates won’t raise house prices. I wouldn’t be so sure
The Reserve Bank has always denied that its manipulation of short-term interest rates to slow or hasten the growth in demand for goods and services plays any part in worsening the cost of home ownership. But I doubt this.
Trump says climate change is a hoax. Are we in safer hands with the ‘commos’?
When you hear that malevolent old fool Donald Trump tell the United Nations that climate change is “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world”, it’s hard to resist throwing up your arms in despair. If mighty America won’t set a good example, what hope is there for the rest of us?
Seeking the positive-sum economy where everyone wins a prize
What is this “abundance” thing that progressive economists are suddenly banging on about after reading the latest American pop economics book? At last, one of them has explained it.
More Boomers are choosing not to retire. Why? They don’t want to
As the great bulge of babies born after World War II has moved through their life course, the world has changed to suit them and their needs.
Albanese takes his usual each-way bet on climate change
After last week, Anthony Albanese and his Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen are entitled to a great sigh of relief.
AI: Much ado about something that one day may be important
AI. AI. AI. Maybe if I utter those magic initials one more time, you’ll reach peak ecstasy. Worried about our lack of productivity? Fear not. The economy will soon be rocketing ahead.
We’re going up in the financial world, but no one’s noticed
Economists like us to think they’re coolly rational in all things. Nah. They’re just as susceptible to fads and fashions as the rest of us.
Our future prosperity is bright. We’ve hidden an ace up our sleeve
As you may have noticed, the nation’s economists are in a gloomy mood and warning of tough times ahead.
Why we'd be mugs to cut the company tax rate
Ask any businessperson if we should cut the rate of our company tax and, almost to a pale and stale male, they’ll unhesitatingly tell you we should.
The one big reform not discussed at Labor's roundtable
Despite the strong support for tax reform at last month’s economic reform roundtable, perhaps the most important single reform hardly rated a mention: a carbon tax – or, in the economists’ preferred euphemism, “a price on carbon”.
We have arrested the development of our young
I hope you’re not among those silly people who concluded last week’s economic reform roundtable was just a talkfest that will lead to nothing concrete. Breaking news: we have to get together and talk about things before we agree on what our biggest problems are and what we will do about them.
I’ve changed my mind about red tape, but cutting it won’t solve everything
This is the week to understand something most people don’t: businesses don’t do productivity.
Albanese is crying poor, but we’re losing billions a year from untaxed gas
It’s likely much will be said, but little done, at next week’s economic roundtable.
It’s official: A cut in company tax will deliver little benefit at best
Be sure your dodgy modelling will find you out. I’m starting to think economists have become so used to pretending to know more about the economy than they really do, that they don’t notice the way they mislead the rest of us.
Roundtable will fix nothing unless we can all park our self-interest
I’m not sure if it’s happening by accident or design, but we may be about to convince ourselves that, though our democracy isn’t nearly as stuffed up as America’s, we’re fast making ourselves ungovernable, unable to agree on how to fix our problems.
Roundtable warning: When they say ‘modelling’ grab your bulldust detector
The warm-up for next month’s three-day economic roundtable has begun, and this week we’ll start hearing from worthies who know exactly what we should do to improve our productivity. What’s more, they have the modelling to prove it.
Cutting HECS debt is the least Albanese could do for young Australians. He should do more
It may seem an age since the federal election, but the new parliament has just convened for the first time. Anthony Albanese will be giving top priority to enacting his election commitments – “an honest politician? Really?” – and starting with his promise to cut uni graduates’ HECS debt by 20 per cent.
How Chalmers can square the budget circle despite stagnant productivity
As if Treasurer Jim Chalmers didn’t have a big enough problem trying to improve the economy’s productivity, we now know Treasury has privately reminded him he’ll need to find additional tax revenue and reduce government spending to keep the budget “sustainable” – that is, to stop the government’s debt getting a lot higher.
Trump wants us to spend a bomb on defence. We should think twice
While I was on holiday, I had a kind of nightmare: suddenly, every rich country in the world — including us — is vowing to spend many billions more on defence each year. This will cost taxpayers an absolute bomb. Why exactly are we doing this?
I have good news and bad about your superannuation
When the government wants to cut back the massive tax concessions the rich receive on their superannuation, the media is full of it for weeks.
In one awful decision, Albanese has revealed his do-nothing plan
It didn’t take long for us to discover what a triumphantly re-elected Labor government would be like.
Don’t let rich old men tell you the planned super tax is terribly bad
Would you want Australia to become more like America? How on Earth did so many Yanks vote to reinstall a crazy, destructive leader such as Mad King Donald?
Why we need our economists to try a lot harder
For most economists, their view of how the world works is virtually unchanged from one decade to the next. They’ve already found the truth, so nothing needs changing.
It was supposed to be the cost-of-living election. But then Dutton showed up
Talk about the dog that didn’t bark. Cast your mind back to the distant days of the election campaign, and you’ll dimly remember how often we were told that polling revealed the only subject hard-pressed voters were interested in discussing was the cost of living.
Dutton’s election campaign rout lets RBA off the hook
Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock must be breathing a quiet sigh of relief now the Albanese Government has been triumphantly returned to office. If you can’t think why she should be relieved, you’re helping make my point.
The climate won’t change for the Liberals without more women and fewer oldies
If the Liberals have any sense, they won’t waste too much time blaming their shocking election result on Peter Dutton, Donald Trump, Cyclone Alfred, the party secretariat, an unready shadow ministry or any other “proximate cause”, as economists say. Why not? Because none of these go to the heart of their party’s problem.
Home truths: Housing policies are for show, but one side at least gets the problem
If you think this sounds twisted, it is. The best thing about the two sides’ various promises to help young people afford to buy their first home is the way it has provoked the nation’s economists to rise in condemnation of those schemes’ wrongheadedness. They look like they’ll help, but most of them are more likely to end up making homes less affordable rather than more.
Memo Dutton: Good economic managers don’t try to panic the punters
A problem in economics is that you can’t use the economy to experiment.
Trump’s trade war is bad, but how bad is up to the rest of us
At last, we know enough about US President Donald Trump’s opening move on tariffs to start thinking about what it all means. By imposing tariffs on America’s imports, he’s shot his economy in the foot, but the rest of the world decides how bad it’s likely to be by what we do in response.
Dutton wants to know if you’re better off now. It’s a trick question
For most people, the simple answer to Peter Dutton’s repeated question — are you better off today than you were three years ago? — is “no, I’m not”.
Debt and deficit: Labor’s budget naysayers ignore the cold hard facts
The independent economist and former Treasury officer Chris Richardson, the leader of Treasury-in-Exile and thus chief apostle of fiscal rectitude, does the country a favour with his eternal campaigning to keep budget deficits and public debt levels low.
The government is timid, uninspired and uninspiring. This budget fits it perfectly
If you’re having trouble working up much interest in the budget, don’t feel bad. It’s not you, it’s the government. So much fuss is made about the annual federal budget that we expect it to be full of major announcements. Well, not this one, and not from a government that never wants to rock the boat.
It’s official – supermarkets are overcharging. Quick, change the subject
Why does a government release a highly critical report on the conduct of Woolworths and Coles on the Friday before a budget that will lead straight into an election campaign? Short answer: not for any worthy reason.
The outlook for house insurance is much worse than we’re being told
The big news on house insurance this week was the response of the insurance industry’s peak body to a parliamentary committee’s extensive criticisms of its treatment of people claiming on their policies after the massive floods of 2022.
Much argy-bargy on the way to next week’s off-again, on-again budget
According to the business press, Anthony Albanese was desperately hoping for an early election so he could avoid next week’s budget and the drubbing he’ll get when Treasurer Jim Chalmers is forced to reveal projections of a decade of budget deficits.
Maybe the inflation surge didn’t happen the way we’ve been told
According to Reserve Bank deputy governor Andrew Hauser last week, we’ve entered a world characterised not just by volatility, complexity and uncertainty, but also by “ambiguity” – a world where “you don’t know the model”, meaning that “judgment and instinct are as important as formal analysis”.