The Economic Perspective 6 June 2025
- Jun 6, 2025
- 2 min read
The Latest Trending Economic News Curated for You by Balmoral Group Australia
Good morning readers,
In this edition we feature several reports that relate to cost of living in Australia. To start, CSIRO released a report where it maps Australia’s food chain using a systems-thinking approach. The report offers both economic and non-economic insights on the current state of the supply chain, including challenges and the subsequent strategies to overcome them. We also cover the Fair Work Commission’s minimum wage ruling as well as an article that discusses the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) recommendation to ease zoning restrictions to address Australia’s housing affordability issues.
Lastly, in this week’s video, we highlight efforts to track the health of coral reefs in real-time using different artificial intelligence tools.
Hope you enjoy the articles and have a great weekend!
The State of Australia’s Food System
CSIRO released the first assessment of Australia’s food system. The report aims to deepen the understanding of the food system, including strengths, challenges and opportunities for improvement across different areas and stakeholders. For instance, it estimated that the $800 billion food system has hidden costs (including environmental and health impacts) that range between $95 and $274 billion. More insights on the report can be found here
The Queensland government is cancelling renewable energy projects. Can the state still reach net zero?
After cancelling the Pioneer-Burdekin Pumped Hydro project in November, the Queensland government cancelled another major project, the Moonlight Ridge wind farm. As Queensland owns its own transmission infrastructure and power plants, the state could shift to clean energy faster than other states, but the new five-year Energy Roadmap at the end of 2025 is expected to give more guidance on future investments. Read more here
Australia must ease zoning to fix housing crisis: OECD
In its latest economic outlook, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development forecasted GDP growth in Australia at 1.8%. While it is expected that the country will have limited impacts to U.S. tariffs, it will be susceptible to the effects tariffs cause in other countries like China. Additionally, it indicated that easing zoning restrictions is needed to raise housing investment and address affordability issues. Read more here
Millions of workers to get 3.5% per cent pay rise after FWC annual ruling
The Fair Work Commission's decision to rise the minimum wage by a rate higher than inflation was done to address some of the decline in real wages minimum and award wage workers have seen since 2021. The decision was approximately the midpoint between what business groups and union had requested. Read more here
Can AI save the Great Barrier Reef?
Researchers at the University of South Australia, Queensland and Victoria are working to develop a central dashboard that monitors in real-time different types of data that affects coral reefs. The project aims to integrate remote sensing technologies with machine learning, artificial intelligence and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to compile the data into one site. Read more here
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