Poppy Johnston
(Australian Associated Press)

The International Monetary Fund expects Australia to dodge a recession but has downgraded its expectations for growth next year.

The United Nations agency anticipates growth slowing to 1.7 per cent in 2023 – less than the 1.9 per cent forecast in its world economic outlook released last month.

In its annual health check on the Australian economy, the IMF pointed to Australia’s resilient domestic buffers to economic headwinds, including decent household savings.

“Between the slowing global growth and some still-resilient domestic buffers, Australia is on a narrow path for a soft landing,” the report said.

But Australia is not out of the woods – a larger-than-expected slowdown in China’s growth would put the nation’s exports at risk and higher inflation and wage growth domestically could prompt further interest rate rises from the central bank.

“The decline in housing prices has the potential to accelerate, which can reduce household consumption, with some impact on banks’ balance sheets,” the IMF warned.

The agency urged the Reserve Bank to keep lifting interest rates to cool demand and called on the government to keep spending constrained and targeted.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the IMF confirmed the Albanese government had delivered a budget “right for the times” in October.

“The government is returning 99 per cent of the upward tax revisions for the next two years to the budget when the inflation challenge is most severe, and 92 per cent over the forward estimates,” Dr Chalmers said.

“This compares to the former government’s average of around 40 per cent.”

The international agency also weighed in on Australia’s tax reform debate – noting the stage three tax cuts would reduce the personal income tax burden and Australia would be best to double down on “under-utilised” indirect taxes, such property taxes and the goods and services tax.

“Longstanding recommendations include broadening the GST base to limit exemptions for healthcare spending and restricting the capital gains tax exemption for the sale of main residences,” the report said.

The IMF recommended ditching stamp duty in favour of land taxes to promote housing affordability, labour mobility and a more sustainable tax base.

The agency welcomed Australia’s renewed commitment to climate mitigation and said more renewables in the grid would improve the resilience of the electricity sector and insulate the country from price spikes and energy market volatility.

While recognising the political challenges, the IMF said an economy-wide carbon price was the most effective way to cut emissions.

Despite Australia’s resilience to economic turmoil, a new report shows small businesses are starting to suffer.

CreditorWatch’s business risk index found small businesses were three times more likely to be falling behind on payments than big businesses.

Business to business payment defaults also continue to rise at an average rate of 20 per cent each month.

CreditorWatch chief economist Anneke Thompson said the rise in trade defaults, depressed consumer confidence and rising job vacancies all pointed to a slowing economy.

“Instinctively, this seems unwanted, but unfortunately a significant slowdown of the economy is one of the only cures for inflation,” she said.

“The challenge is not allowing small business to suffer the brunt of the impact of a slowing economy, which unfortunately is usually the case.”

(Feedsy Exclusive)

Saving a few dollars today can add up to a lot of money later on – cash that you can use to start investing, pay off your debt repayment, or save for retirement.

But to ensure you have a clear direction and achieve what you want, you need to start setting financial goals – that is, if you haven’t done so yet.

While a lot of people associate financial goal setting with business, it’s something anyone can and everyone should do. In this post, we’ll discuss why making financial goals is essential and provide tips on how to do so.

Setting financial goals – the basics

The specific objectives you set when it comes to your own finances are called financial goals. The goals you choose are tailored to your financial situation, and they provide you with definite benchmarks to strive for.

Your financial goals spell out the desired results of your short-, medium-, and long-term financial decisions. To illustrate, below are examples of short-, medium-, and long-term financial goals.

Short-term goals

Your short-term objectives help you build the foundation and confidence you need to accomplish longer-term, more ambitious goals.

• Create a weekly or monthly budget and stick to it.
• Build an emergency fund.
• Pay off credit card debt.

Medium-term goals

Once you achieve (or nearly accomplish all) your short-term financial goals, you have the foundation needed to follow through on midterm objectives.

Medium-term objectives serve to bridge your short- with your long-term goals.

• Get life and disability insurance.
• Reduce or pay off your student loan or any major debt.
• Save for your dream home or children’s education.

Long-term goals

Your long-term financial objectives are meant to prepare you for future needs and challenges. This is why these goals typically involve preparing for retirement.

To make sure you’re saving enough, you need to determine how much you’ll actually need to retire comfortably.

While your superannuation is considered a retirement investment, it may not be enough to cover your financial requirements later in life.

You need to take your future health and mobility needs into consideration, even if you’re physically fit currently. You also need to factor in inflation, as the cost of goods and services today wouldn’t be the same years or decades from now.

So, aside from saving for retirement, you might want to consider investing in long-term, low-risk investments like mutual funds and savings bonds. Or you could also go for high-risk, high-yield investments with the help of a stockbroker or your financial advisor.

Benefits of financial goal setting

Creating financial objectives is a crucial first step toward financial success, security, and stability.

In particular, financial goal setting provides the following benefits:

• Establishing clear goals enables you to create achievable plans.
• It provides a benchmark for monitoring your progress.
• It keeps you accountable for the results.
• Making a list of goals helps in setting priorities.
• Tracking your progress can inspire you to achieve more.

So, if you have yet to set financial goals, do so today.

If this article has inspired you to think about your own unique situation and, more importantly, what you and your family are going through right now, please contact your advice professional.

(ACCC)

Scams Awareness Week 2022 takes place 7-11 November. This Scams Awareness Week, along with over 350 partner organisations, we’re encouraging you to learn ways to identify scams and take the time to check whether an offer or contact is genuine before you act on it.

With scammers continually developing new ways to catch people out, we need to increase our vigilance in checking for those little clues that can alert us that something is a scam.

Scams cost Australian consumers, businesses, and the economy hundreds of millions of dollars each year and cause serious emotional harm to victims and their families.

In 2021 Australians made more than 286,600 reports to Scamwatch and reported losses of around $324 million. By the end of August this year, Australians had lost even more with reported losses of over $381 million.

As alarming as these numbers are, we know that around one third of people who are scammed never tell anyone, so the true numbers are probably much higher.

Follow Scamwatch on Twitter and explore our website for more information and tips on how to protect yourself from scams.

Scamwatch tools and resources

The Scamwatch and ACCC websites contain a range of tools and resources about scams.

• Scamwatch Report Form: If you’ve come across a scam you can report it here.
• Scamwatch reporting statistics: Provides up-to-date statistics on scams reported by Australians.
• Targeting Scams Reports: Our yearly report on scam trends and statistics.
• Helping a friend or family member who is a victim to a scam: Useful information if someone close to you has been scammed.
• Be Safe, Be Alert Online: Information on organisations who may be able to help when someone has been scammed.
• Where else to get help: Other organisations who might be able to help when someone has fallen victim to a scam.
• Little Black Book of Scams: Information on identifying a scam (available digitally in a range of languages).

Peter Bodkin
(Australian Associated Press)

Australians are living longer despite the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused life expectancy to drop in many of the world’s richest nations.

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released on Tuesday showed a girl born in 2021 could expect to live 85.4 years, up several months on the pre-pandemic figure.

Males were expected to live 81.3 years, a similar increase.

The ABS noted Australia was one of the few countries to show an increase in life expectancy since COVID hit, and had the third-highest life expectancy in the world behind Monaco and Japan.

US life expectancy has dropped to the lowest level since 1996, plunging 2.7 years between 2019 and 2021, while in 2020 the pandemic led to the biggest year-on-year drop in life expectancy in England since figures were first collected in 1981.

ABS demography director Emily Walter said life expectancy in Australia was 11.9 years longer for males and 10.6 years longer for females than the 2020 UN world average.

The ABS said a 65-year-old Australian male could expect to live another 20.3 years, compared to 23 years for a woman the same age.

However, the figures showed a wide disparity in life expectancy between people in well-off urban areas and the most remote communities.

The highest life expectancy in Australia for women was in the Ryde region of Sydney, where a female could expect to live 88.4 years from birth.

For males, the highest life expectancy was 85.6 years in the Baulkham Hills and Hawkesbury region of Sydney.

In contrast, the lowest figures for males and females were both in the outback Northern Territory, at 71.7 and 77.1 years respectively.

University of Melbourne demographer Tim Adair said the figures highlighted a consistent pattern in Australia, where life expectancy was better in more-affluent parts of major cities than in outback areas.

He also noted there had been more deaths than expected in 2022 due to an increase in COVID-related mortality as well as deaths from other causes like diabetes.

“We’ve also seen an increase in deaths at very old age and that may well be because as society has opened up and there’s more infectious diseases circulating in the community, they tend to disproportionately affect the very old and frail,” he told ABC TV.

The ACT has the highest average life expectancy of any state or territory, followed by Western Australia, Victoria and NSW.

The Northern Territory has the lowest average life expectancy, followed by Tasmania.

Poppy Johnston
(Australian Associated Press)

The federal budget is likely to remain in the red for at least four years despite a $50 billion turnaround in the government’s bottom line.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher handed down the final budget outcome for 2021/22 on Wednesday, posting an underlying deficit of $32 billion.

This was about $50 billion less than the $79.8 billion deficit originally forecast for the year, with the government’s finances expected to be in much worse shape due to COVID-19 support spending.

Dr Chalmers welcomed the improvements in the budget bottom line but said the favourable conditions wouldn’t last.

“Australia faces more substantial pressures that will have an ongoing impact on our fiscal position including higher costs of servicing government debt, increased spending on government payments from higher indexation, and underlying spending growth in areas such as NDIS, health, aged care and defence,” he said.

Senator Gallagher also said there was some delayed spending last year that would need to be addressed.

As such, the treasurer said his October 25 budget for the 2022/23 year was unlikely to contain a surplus forecast.

“In October, I would encourage people not to anticipate a surplus budget even in the out years,” he said.

“The situation is more difficult than that, and I think Australians understand that given the fiscal and budget circumstances that we’ve inherited, it will take much more than one budget to turn that around,”

AMP economist Shane Oliver agreed the budget would take time to recover, in part because commodity prices were likely to drop and an economic slowdown would likely boost unemployment.

He also said the government would need to cover higher spending in the areas it had specified and expectations of lower long-term productivity growth could drag on government revenue.

“So the October budget is likely to project ongoing deficits in the years ahead, albeit they may be a bit lower than projected in March,” Dr Oliver said.

The $32 billion deficit follows a $134.2 billion shortfall in 2020/21, and an $85.3 billion deficit in 2019/20.

The budget took in $27.7 billion more than expected due to strong commodity prices and more income tax due to low unemployment.

Outgoings were also $20.1 billion lower than predicted.

“This was due to delays in the contracting of COVID spending, temporarily lower-than-expected demand for some health and NDIS services, and the impact of supply chain disruptions and capacity constraints on road and rail infrastructure projects and other spending,” the budget outcome papers said.

Take-up of COVID-19 business support was also lower than anticipated.

Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor said the improvement in the budget bottom line was well diversified and not just about high commodity prices.

Mr Taylor pointed to high employment – leading to more income tax and fewer welfare payments – as well as healthy business performance despite workforce challenges.

“Labor has inherited an extremely strong position,” he told reporters.

He also said the government was playing down the $48 billion reduction in debt.

“Perhaps he’s just buttering up the Australian people for more taxes. For a big spending budget he needs to tax people more,” he said.

Mr Taylor said a higher level of spending would fuel inflation.

Dr Chalmers said the budget would contain restrained cost-of-living measures that would not add to inflationary pressures.

“(The government) is providing responsible cost of living relief in a way that delivers an economic dividend and doesn’t force the Reserve Bank’s hand even more,” he said in parliament.