New data from the ABS shows that in the year to June 2025 Australians lost nearly $35 billion by gambling; that’s more than households spent on their electricity and gas bills ($29.4 billion). Importantly, this is ‘net losses’ so it cancels out any winnings.

On average, gambling losses are about $3,400 per household, but losses are concentrated among people experiencing harm from gambling, who lose much more.

Australia’s problem with gambling starts early, Australia Institute research has shown that:

Gambling starts well before the age of 18 – almost one in three (30%) 12-17-year-olds gamble. This increases to almost half (46%) of 18-19-year-olds, and these habits persist into adulthood.

There are simple things we can do to crack down on this problem, and they’re highly popular. One place to start would be gambling ads, Australia Institute polling shows that three in four Australians (76%) support a total ban on gambling ads phased in over three years.

Sussan Ley, Anne Ruston and Super Ted [O’Brien] are holding their celebratory press conference over the government bringing forward their aged care package release.

This all happened because on Monday, all the non-government senators were able to unite around a policy cause and force the government to change course. WHO KNEW POWER COULD BE USED THAT WAY!

You can add the Greens to the list of people celebrating the government’s backdown on the aged care package release date. Penny Allman-Payne says:

Today, the Greens have forced the Government to end the pointless delays and start getting older Australians the essential care that they need.

Labor has resisted all calls to do the right thing, so now the Senate has forced them to.

We had to drag the Government kicking and screaming, but after losing a vote in the Senate we have finally forced them to do the right thing by older people.

Senior ministers have had to step in and clean up the mess made by Sam Rae. Labor was too arrogant to make changes themselves, which is why we have united to force them to do the right thing by older people. 

Every day that Labor delays action is another day that our parents and grandparents are going without the help they need. It’s a day that an older Australian gets pushed too early into residential care and into hospital. It’s a day that people are dying without care.”

People are still dying waiting for care, and the only thing stopping them from getting that care is an arrogant Labor Party and a Minister who can’t admit he’s got this wrong.”

In a wealthy country like Australia, we can afford to look after our older people.”

After talking for a while about Indian migrants and construction, One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts finished with: “Why do you hate our country?”

Good question, well asked.

Productivity has been the feature item on some of the big economics events taking place recently and today’s national accounts give us the latest update on productivity for the June quarter 2025.

The figures show a quarterly increase of 0.3% in total output per hour of work (Labour productivity) and an increase of 0.5% in the market sector alone.  For the year to June 2025 the figures were lower at 0.1% for total output per hour worked and 0.3% in the market sector.

The higher figures for the June quarter relative to the year to June are due to the productivity slump we have passed through. We can see this in the chart below. After falling in mid-2024, productivity has been slowly growing.

Productivity: Indexes of output per hour worked.

Source: ABS Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product

The total productivity figure is interesting but it’s the market sector productivity figure that tells us whether or not there is more stuff that you can buy relative to the incomes being received. Fortunately, the market sector figures tend to be marginally higher.

There is a glimmer of hope that the household sector is recovering and will spend more following the reductions in interest rates by the Reserve Bank and in anticipation of future interest rate reductions.

We are rolling into question time.

It is national flag day and so you can expect to see a lot of flags in the chambers with people making a few points.

Matt Canavan just did a little statement about the flag on his desk. It’s that sort of day.

(What’s that? A dog whistle? )

GDP growth was up. The economy grew by 1.8% over the last year, which is higher than the 1.4% last quarter. But before you get too excited, 1.8% is still very low. The long run average is 3%.

The biggest contributing factor to the increase was household spending. Spending on non-essentials grew faster than spending on essentials as households freed the purse strings. This is likely a result of the Reserve Bank cutting interest rates three times this year (although the last interest rate cut in August was too late to impact these figures). It is also an argument for why the Reserve Bank should continue to cut interest rates. With economic growth still very weak, further interest rate cuts would support more household spending and more economic growth.

The second biggest contributor to growth was exports. This was driven by a bounce back in iron ore production after adverse weather conditions in the previous quarter. An increase in agriculture exports, particularly grain also helped, along with an increase in tourism.

The government sector didn’t add or subtract from growth this quarter, with a small increase in government spending being offset by a drop in government investment.

Private investment was weak.

The latest figures show that household spending is the main support for economic growth. Let’s hope that the Reserve Bank recognises this and continues to cut interest rates.

The Coalition are also holding a doorstop responding to Mark Butler and Sam Rae’s announcement that the government will be bringing forward aged care packages.

The government has done this because it was facing its first defeat in the parliament after the Coalition, Greens and independent senators all banded together to push the government to bring forward the packages, or risk losing the entire bill.

Leading into question time and Independent senator David Pocock has some things to say about the government’s aged care reverse ferret

The Government should have never delayed these additional Home Care packages. My amendment to release additional packages got supported in the senate today despite the Aged Care Minister’s opposition. 

Now the Health Minister has stepped in and announced the Government will release the 20,000 additional home care packages the crossbench has been calling for since June.

This is a huge win for community advocacy and will make a huge difference to older Australians but there is still so much more to do.

121,000 older Australians are waiting for an assessment and 108,000 are waiting for a package.

Thanks to Glenn Connley for that break – it seems like it has been quite the time!

Here is how Mike Bowers saw some of that: