News

The fact that the nations biggest city's housing crisis is reaching alarming proportions is evident by more houses being built in Adelaide than in Sydney in 2009.

The High Court has agreed to hear a challenge to the legality of the Federal Governments $900 bonus to 8.7 million taxpayers thereby putting it in jeopardy.

Bis Shrapnel economist Frank Gelber stated that Australia would avoid a major economic recession that will be experienced overseas.

He further added that Australia will have a downturn, which will not rebound quickly, and that we still need to see the fall in investment again the result of the credit squeeze, feeding through to the rest of the economy.

Is Australia already in recession? According to the experts there has to be two successive quarters of negative GDP growth and we have only had one so far.

The economy went backwards in the December quarter, and that was before the real effects from the global meltdown had reached us.

A researcher has forecast that Australian banks will collect more than $5 billion in fees in the year ahead as they aim to survive the global economic crisis.

After the economy shrank in the December quarter Australia could be on the brink of a recession for the first time in almost two decades. Australia was only spared a technical recession by the performance of the Agriculture sector.

Despite the fact that borrowing rebounded in January consumers still continue to reduce their debt as fears of a recession loom.

According to data released by the Reserve Bank of Australia on Friday, total private sector credit rose 0.6 per cent in January from 0.2 per cent decline in December.

According to a new study that reveals the extent of commissions it has been revealed that some investors are paying financial planners up to 13 times more than they should.

The study further revealed that commissions to planners were much more than the up-front fees charged by other planners.

As part of the Government's $42bn stimulus package the Australian Tax Office said that preparations are underway to make one-off payments to taxpayers from early April.

Australians have been scared into paying off their debts and ramping up their savings due to the sinking economy and fear of losing their jobs.

Less than 5 per cent of mortgage borrowers have opted to reduce the repayments on their mortgages as figures from the big four banks have shown.