Economists and newsrooms collaborate to lie about Australia’s economy
Australia’s media has hit a new low in deceptive reporting, but with one positive note, asAlan Austinreports. PROMINENT economistSaul Eslakedeclared onSky Newslast Monday that“the OECD has shown that Australia. . .
Australia’s media has hit a new low in deceptive reporting, but with one positive note, asAlan Austinreports. PROMINENT economistSaul Eslakedeclared onSky Newslast Monday that“the OECD has shown that Australia has had the highest core inflation rate of all but one of the 38 members of the OECD”. Eslake was apparently commenting on that day’s newsreleasefrom the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) titledConsumer Price Index, 6 July 2026. With his usual confidence, Eslake criticised theReserve Bank’s management of interest rates and the Federal Government’s first home buyers scheme, adding a gratuitous reference to a budget measure renegotiated after last year’s Economic Roundtable as a“broken promise”. But here’s the thing. The OECD report did not say what Eslake claimed. It showed Australia’s core inflation – all CPI items excluding food and energy – at 3. 5%. It also showed Belgium’s at 4. 1%, Mexico’s at 4. 3%, Lithuania’s at 4. 6%, Colombia’s at 6. 5%, Iceland’s at 6. 7% and Turkiye’s at a punishing 30. 6%. Australia is not second bottom. Nowhere near. The implication – that Australia’s economic management is deficient – is therefore not supported. So how did this arise? Did the economist not read the OECD document, but instead rely on the mendacious report from the day before in theFinancial Review(AFR)? Or did he trust a copycat fabricatedstoryin the Murdoch media that morning? Or did he concoct the false narrative himself in compliance with Sky News’ editorial policy of only ever broadcasting economic “news” damaging to Labor?We don’t know because our requests for an explanation went unanswered. Malicious falsehoods nationwideAll the newsrooms these days fall over each other trying to replicate every false story any one of them creates. This happened with the dire threats ofrecessionin January and February,anxietyin March and April over interest rates when they were smack in the middle of the optimum band,hyperventilatingover the May budget, warning it would inevitably cause house prices toriseand simultaneously tofall— and now core inflation. Headlines last week included:‘Australia has had the highest core inflation rate out of all but one of the OECD members’(Sky News, 6 July);‘Australia’s core inflation now second highest in world, expert blames spending’(news. com. au, 6 July);‘Shock inflation ranking. Australia becomes international outlier’(Nine News, 6 July); and‘Australia’s inflation among highest in world’(Yahoo Finance, 6 July). The AFR fake chartThis latest spate of blatant lies appears to have started with anarticlebyMichael Readin theAFRheaded,‘Australia tops inflation rankings among all major developed economies’. Read claimed:‘Australia has become an international inflation outlier[with]the equal-highest core inflation rate among major developed economies and the second-highest across all advanced economies, behind only Iceland. . . ’He included this chart to illustrate the concept he wanted readers to swallow:(Source:AFR)The obvious ruse is selecting an arbitrary group of 34 economies plus the Euro Area and claiming they are all comparable. It left out seven OECD members and many other advanced economies. Disturbingly, it used May data for some countries (Australia, Luxembourg, Netherlands) but June for others (Belgium, Portugal, Spain) — whencommodityprices were different. May numbers were available for all, except New Zealand. A far more valid exercise is to compare all advanced economies, those with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)Human Development Indexnumbers above 0. 76, for which core inflation numbers for May are published attradingeconomics. com. There are 60 of these, ranging from Costa Rica at 0. 28% to Argentina at 32%. These include all 38 OECD members plus the economies that theAFRwanted concealed. See chart below. (Data source:UNDP)Unfortunately, country names are difficult to read on this chart, but that’s not important. What matters is that Australia is not the second-worst. Its core inflation of 3. 57% ranks 22nd, below the average of 4. 27%. TheAFRarticle went on to falsely claim that Australia is still in a cost-of-living crisis and inflation is uncontrolled. They want us to forget inflation was above 10% for much of the timeJohn Howardwas trying to be Treasurer in the 1980s. The article ended with another economist,John Simon, not just implying Australia’s inflation is excessive but actually saying:“What’s been experienced in Australia is not a global phenomenon. ”The actual data, which economists called upon by the newsrooms seem reluctant to access, shows Australia’s inflation is indeed global and not an outlier. ABC News changes its tuneIn a surprising bright spot last week, the ABC’s business reporter,Alan Kohler, did a full 180-degree turn andannouncedthat Australia is not heading for a recession after all. The economy is so strong, in fact, it needs dampening:If you spent your time on the websites of the Bureau of Statistics, the Reserve Bank and the ASX, you'd think things were going fine. . . Economic growth is a solid if unexciting 2. 5%, job growth is reasonably strong and unemployment is down. . . Inflation is coming down, consumer spending is growing. . . In fact, the economy is doing so well, the Reserve Bank has been raising interest rates to slow it down. This is most welcome, as just last month thiscolumncounted Kohler among the shonks and charlatans in the newsrooms who had issued ridiculouswarningsof an imminent recession. Let’s hope his colleagues join him. They have some catching up to do, however, with economics reporterGareth Hutchensrecentlybewailinga slowing economy and getting a KPMG senior economist to insist things are‘worse now than they were almost four decades ago’. Absolute nonsense! But public economists know Australia’s newsrooms want destructive falsehoods and that’s what they seem happy to deliver. Alan Austinis an Independent Australia columnist and freelance journalist. You can follow him on Twitter@alanaustin001and Bluesky@alanaustin. bsky. social. Support independent journalismSubscribeto IA. Related ArticlesAustralia’s newsrooms continue to suppress vital informationFlailing newsrooms flog fears of a fictional recessionLucky for some: Australia’s per capita recessionThe richer Australians get, the sadder they become, data showsFarmers are anxious, but still in a pretty good paddock