It's Monday, the 13^th of October 2025. Today, Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock gives the labour market her tick of approval, with the caveat that it is a little bit tight in some areas. The central bank expects the unemployment rate to drift slightly higher over the rest of the year. Bullock said that services inflation was still “a little sticky”, but that it was being offset by slightly lower goods inflation. And the governor also expects the private sector to take over from the public sector as the driver of economic growth.

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News in brief

Bitcoin, having reached a new record last week, experienced its biggest one day sell-off ever, at least in dollar terms, over the weekend, falling from more than $125,000 a unit to less than $112,000.

Qantas says 5.7 million customer records have been leaked on the dark web, as part of a major hacking program from international cybercriminal group Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters, that has affected data from 39 clients of Salesforce.

Victoria will legislate to criminalise aggression towards retail, hospitality and transport workers following pressure from major retailers and unions to introduce workplace protection orders as part of a crackdown on a surge in retail crime.

Now the footy seasons are over, the auction market is getting back to normal and the preliminary clearance rate for the combined capital cities came in at a relatively high 73 per cents over the past week.

Penfolds latest vintage of Grange Hermitage is driving record sales for the winemaker at liquor retailers, after the drop achieved a perfect 100-point score from wine tasters. Enthusiasm for Penfolds is spanning from the highly affordable Bin 28, to Grange, according to Dan Murphy’s and Coles Liquor, as reported in The Australian. See our table at the end of this newsletter for more.

Fear-o-meter

Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock is happy with how the Australian economy is performing, but she is keeping a close watch on the housing sector.

Central bank governors aren’t known for their hyperbole, and that applies to Bullock. However last Friday in Senate Estimates she said that the government’s expanded homeowners scheme will add to price pressures. Also, investors are returning to property, adding to demand.

Total borrowing by property investors had grown 8.4 per cent over the past three months, the highest rate in a decade and house price expectations are at a 15-year-high. Investors can make housing cycles more extreme by introducing higher loan-to-valuation and debt-to-income ratios.

“That introduces vulnerabilities into the system. So that’s the concern,” Bullock said. “We don’t see it manifesting at the moment… All we’re highlighting is that it needs to be kept an eye on because it can aggravate these cycles.”

Fear & Greed Q+A today

On the week ahead for the economy, including whether we should be worried about the labour market softening:

 

"I don't think we should be too concerned at the moment because it has been so strong for such a long period of time, so any sort of deterioration from here to some extent had to be expected. You couldn't kind of maintain that level of jobs growth and such a low unemployment rate forever.

We're not actually seeing a lot of job losses. What we're seeing is jobs growth not being as fast. So for the most part, people are still finding work. From here on in, it does seem like the labour market will start to show the effects of some of the previous slowdown because the labour market takes a long time to adjust. It probably will slow, but not substantially. This week we might see the unemployment rate jump from 4.2 to 4.3%. Not ideal, but certainly not something I think we have to worry too much about."

Greed-o-meter

Demand for Penfolds wine has surged, with the latest Grange (the 2021 vintage) recording its highest-ever sales in a single month. Dan Murphy's and Coles Liquor have both reported strong sales for the Penfolds range, with prices for most of the 2025 releases left unchanged from last year. 

Source: The Australian

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