Weekly energy price update.

On Friday, Iran's Foreign Minister announced that the Strait of Hormuz had been reopened to commercial vessels, coinciding with the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire. The announcement occurred after markets had closed for the weekend in Australia and Singapore, but before they had closed in Europe or the United States. While Iran states the strait is fully operational for commercial traffic, vessels must use Iranian-designated routes and obtain permission from Iranian authorities. The US naval blockade of Iranian ports remains in place. Markets reacted strongly to the news, with oil prices falling sharply and stock indices reaching record highs.

Crude oil benchmarks

Net Permanent and Long-Term Arrivals

A quick note on why Net Permanent and Long-Term Arrivals (NPLT) is not a useful measure of Net Overseas Migration (NOM) - even though it gets quoted constantly (because it's timely and deliciously large).

NPLT counts border crossings by stated intention (staying/leaving for 12+ months). The ABS explicitly cautions against treating it as a migration proxy: intentions shift, the 12-month rule produces double-counting, and it doesn't reconcile with the population.

The following chart shows why this matters. Three measures of the ostensibly same thing:

Weekly update: energy prices

 Global benchmark prices

Updated weekly fuel prices

GDP Nowcast: Q1 2026

Summary

Australia's GDP is tracking +0.78% quarter-on-quarter (+2.93% through the year) based on data available as at 6 April 2026. If realised, this would be the strongest quarterly outcome in three quarters and would push annual growth to its highest since early 2023.

Updated Energy Benchmarks

Housing Tax Reform without Housing Reform

The Setup

The Albanese government is set to announce changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount in the May 12 budget. It will be framed as a landmark moment for housing affordability and intergenerational equity. It is neither. It is a modest tax adjustment to second-order mechanisms in a system whose first-order problems are not being touched.

Here is what the policy is, why it matters at the margin, and why it does little to fix housing purchase affordability and may even harm rental affordability.