China's economy is slowing and, even more worryingly for Australia, its growth is shifting away from relying as heavily on the commodity exports we have specialised in. Around the same time as China announced its economy had slowed to levels not seen since the GFC, a group of miners east of Geraldton were told they had lost their jobs.

Melbourne city property owners and businesses should pay for Melbourne's planned Metro Rail project because they would benefit from the cars removed from the city and the extra pedestrians, said Committee for Melbourne chief executive Kate Roffey. A levy to fund the $11 billion project to build a rail tunnel under Swanston Street in the CBD could win support from businesses, as it did on Melbourne's own City Loop underground rail line which opened in 1985, she said.

The country’s dearth of new housing will reverse in the next two years, with sluggish population growth resulting in a ­surplus 75,000 homes by the end of 2017, according to a report by Goldman Sachs. Head of macro research Tim Toohey expects population growth to slow to an average of 1.25 per cent a year up to 2017, well down on the Australian Bureau of Statistics forecast 1.7-1.8 per cent over the next three years.