On Monday, journalists asked if a 25% export tax that helped pay for cost-of-living relief would “just increase demand and worsen inflation”. No, it will lower inflation.

The gas industry is clearly worried that a vast majority of Australians believe there should be a 25% tax on gas exports. After decades of playing Australian governments for fools, the industry deserves to be worried that Australians and politicians across multiple parties have realised that Big Gas is taking the piss.

For years, the idea of properly taxing gas exports has been treated as politically untenable - something governments approached dismissively, if at all. But as global conflict pushes up energy prices and gas company profits surge, that dismissiveness is starting to look like negligence.

On Saturday, South Australians voted decisively to re-elect the first-term Malinauskas Labor Government. While we don’t know exactly how the 47 lower house seats will fall, Labor will have a super-majority having won about 35 seats.  

In February the unemployment rate rose from 4.1% to 4.3%, providing further evidence the Reserve Bank misread the economy when it raised rates in both February and this week.