This assignment is due 11.00pm on October 6, 2016, and is worth 20% of your final grade.

Please ensure when you submit via Moodle that you attach a signed assignment cover page as per the copy provided on Moodle.

Each question should be commenced on a new page.

PART A (30 marks)

Write a paper (1500 words max.) summarising the main Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) products that are of interest to business, briefly describing their potential use, and noting what the most recently published figures for each are.

PART B (15 Marks)

The management and employees of JoKelly Enterprises Ltd (based in Darwin) are locked in a heated dispute over wage levels. The current average annual wages are $67,600 (March 2013) which is up from the $50,700 it was in March 2003. Note that each year there was an annual increase of $1,690.

Consequently Management are claiming they have passed on increases roughly equivalent to the Darwin CPI each year and therefore Adjusted Wages have continually increased. On the other hand, the employees are counter claiming that the purchasing power of their wages has actually decreased.

The industrial umpire, Fair Work Australia, has engaged you to summarise what the arguments of each party would be and to provide a recommendation whether to increase wages or not. Please provide reasons and calculations for your answer.

PART C (5 Marks)

For this question, assume the average house price in Perth (WA) in December 2002 was $175,500, and the average annual wages for Perth in December 2012 was $80,060.

Using the appropriate tables in the respective price indices provided in the link on Moodle, calculate how many years salary it would take to purchase a house as at December for each of the years 2002 2012. Please provide an explanation and calculations for your answer.