Authorities have closed two beaches in Sydney. The reason: hundreds of black tar balls the size of golf balls that have been washed ashore. The cause and danger of the balls are still unclear.

For what it’s worth, the comparison look like this (as of last August), so Chalmers’ office put out a month ago: Still, the good news has an aftertaste: the RBA is looking for the jobs market to cool a bit to take out what it sees as excessive demand in the economy before it gets out its interest rate axe.