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Budget tips fast inflation fall, reviving rate cut hopes
Treasurer Jim Chalmers says measures in Tuesday’s federal budget will help bring inflation down to within the Reserve Bank’s target band by Christmas.
- Live
- Markets Live
ASX to slip, NAB seeks $750m hybrids; Fletcher cuts guidance
Shares set for a weak start; Wall Street modestly higher; oil down; bond yields up; on the agenda this week: Australia budget, wages, jobs data and US CPI. Follow updates here.
- Opinion
- Federal budget
Jim Chalmers rips up Paul Keating’s economic playbook
The treasurer is breaking from Labor’s previously claimed belief in the Hawke-Keating market-based economic model that helped deliver 30 years of prosperity, writes John Kehoe.
- Live
- Need to Know
Blinken delivers strong public criticism of Israel’s invasion of Gaza
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Israel’s war in Gaza has resulted in ‘a horrible loss of life of innocent civilians’ without neutralising Hamas. Follow updates live.
- Opinion
- Hedge funds
Bonza’s failure is a warning for corporate Australia
The private equity-backed airline’s abrupt collapse shines a spotlight on the potential risks brewing in the massive, unregulated private credit market, writes Karen Maley.
- Exclusive
- Regulation
ASIC investigates ANZ over Treasury trades
The corporate regulator acted after receiving a complaint from the Australian Office of Financial Management, which raises government debt, sources said.
- Exclusive
- Infrastructure
Review warned of budget blowout from Victoria’s Suburban Rail Loop
This comes as Infrastructure Minister Catherine King fights to keep secret key contents of the report, including details of 30 projects recommended scrapped.
AFR Weekend: The big stories, best reads and expert advice. In your inbox on Saturday.
FEDERAL BUDGET
- Exclusive
- Federal budget
Budget to extend small business instant asset write-off
The scheme allows businesses with turnovers capped at $10 million to immediately write off $20,000 from all eligible assets.
Budget to provide billions for wages, super blowout
Tuesday’s federal budget will include a massive provision for pay rises in aged care and childcare as well as the recent decision to apply compulsory superannuation to parental leave.
Everything we know about the budget so far
Treasurer Jim Chalmers will hand down Labor’s third budget on May 14. Here’s what we know about the proposed spending measures.
- Opinion
- Federal budget
Why did Labor drop a big policy change at 6pm last Friday?
While the media scrambled to get across a housing announcement late Friday, the government quietly dropped long-awaited changes to foreign student numbers.
Readers want government to cut debt, rein in spending
Almost 60 per cent readers want Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ federal budget priority to either reduce debt or reign in government spending in this year’s budget - but another 24 per cent want cost-of-living relief to be the focus.
MONDAY MEDIA
- Updated
- Media & marketing
$250m deal to reshape radio market collapses
Southern Cross Austereo’s regional TV stations proved the sticking point for Anchorage Capital Partners’ deal. ARN is left to try and salvage a way forward.
- Opinion
- Media & marketing
New laws risk the end of free sports on TV
The government has one chance of modernising how broadcast rights are organised. Otherwise, iconic sporting events will be harder to find.
The researchers influencing billions in global marketing
The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute is sponsored by The Coca-Cola Company, McDonald’s, Mars, Nestlé and PepsiCo. Its findings guide global business decisions.
Showtime! Media CEOs’ last stand with Foxtel over future of TV
Years of lobbying by free-to-air networks and Foxtel have come down to this week, when two crucial pieces of legislation are set to go before the Senate.
- Opinion
- Tech Observed
Apple ad fail shows why we fear AI
Apple has apologised for an ad for its new iPads that was so tone-deaf that the creative types, who normally love the company, had an existential fright.
Get the latest business news on the go with the AFR’s new iOS app.
Companies
McKinsey program leaves Bapcor in a hole
Instead of delivering the $100 million in extra profits promised, the strategy overhaul has left the automotive giant in disarray and profits sliding.
- Exclusive
- Tax avoidance
Aware says it is in ‘early discussions’ with Lendlease over tax bill
The industry superannuation fund is one of the company’s largest investors and owns a big stake in the retirement living business at the centre of the audit.
ANZ wants to revisit Bank@Post deal amid scrutiny of branch closures
It is the only major bank not to allow customers to access services through Australia Post. Rural branch closures will be a focus of a Senate report this week.
David Di Pilla’s HMC Capital takes big stake in Baby Bunting
The country’s largest maternity and baby good retailer has had a poor year, with earnings downgrade and executives departures pushing shares a third lower.
- Exclusive
- Airports
Virgin Australia goes to war over airport ‘gold plating’
The airline’s chief financial officer, Race Strauss, says much of the $15 billion being spent by major airports on infrastructure is unnecessary.
- Analysis
- Energy transition
What was Origin Energy boss Frank Calabria really doing in London?
He flew halfway round the world to hold a strategy day for UK upstart Octopus Energy. The message for Origin shareholders and analysts: take another look.
PE firm behind Bonza, Melbourne Victory calls in insolvency experts
The private equity firm called in advisers overnight to assist with “operational challenges”. It is a major shareholder in the A-League club and budget airline.
Companies in the News
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Markets
Brookfield’s Healthscope debt trap is a mess for everyone involved
The investment giant is bringing its punchy approach to restructuring – and tactics more often found in the US – to Australia as it works on the hospital group.
How markets were looking before the ASX opening bell
Australian shares were set to edge lower on Monday as they waited to assess the impact of federal budget spending on the central bank’s path to an interest rate cut.
- Opinion
- Bonds
Forget the hawks, the RBA’s next rate move will be lower
In my over 20 years in financial markets, I’ve never seen such a wide dispersion of views on interest rates – we are at a pivotal moment in monetary policy, writes Angus Coote.
Hedge fund founder’s $550,000 loan to be questioned by liquidator
The founder of Perth’s NWQ Capital Management owed more than half a million dollars before its collapse and has told liquidators the loan cannot be repaid.
Jim Simons, ‘quant king’ at Renaissance Technologies, dies at 86
The mathematician-investor created what many in finance consider the world’s greatest moneymaking machine at his secretive firm.
Opinion
Substantial surpluses, not bigger deficits, should be running at this point
Instead, Jim Chalmers has confirmed that forecast deficits will widen as Labor’s Future Made In Australia budget centrepiece rolls out subsidies for the green energy and advanced manufacturing subsides.
Editorial
Can Labor pick winners without being dudded? We have ideas
There needs to be a process of competitive public testing and discovery against a clear public interest standard so that government and taxpayers’ money don’t get skinned in a lopsided contest with investors and project promoters.
How Trump’s ‘imperial presidency’ will reshape the world
If Donald Trump wins in November, expect even greater strain on American institutions. But he’s unlikely to be an “imperial president” abroad.
International editor
Bonza’s failure is a warning for corporate Australia
The private equity-backed airline’s abrupt collapse shines a spotlight on the potential risks brewing in the massive, unregulated private credit market.
Columnist
Tax inertia pushes budget towards a black hole
Redesigning the tax system against the principles of fairness, efficiency, sustainability and coherence would deliver us all with an economic dividend.
Economist
Australia wants more than the Lucky Country can deliver
Successive terms of trade booms – the envy of other nations – have allowed Australian governments to splurge. But now it seems that even that is not enough.
Editorial
Reports
BOSS Best Places to Work
The awards celebrate the achievements of the best small, medium and large organisations and nine sector winners.
Politics
Palestinians’ aggressive lobbying upset Labor but it worked
Australia’s decision to support Palestinian UN membership follows seven months of intense, and aggressive, lobbying by a network of activists.
- Opinion
- BNPL
Payments innovation under threat from RBA
Buy now, pay later, which revolutionised Australia’s highly concentrated payments system, is under potential threat from increased regulation, writes Tony Boyd.
Coalition warns Labor over RBA board ‘sack and stack’
The implication is Labor would seek to appoint board members inclined to lower interest rates ahead of the federal election, risking the push to curb high inflation.
Labor accused of ‘rewarding’ Hamas with Palestine vote
Opposition frontbencher Senator Jane Hume said there could be no sustainable two-state solution without the consent of Israel.
- Opinion
- Federal budget
Tax inertia pushes budget towards a black hole
Redesigning the tax system against the principles of fairness, efficiency, sustainability and coherence would deliver us all with an economic dividend.
SPONSORED
World
Ken Griffin urges Harvard University to embrace ‘Western values’
The hedge fund founder who has given his alma mater more than $US500 million has slammed the pro-Palestinian protests sweeping colleges as “almost like performative art”.
- Opinion
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Why the campus protests are so troubling
Hamas is against the existence of a Jewish state and believes there should be an Islamic state between the river and the sea. When protests on college campuses ignore that, they are part of the problem.
Halting the bombs: Biden’s gamble to rein in Netanyahu
The US president paused a weapons shipment to Israel, piling pressure on Israel’s leader to change course. Will it work?
Russia ‘captures key villages’ as Ukraine races reinforcements
Military bloggers say the assault in the north-east could mark the start of an attempt to carve out the “buffer zone” sought by President Vladimir Putin.
Defiant Israel orders more Palestinians to flee Rafah
Benjamin Netanyahu insists that he must maintain military pressure in Gaza to eradicate Hamas despite warnings from the US and others.
Property
House builders can’t compete with states’ cash splash
In the race for talent and materials in Australia’s construction game, housing has consistently run in second place to the infrastructure sector.
- Exclusive
- Construction
Gurner-Roberts merger plan sinks
A lack of “chemistry” between the two Rich List business leaders also hindered a merger of their development and construction businesses.
WA farmland boom to end as drier conditions prevail
Farmers in Australia’s wheat and sheep powerhouse state enjoyed a 32 per cent uplift in land values in 2023, but there will be no repeat performance of that in 2024.
Former QIC boss Damien Frawley puts Qld cattle station on the market
Damien Frawley, who is a director at Mirvac and chair of Hostplus, is the biggest shareholder of Blue Sky Beef which is selling Gowan Station.
- Exclusive
- Luxury property
Liberman family to sell $17m Toorak ‘treehouse’
A glass and steel modernist retreat designed by Robin Boyd has joined Toorak’s prestige market with a guide of $15.9 million to $17 million.
Wealth
ASIC finds super funds still charging fees for no service
Super funds are obliged to ensure members are only charged for financial advice they actually receive but not all are doing so.
A smarter way to tax high super balances
The government has tried to keep things simple, but in doing so fairness has gone out the window.
Coalition to oppose ‘sophisticated investor’ test overhaul
Labor is grappling with backlash from the start-up sector over calls to limit access to venture capital to investors worth more than $4.5 million.
Technology
15 minutes to get around X’s stabbing video ban, court hears
Lawyers for the social network argued that they had complied with a government take-down notice, which they said was invalid, by blocking footage in Australia.
- Updated
- Earnings season
Life360 reheats plans to target US investors with Nasdaq listing
The ASX-listed, San Francisco-based family-tracking app does not expect to raise more than $US100 million. It had considered a similar move in 2021.
- Opinion
- Tech Observed
Apple ad fail shows why we fear AI
Apple has apologised for an ad for its new iPads that was so tone-deaf that the creative types, who normally love the company, had an existential fright.
Work & Careers
How Harvard’s leadership rules are helping train Australia’s MPs
Since 2019, groups of aspiring government ministers at the state and federal level have been undertaking specialist training programs, designed to improve standards.
Global push to get tax advisers to think ethically
New rules have been agreed to help restore trust in a profession battered by wrongdoing, including the PwC tax leaks scandal.
Life & Luxury
- Drinks With Max Allen
- Trends
Top restaurants can’t get enough of the mother of all vinegars
Tasmanian cider maker Tim Jones has branched out into barrel-aged craft vinegars and a refreshing sweet-and-sour cordial.
The interior designer who swears by secondhand fashion
Shona McElroy loves measuring things, having Veuve to serve, and Buddha’s hand
‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ and ‘Monster’ movie reviews
One is set to be a blockbuster, but the other is one of those critically acclaimed films that can expect to enjoy only a modest success at the box office.
When business comes to dine: Fin Dining & Wine launches at Bennelong
The Financial Review’s first restaurant guide features 50 of the best business lunches across Australia, helmed by Jill Dupleix with wine tips from Max Allen.
This luxury spa in India costs $17k for five nights. Is it worth it?
We road-test celebrity magnet Ananda Spa in the Himalayas.
