August 1, 2019 Edition.
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The big news is Boris Johnson taking over as the UK PM and the resulting uncertainty as to what comes next. It really looks unlikely that he is up to landing a good outcome – to the eternal damage of the UK and all who live there.
Trump is thrilled Boris is in and is also thrilled he has been given some money to build his wall by the Supreme Court. Elsewhere he is bringing back the Death Penalty. What a pathetic nasty little man he is….
In OZ we find ScoMo telling his backbenchers to stay silent outside the Party Room and being ignored – so much for leader authority after the election. Great to watch the push for an increase in the NewStart – well overdue.
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Major Issues.
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Central banks are losing their big bet on cheap money
Easy money policies fail twice. Once when they do not work, and again in the mess that they leave behind.
Mohamed El-Erian
Jul 21, 2019 — 4.00pm
In recent years, central banks have made a large policy wager.
They bet that the protracted use of unconventional and experimental measures would provide an effective bridge to more comprehensive measures that would generate high inclusive growth and minimise the risk of financial instability.
But central banks have repeatedly had to double down, in the process becoming increasingly aware of the growing risks to their credibility, effectiveness and political autonomy.
Ironically, central bankers may now get a response from other policymaking entities, which, instead of helping to normalise their operations, would make their task a lot tougher.
Let’s start with the US Federal Reserve, the world’s most powerful central bank, whose actions strongly influence other central banks.
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Why the Fed should not go big: El-Erian
Mohamed A. El-Erian
Jul 20, 2019 — 9.11am
What's wrong with a 50 basis-point interest-rate cut?
I'm all for central banks doing their utmost to support high, durable and inclusive growth. But this doesn't mean throwing everything at the wall when the economy is doing relatively well, financial markets are buoyant, and policy ammunition is limited.
Growing pressure on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates by 50 basis points this month is unwarranted.
By complying, the Fed would serve the short-term interests of financial asset holders at the risk of greater difficulties down the road.
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Why it could be smart to fight the Fed this time
Conrad De Aenlle
Jul 14, 2019 — 12.16pm
Stocks have set new highs, because so many on Wall Street are following age-old advice: Don't fight the Fed.
Traders who bet on these things have been expecting up to one full percentage point of Federal Reserve interest rate cuts in the next year, starting with either a quarter- or half-point move this month, after ever more emphatic hints that looser monetary policy is imminent. Because falling rates tend to be good for stocks, it's easy to see why many people are bullish.
But as evidence accumulates that economic growth may be slowing more rapidly than the Fed had expected, investors might want to reconsider whose side to be on in the fight between the Fed and a possible recession.
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Investors should pay more attention to liquidity
As strong returns ultimately need to be realised, liquidity should increasingly be front of mind for investors given the strong performance of markets.
Tamar Hamlyn
Jul 21, 2019 — 1.59pm
Strong investment returns across the depth and breadth of almost all asset classes have continued in the last few weeks.
These valuation gains have been spectacular for investors, but the liquidity underpinning today’s buoyant markets has received far less consideration.
Liquidity, on the back of good valuations, is how investors convert strong investment performance into cash in their bank account. As strong returns ultimately need to be realised, liquidity should increasingly be front of mind for investors given the strong performance that markets are delivering.
Part of the reason for strong performance this year is that, unusually, both growth and defensive assets have benefited.
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Birmingham to visit China amid fresh tensions
Jul 22, 2019 — 12.00am
Trade Minister Simon Birmingham will make an official visit to China next month in what the government hopes will be another step towards thawing relations with Beijing and securing a meeting between leaders by the end of this year.
With the Chinese again angry at Canberra, this time over the government's representations on behalf of detained Australian citizen Yang Hengjun, Senator Birmingham will travel to Beijing in the first week of August for talks on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.
RCEP is a 16-nation Asia-Pacific trade pact that Australia and others want negotiated by the end of the year to help cushion the impact of what looms as a dangerously protracted US-China trade war.
Senator Birmingham visited Shanghai last November to attend, with others from around the world, China's first global import fair.
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We must help to maintain freedom of the seas
The Financial Review’s take on the principles at stake in major domestic and global stories.
Jul 22, 2019 — 12.00am
Many Australians will be nervous at the prospect of the Royal Australian Navy’s warships sailing into the tension-ridden waters in the Straits of Hormuz, the entrance to the Arabian Gulf. Foreign affairs and defence officials have been in talks about joining Operation Sentinel, a US-led effort to patrol the Straits and escort international shipping now at risk there.
The misgivings are understandable. Past American interventions in the Middle East, which Australia has supported, have not been very successful. President Donald Trump’s judgment and even reliability as an ally are more questionable than his predecessors'. But there are other big issues at stake which mean Australia should play a role in protecting international waters.
The latest showdown follows President Trump’s withdrawal from Iran’s 2015 deal with the former Obama administration, also signed by the UK, France, Germany, Russia and China, to curb Tehran’s plans for nuclear weapons. Washington is now applying a “maximum pressure” strategy, cutting Iran from the US dollar system and reducing its oil exports - which fund 40 per cent of Iran’s national budget - as close to zero as possible. The US wants the limits on Iran’s nuclear industry to last indefinitely, not the 15 years agreed, and for Iran to stop developing missiles and deploying forces around the Middle East.
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‘Something has got to give’: Peter Tonagh issues warning on Foxtel
By Jennifer Duke
July 22, 2019 — 12.00am
A former chief executive of Foxtel has warned the pay-TV business will need to have a dramatic overhaul to stay competitive and shore up its earnings as Australians turn towards Netflix.
Peter Tonagh, who was Foxtel's CEO for about two years until January 2018 when he was replaced by Patrick Delany, told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that the embattled business would not be able to spend as much on content, including sports, in future.
The former News Corp chief executive, who joined the Village Roadshow board last week, also said that while the pay-TV service's streaming options such as recently launched service Kayo Sports made sense strategically, the lower prices it was charging threatened to put even more pressure on the company's earnings.
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Gap between rich and poor a $247 billion drag on our wellbeing
By Matt Wade
July 21, 2019 — 8.00pm
The income gap between rich and poor is a bigger drag on the wellbeing of the Australian community than previously estimated, a broad measure of national welfare shows.
The Sydney Morning Herald/Age-Lateral Economics Wellbeing Index has lifted it estimate of the wellbeing cost of income inequality in 2018 by nearly $8 billion.
The upward revision was triggered by the release this month of data from the Bureau of Statistics’ 2017-18 survey of household income and wealth which revealed a modest increase in income inequality compared with the previous survey.
The index’s authors calculate it would have required a half a percent increase in Australia’s gross domestic product last year to make up for the decline in community wellbeing caused by less equitable income distribution.
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Pyne and Bishop jobs both within the rules
A review by the nation's top bureaucrat has found post-politics jobs taken by Christopher Pyne and Julie Bishop have not breached ministerial standards.
Katina Curtis and Marnie Banger
Australian Associated Press July 22, 201911:09am
Australia's top bureaucrat has cleared former ministers Julie Bishop and Christopher Pyne of any potential misconduct over jobs they have accepted since retiring from politics.
Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet secretary Martin Parkinson has reviewed both appointments and found ministerial rules have not been broken.
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Taxation helped make the building crisis
- 6:46AM July 22, 2019
I recently spent some time in Edinburgh, which is very beautiful and full of tourists. Why is it beautiful and what are the tourists doing there? It’s because the buildings are really old.
Some days walking the Royal Mile was like leaving the MCG after the Anzac Day game. The place is mobbed by gawkers like me. Everyone’s there partly there for the Scottishness of it all – the history, the bagpipe buskers, the overpriced cashmere scarves, the whisky and even the appalling haggis – but we all mainly spent our time admiring the rows of magnificent 500-year-old buildings and castles, most of which look like they’ll be there for another 500 years.
I returned to Australia to news of 20-year-old buildings falling down, or covered in plastic cladding that, if someone strikes a match nearby, will incinerate the occupants.
The contrast couldn’t be greater, not just between Edinburgh and Australia, but between past building standards in general and modern ones.
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Memo Dick Smith: here’s how to avoid Franking credits
- 2 hours ago July 23, 2019
I thought I had written my last column on franking credits and the role of cash refunds. Let’s face it, the topic was a serious busted flush for Labor, and if the party had any sense it would reject all proposals to tweak the system.
But last week dear old Dick Smith popped up to demonstrate his extreme naivety when it comes to financial matters and franking credits, in particular.
Here’s what he said: “I found I was getting this ridiculous money from the government. That’s wrong, I said, I’m wealthy. My accountant said ‘That’s how it works, that’s what you have to do.’ I can’t stop it. I think it’s outrageous for wealthy people to be getting money from the government.” Actually, Dick, you can stop it. All you need to do is withdraw all the funds from your gigantic self-managed superannuation fund, invest them in your own name in non-franked assets and pay tax at the top marginal rate of 45 per cent plus the 2 per cent Medicare levy.
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Listed fund FOFA 'loophole' slammed by Labor
Jul 22, 2019 — 1.57pm
The federal Labor Opposition has slammed a loophole created by the Coalition government that allows financial advisers to sell listed fund investments to clients and be paid lucrative commissions in return.
Shadow financial services minister Stephen Jones hit out at the "conflicted remuneration" after AFR Weekend revealed some independent advisers blew the whistle on peers for aggressively pushing listed investment companies (LICs) and listed investment trusts (LITs).
The share price collapses of Dixon Advisory’s US property fund and Melbourne hedge fund L1 Capital’s LIC, both listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, have triggered calls for regulators to crack down on advisers and brokers selling LICs and LITs.
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'Bad science': Australian studies found to be unreliable, compromised
By Liam Mannix
July 22, 2019 — 11.30pm
Hundreds of scientific research papers published by Australian scientists have been found to be unreliable or compromised, fuelling calls for a national science watchdog.
For the first time, a team of science writers behind Retraction Watch has put together a database of compromised scientific research in Australia.
Over the past two decades, 247 scientific research papers - some associated with the country's most reputable universities - have been found to be compromised.
The database reveals the scale of scientific misconduct in Australia, although senior scientists claim it is just the tip of the iceberg.
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Savings rates hit rock bottom amid signs of further spending restraint
By Shane Wright
July 23, 2019 — 10.49am
The nation's depositors have been dealt a fresh blow with the Commonwealth Bank becoming the last of the four major institutions to slash interest rates to virtually nothing on its savings accounts.
Financial data firm Canstar confirmed on Tuesday the CBA had halved the rate on its online savings account, taking it down to 0.15 per cent.
It follows the decision of the Reserve Bank of Australia earlier this month to cut official interest rates by a quarter percentage point on top of their June reduction.
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Why we're feeling poor: Prices for schools, health and other 'needs' up about 200% in 20 years
Elizabeth Knight
Business columnist
July 23, 2019 — 12.00am
Over the past 20 years a yawning gap has emerged between the cost of living and our sagging standard of living as the prices of many of the goods and services we ‘need’ have risen way in excess of the prices for our discretionary ‘wants’.
It explains why many Australians feel poorer even though wages have risen over that period a little more than the official consumer price index which measures inflation.
Recent figures show almost half of all Australians are struggling to get by.
Fidelity International’s asset management specialist Anthony Doyle has tracked the price movements in ‘needs’ versus ‘wants’ since 2000, based on the sub-categories within the consumer price index.
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Consumer gloom a worrying sign for all of us
Clancy Yeates
Banking reporter
July 23, 2019 — 12.00am
On face value, recent economic events should give many households a few reasons to be a bit more cheery.
The property market appears to be stabilising, debt is extremely cheap, the share market is near an all-time high and tax cuts are starting to flow from this month. There have even been tentative signs of a slight easing in trade tensions between China the United States.
The Fed were so “dovish”, that markets took their policy stance as confirmation that global growth is indeed slowing. In the week ahead, traders will be fixed on Brexit developments.
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Air safety regulator will consider costs
Legislation requiring the Civil Aviation Safety Authority to consider costs when regulating the industry have passed parliament's lower house.
Matt Coughlan
Australian Associated Press July 22, 20198:03pm
Australia's aviation safety regulator will have to take into account the cost of making rules under draft laws which have passed the Senate.
Pilots and aviation experts raised concerns about the new Civil Aviation Safety Authority guidelines when they were first introduced to parliament this year.
After passing the Senate on Monday night with bipartisan support, the bill looks set to clear parliament when it hits the lower house.
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Guarding against secrecy
- 12:00AM July 23, 2019
The appointment to the bench of ACT magistrate James Lawton has left a lasting impact on reporter Annika Smethurst. Last month she had to stand and watch as police raided her home and rifled through her belongings. They came bearing a search warrant that had been issued by this magistrate four weeks after he joined the bench.
That raid, and a second on the ABC, was based on laws that protect government secrecy from whistleblowers and their allies in the media. They brought to a head the long-simmering conflict over the breadth of laws that restrict what the community is told about government conduct.
To many, the raids have tarnished Australia’s good name as a free society. The New York Times asserted on June 5 that “Australia may well the world’s most secretive democracy”.
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How to protect yourself from an identity theft 'nightmare'
Jul 23, 2019 — 3.25pm
At least $16 million has been lost this year through banking scams and identity theft, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
This could be the "tip of the iceberg" for identity theft complaints because it often takes a long time for victims to twig that someone has impersonated them, the ACCC has warned.
“A lot of people have their identities stolen and don’t even realise. It can take a long time to work out," ACCC chairwoman Delia Rickard said.
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Australian Leadership Index
24 Jul 2019
The Australian Leadership Index measures perceptions and expectations of leadership for the greater good in the government, public, private and not-for-profit sectors.
Against a backdrop of irresponsible leadership and ethical misconduct in our institutions, there is a growing need for leadership that serves the greater good.
The Australian Leadership Index is a new national survey that provides a comprehensive picture of leadership for the greater good in Australia.
Made possible by the generous support of the Graham Family Foundation, the Australian Leadership Index is nationally significant for a number of reasons.
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Retirees will scream 'blue murder' in a crash
Jul 24, 2019 — 2.01pm
Financial planners want regulators to police the use of the terms “growth”, “balanced” and “conservative” so superannuation fund members can better understand how their money is invested.
Minchin Moore partner Ben Smythe said some super funds were labelled "balanced" but had as much as 80 per cent of funds invested in growth assets such as shares and property.
"If and when another global financial crisis hits, a lot of retirees with 'balanced' portfolios are going to be screaming blue murder," he said.
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An epic industry fail on all home buyers
Jul 25, 2019 — 12.00am
When the Commonwealth and the states agreed to a national approach to reforming the nation’s crisis-prone building industry last week, there was a palpable sense of relief.
I don’t know why. Sure, it is good to set a national pathway to the future. But the current challenges to this huge industry lie in the mistakes of the past.
This is the ultimate failure of an industry.
The Building Minister’s Forum acknowledged that many of the issues facing the industry were “historical” but argued “the issues of the past won’t cripple the future of the sector.”
I hope that is true. But I doubt it. Right at this moment, those legacies of the past are giving the industry a very bad case of indigestion.
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Big banks underline how peculiar this record-breaking market has become
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior business columnist
July 25, 2019 — 11.27am
The record levels at which the Australian sharemarket has traded this week only highlights the extent of the continuing disconnect between equity markets and real economies.
In the US the market is up about 20 per cent this year despite faltering corporate earnings. The majority of the companies to have reported so far in this quarterly earnings season have downgraded their guidance.
The Reserve Bank has cut interest rates to a new record low of 1.00 per cent.
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Low rates here to stay and could go lower, RBA chief says
By Shane Wright and Eryk Bagshaw
July 25, 2019 — 1.05pm
The Reserve Bank has signalled it is open to cutting official interest rates even further while effectively committing itself to keep them at ultra-low levels for an extended period of time.
Bank governor Philip Lowe told the annual Anika Foundation address in Sydney on Thursday that although the economy's overall fundamentals remained strong the RBA was prepared to produce faster growth by taking the official cash rate below its current level of 1 per cent.
Dr Lowe said the most recent back-to-back cuts in interest rates, a reduction in tax rates for millions of low- and middle-income earners, higher commodity prices and stabilisation in the housing market would all support the economy.
But if they failed to generate enough activity, the bank stood prepared to take rates lower.
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Consumer confidence dive behind RBA rate cut, expert says
- 12:00AM July 25, 2019
The Reserve Bank will cut interest rates to a record low of 0.5 per cent by February, a prominent economist predicts, after consumer confidence was dented by successive reductions in the official cash rate over the past two months.
Westpac chief economist Bill Evans yesterday said he had revised his earlier forecasts, which had the central bank reducing interest rates to 0.75 per cent, to a new low of 0.5 per cent after he was “surprised” to see consumer confidence dive after the latest round of easing by the RBA.
The bank cut its official cash rate in June and July, the first successive reductions since 2012, to 1 per cent.
“We expect that the RBA will eventually see only one more rate cut, in October, as being an insufficient response,” Mr Evans said, noting the resistance of the major banks to pass on the next rate cut could encourage the central bank to make further reductions to interest rates.
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Last time markets were this high, the GFC came next, so what's coming now?
By Malcolm Maiden
July 25, 2019 — 3.41pm
The sharemarket’s new highs are a cause for nagging unease as much as confidence. This is, in part, because the previous record in November 2007 was set weeks before the market plunged into a crisis that pushed the entire financial system to the brink of collapse.
Another financial crisis is not as likely now. But it is only a matter of time before an old-fashioned sharemarket correction hits, probably induced by an equally old-fashioned economic recession. Donald Trump’s trade war has helped bring it closer.
China's ambassador to Australia says his country is prepared to fight until the end over the trade war with the US.
Pre-packaged, low-quality northern hemisphere mortgage securities were already crumbling on November 1, 2007, when the benchmark ASX 200 share index and the All Ordinaries index both set their new closing highs – 6828.7 points for the ASX 200, and 6853.6 points for the All Ords.
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How Philip Lowe rose to the top
Interest in RBA governor Philip Lowe is on the rise as he takes the cash rate into unconventional territory. Editor-at-large Pamela Williams spent time getting to know the man and his motives.
Philip Lowe became governor of the Reserve Bank in 2016 after a career with the bank spanning 40 years. James Brickwood
Updated Jul 26, 2019 — 6.56am, first published at 12.00am
Philip Lowe leaned forward slightly, his demeanour unchanged. Eyes blue and sharp behind half-framed glasses, close-cut hair, dark suit and patterned tie, he was the image of the restrained central banker. And then he went for them.
“Banks,” said the Reserve Bank governor, using words that sounded like clinking chains, “should not be doing money laundering and they should know who is operating the accounts that they open.” The laws were there for a reason, he said, and they should be enforced.
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'Really no limit': Push to include super, pension, aged care in review of retirement income
By Shane Wright and Eryk Bagshaw
July 26, 2019 — 12.00am
The Morrison government is under pressure to use its review of the nation's retirement income system to canvass a Pandora's box of issues, including an increase in the age at which people can get the pension and the next lift in the superannuation guarantee levy.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is working on the terms of reference, with plans to get the review underway before year's end, as the government grapples with the potential political and budget fallout from its expected findings.
Australians won't have enough superannuation to retire comfortably, a new report has found.
Mr Frydenberg and Prime Minister Scott Morrison put down a backbench rebellion against a legislated superannuation rise from 9.5 per cent to 10 per cent by 2021 this week, with the Treasurer ruling out any changes.
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Reserve Bank got it wrong and needs to admit to erring
- 12:00AM July 26, 2019
One of the things that the governor of the Reserve Bank, Philip Lowe, is very bad at is telling us that the bank has erred.
Something along the lines: we got it wrong, we stuffed up, we’re sorry. That could work for me.
It’s just not in the RBA’s playbook. Mind you, other central bank governors are equally reluctant to admit to mistakes.
Why the RBA chose to keep the cash rate so low for over two years as the economy ran relatively well is anyone’s guess.
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Few cheers as Aussie shares hit a record
Jul 26, 2019 — 3.00pm
The sharemarket hit a record peak this week. It took a long time – close to 12 years since the high in late 2007 – but we got there.
And yet my inbox was remarkably clear of gloating missives from money managers. Brokers stayed mum. It's almost as if it's politically incorrect to celebrate a meaningful milestone for the Australian sharemarket.
A fellow columnists in the Nine stable (which publishes this paper) said the lack of cheer around the new peak "is in part, because the previous record in November 2007 was set weeks before the market plunged into a crisis that pushed the entire financial system to the brink of collapse".
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ASX on track to pass 7000
Jul 26, 2019 — 4.44pm
Despite the benchmark S&P/ASX200 adding more than 20 per cent year to date and the All Ordinaries passing its pre-GFC all-time high on Thursday, experts expect the momentum will be sustained, taking the indices past 7000 points.
The previous 6853.6-point high for the All Ordinaries was set almost 12 years ago on November 1, 2007, but that was passed on Thursday. The ASX200 was close behind, finishing the week at 6793.4, just below the pre-GFC record of 6828 points record.
With further monetary easing expected in the US, Europe and domestically, the market is expected to continue its firm run in the short term.
"I'm still bullish on Aussie shares," Stanford Brown chief investment officer Ashley Owen said. "Seven thousand [points] is not far away. It's a hop, skip and a jump away so I can say that being reached quite easily."
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'Massive collapse' in bond yields drives fixed rates lower
By Clancy Yeates
July 27, 2019 — 9.04am
A plunge in global bond yields is prompting banks to slash interest rates on fixed-rate loans more aggressively than their variable rates, as lenders chase customers who want certainty on their mortgage costs.
After this month's cut in the cash rate to a record low, new figures from Canstar show banks have dropped fixed rates by an average of 0.38 percentage points this month, almost double the 0.2 percentage points average fall in lenders' variable rates.
All four big banks cut fixed rates in the month, with CBA cutting by up to 0.8 percentage points on Friday. Some smaller lenders are offering fixed rates of less than 3 per cent for owner occupiers paying principal and interest.
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Money is created by the banks, not the government
Ross Gittins
Economics Editor
July 27, 2019 — 12.00am
Just for a change, let’s talk about money. What? Don’t economists always talk about money?
Well, yes, in the sense that almost all the things they talk about are valued in monetary terms. But otherwise, no, they rarely talk about money as such.
Sometimes I think economics is about finding a host of synonyms for the word "money". Why do you go to work? To make money, of course. But economists prefer to say you earn a wage. Or, if you’re a big shot, a salary.
Businesses sell us things to get money, but economists prefer to say they make sales to generate turnover which, after they’ve paid out a lot of money on wages and rent and many other expenses, leaves them with money called income or profit.
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Europe's heat wave is about to melt the Arctic
By Andrew Freedman
July 27, 2019 — 3.34am
On Friday, more temperature records are falling in parts of Europe as the historic heat wave that brought the hottest weather ever recorded in Paris, London, Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany shifts northward. In a few days, the weather system responsible for the heat wave will stretch all the way across the top of the globe.
It's what this system, characterised by a strong area of high pressure aloft - often referred to as a heat dome - will do to the Arctic that has some scientists increasingly concerned.
Paris has experienced its hottest day on record as Europe swelters through a record heatwave.
First, Norway, Sweden, and Finland will be the focus of unusually high temperatures through the weekend, as a potentially record strong area of high pressure in the mid-levels of the atmosphere sets up over the region, blocking any cold fronts or other storm systems from moving into the area, like a traffic light in the sky.
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When it comes to debt, size doesn't matter anymore
By Satyajit Das
July 26, 2019 — 12.47pm
Some investors are fretting that the massive global buildup of debt since the financial crisis a decade ago can't be sustained. It can, at least for a bit longer -- but only at the risk of a more severe correction in the future.
That's because this particular credit cycle may not be typical. The current expansion is largely policy-driven. Governments and central banks have actively encouraged debt-driven consumption and investment in order to prop up growth.
Abundant liquidity, central bank debt purchases, and zero or negative interest rates have allowed surprisingly high levels of debt to be sustained and serviced.
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Scott Morrison dictates to troops in un-Liberal-like manner
- 12:00AM July 27, 2019
Telling someone not to do something, especially if getting the tone wrong when doing so, is often the best way to ensure they defy your request — especially when talking to independent-minded people.
This week the all-powerful newly elected Prime Minister decided to take his authority out for a spin in the Coalition partyroom, demanding colleagues stop spruiking ideas not taken to the election.
Frankly, it’s a reasonable request. It’s barely two months since Scott Morrison won the unwinnable election. It’s hard to imagine voters would look too kindly on a re-elected Coalition government suddenly moving to implement an agenda that wasn’t presented to the people, or indeed one that included radical policy scripts.
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Espionage threats unprecedented, says spy boss Duncan Lewis
- 12:00AM July 27, 2019
The nation’s spy boss, Duncan Lewis, has warned that Australia is facing daily threats of foreign interference, with Australia’s security agencies confronting an “unprecedented” wave of espionage.
The director general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, who will retire in September, told The Weekend Australian that the agency was in a game of “cat and mouse” with the nation’s adversaries.
“It’s constant. Every day there is a discovery. Some of them are more alarming than others,” Mr Lewis said in an exclusive interview.
“The number of investigations going on today is higher than it has ever been. We are busy, we are very, very busy.”
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We’re in uncharted territory as central banks abolish recessions
12:00AM July 27, 2019
The abolition of recessions and bear markets is either the fulfilment of Marx’s idea that capitalism carries within in itself the seeds of its own destruction, or the forehead-smacking creation of a golden age of prosperity and happiness.
I mean, why didn’t we think of this before? Zero real interest on debt … of course! But wait, what? Recessions and bear markets have been abolished?
Well, yes, that appears to be the intention of central banks cutting interest rates from record low to record low, including the wonders of negative cash rates in a handful of countries, and, as of yesterday, a new record of $US13.74 trillion ($19.7 trillion) worth of negative-yielding bonds.
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Low wages growth a threat to society, RBA warned
By Shane Wright
July 28, 2019 — 12.00am
Continuing low wage growth is hurting an increasing number of workers and could ultimately drive major wedges through Australian society, research for the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has warned amid suggestions growing market power of large firms is squeezing pay packets.
A string of papers released by the RBA on Friday, compiled for a conference that was held behind closed doors in April, show the bank struggling to find definitive reasons for the slowdown in wages growth that is affecting workers here and overseas.
The RBA has sliced official interest rates twice in the past two months and is expected to take them to a fresh record low of 0.75 per cent by November as part of an effort to drive down the jobless rate and lift wages growth.
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Whose side are politicians really on? Probably not ours
By Colleen Lewis
July 27, 2019 — 11.59pm
“Whose side are you on” is an excellent question. It is one that all Australians should be asking in relation to the following issues.
Whose side are federal politicians on when they repeatedly fail to overhaul all facets of the much-censured political donations regime? Whose interests were they really serving when the best they could achieve in the three-year period between elections was to amend foreign donations laws?
Were they serving self-interest and the interests of their political parties or those of the Australian community when they failed to introduce real-time disclosure for political donations?
Were politicians on the side of the public interest when they decided not to place a cap of approximately $1000 on all donations that had to be publicly disclosed, rather than leave the disclosure threshold at the ridiculously high figure of $13,800; an amount that the average taxpayer cannot afford to donate to political parties or candidates?
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Better digital literacy needed: Labor
A landmark inquiry into digital platforms will shake up the way Google and Facebook operate in Australia and could improve the news media landscape.
Paul Osborne
Australian Associated Press July 27, 20193:30am
A federal Labor frontbencher is wary some of the competition watchdog's digital platform recommendations could be viewed as the government getting into the area of what can and can't be broadcast.
But the opposition's spokesman for defence industry and Western Australian resources Matt Keogh also recognises the need to understand how entities like Facebook and Google put their own manipulation on news.
The Australian Competition and Commission released a landmark report into the growing power of digital platforms on Friday.
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Work on digital tax as Trump blasts France
- By Agencies
- An hour ago July 28, 2019
Ensuring global tech companies pay their fair share of tax outside their home base of the United States was not covered in Australia’s major inquiry of digital platforms by its competition watchdog.
But releasing the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s 600 page report and 23 recommendations on Friday, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said it is an issue the government remains “very much focused on”.
Instead, the Morrison government is working on a digital tax through the G20 and the Organisation for Economic co-operation and Development.
It would appear it is an area Australia and others will need to tread carefully after France faced the wrath of US President Donald Trump having gone it alone with a tax aimed at US technology companies.
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Royal Commissions And The Like.
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Greedy banks ‘inhibit stimulus’
- 12:00AM July 23, 2019
Australia’s biggest banks have “rarely been more profitable” and the sector’s habit of squeezing customers to deliver outsized returns for shareholders could “inhibit” the Reserve Bank’s attempt to revive the economy with rate cuts, according to a new analysis.
The boards of major banks are demanding their senior management teams generate a return on equity of 5.5 per cent above their cost of capital, according to the research by UBS analyst Jonathan Mott.
He said the profit target was “concerning” given the sector was facing low interest rates, stricter compliance following the royal commission and tougher regulation of capital buffers in the event of a crisis.
The Morrison government will this week introduce legislation aimed at eroding the power of the major banks, with the consumer data reforms allowing customers to switch lenders and more easily compare products.
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'Very unusual' Hayne intervention adds to pressure on APRA
By Clancy Yeates
July 22, 2019 — 7.30pm
A rare public intervention from banking royal commissioner Kenneth Hayne could be aimed at ensuring his recommendations are not watered down by financial sector lobbying, former watchdog Allan Fels says.
As part of its response to commissioner Hayne's inquiry into misconduct in finance, the government last week published a capability review of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), which supervises banks, insurers and superannuation funds.
The review, chaired by former competition regulator Graeme Samuel, made 24 recommendations, but APRA chairman Wayne Byres appeared to sit on the fence in his response to some of these last week. While Mr Byres said APRA "broadly" backed all the recommendations, he added some required more funding and others risked creating a "huge bureaucracy."
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Wayne Byres safe as APRA boss: Frydenberg
Jul 23, 2019 — 11.52am
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has privately told the under-siege chairman of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, Wayne Byres, that the government supports him continuing in the job to reform the regulator.
APRA and Mr Byres have faced a barrage of scrutiny after the capability review into the regulator by former competition regulator and businessman Graeme Samuel.
Questions have emerged about Mr Byres' willingness to embrace all 19 of the review's recommendations directed at APRA, after he suggested last week APRA did not have the resources to fulfil two of the findings – more ambushing of financial firms with intensive inquiries and potentially vetoing hundreds of director appointments.
Outside pressure built on Mr Byres on Monday when financial services royal commissioner Kenneth Hayne broke his silence to publicly back all the recommendations in the APRA capability review and said it was consistent with the findings in his final report.
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Aged care residents turned into 'zombies' on antipsychotics for more than 200 days at a time
By Julie Power
July 24, 2019 — 12.01am
People living with dementia in aged care facilities are being unnecessarily sedated with antipsychotic drugs for more than 200 days at a time, twice as long as the maximum time recommended, a study has found.
Some were sedated for their entire stay, according to Australia's first large longitudinal study to review nursing home's medication records by Macquarie University's Kimberly Lind, to be published on Wednesdayin Alzheimer's Disease and Associated Disorders.
Experts have told the Royal Commission on Aged Care Quality and Safety that antipsychotic drugs are rampantly over-prescribed, turning patients into "zombies" when they only make a difference in about 10 per cent of cases.
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APRA names and shames Macquarie, Rabobank and HSBC over reporting standards
- An hour ago July 24, 2019
The banking watchdog has put a handful of banks on notice for breaching their funding arrangements, showcasing its more aggressive approach to regulation just days after it was slammed for its “culture of conformity”.
The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority named and shamed Macquarie Bank, Rabobank and HSBC Bank for breaching prudential standards by reporting their intra-group funding as stable.
“These banks had provisions in their funding agreements that would potentially allow the group funding to be withdrawn in a stress scenario, undermining the stability of the Australian bank,” the watchdog said.
Each of the banks will now be forced to strengthen their intra-group agreements to ensure funding can’t be withdrawn in a financial stress scenario. They will also have to restate their past funding and liquidity ratios “to provide transparency to investors and the broader community,” APRA said.
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Canberra extends CEO scrutiny to super, insurance
Jul 26, 2019 — 12.01am
The federal government will boost the public scrutiny of financial services providers by expanding the number of chief executives who must appear at least once a year before Parliament's Standing Committee on Economics.
The committee has regularly grilled the chief executives of the big four banks since 2016 when Malcolm Turnbull and then-treasurer Scott Morrison were trying to stave off a royal commission.
The hearings continued during and after the royal commission and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will instruct the committee next week to broaden its scope beyond the big bank bosses.
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Frydenberg looks at closing LIC loophole
Jul 26, 2019 — 12.00am
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is looking into closing a loophole that allows financial advisers and broking firms to receive commissions to sell listed investment funds to retail investors.
Mr Frydenberg said he had asked Treasury and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission to advise if "inappropriate advice" was being given by advisers selling listed investment companies (LICs).
ASIC has said it already has the "best interests duty" to police advisers pushing listed investment funds, but also wants the government to consider following through on the banking royal commission's recommendation to review if exemptions for conflicted remuneration remain justified.
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Celebrity planner who offered 'risible advice' banned for three years
By Sarah Danckert
July 24, 2019 — 2.42pm
A celebrity planner who offered "risible" financial advice to a Fair Work Commissioner has been banned from working in the finance sector for three years.
Sam Henderson copped the three-year ban from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission yesterday in relation to conduct revealed at the banking royal commission last year. ASIC's investigation into Mr Henderson continues.
Mr Henderson's world came crashing down during the banking royal commission when it was revealed his staff had impersonated clients to their superannuation funds, he had misrepresented his university qualifications, and he had offered advice to Fair Work Commissioner Donna McKenna that would have led to her savings immediately losing $500,000.
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National Budget Issues.
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There are no good arguments for lifting the super guarantee
Brendan Coates
Jul 22, 2019 — 12.00am
Nearly three decades after the introduction of compulsory superannuation in Australia, and with compulsory super set to rise to 12 per cent of wages by 2025, it’s time to take stock of what the system has achieved, and where to go from here.
At the heart of the policy stoush over compulsory super sit big trade-offs that the industry rarely acknowledges. Boosting retirement incomes inevitably comes at a cost: either people have lower living standards while they’re working; or governments give up more revenue for super tax breaks; or taxpayers pay more for pensions.
That’s why the Productivity Commission recommended an independent inquiry into the role of compulsory super in our retirement incomes system before compulsory super is lifted, a recommendation the government has embraced.
Recently, the Grattan Institute published new research showing that higher compulsory super contributions wouldn’t be in the interests of many working Australians. It would mean middle-income workers giving up wages of up to 2.5 per cent while working, in exchange for less than a 1 per cent boost to their retirement incomes.
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Frydenberg faces test with glass half full
Josh Frydenberg needs to sell a positive message about the economy despite the gloomy growth figures to come.
Jul 22, 2019 — 12.00am
The return of Parliament this week underlines the challenge for Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in boosting confidence in the government’s economic agenda and an improving economy in the second half of the year despite lacklustre results over the first six months.
Although the Coalition is determined not to jeopardise a return to budget surplus, Frydenberg will come under even greater pressure to unleash more fiscal stimulus when the June quarter accounts are published.
The removal of a relatively strong 0.9 per cent growth in the June 2018 quarter alone means annual GDP growth will automatically decline from even the current official low figure of 1.8 per cent.
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Low rates won't boost wages, RBA and government warned
By Shane Wright
July 22, 2019 — 12.01am
Low interest rates won’t be enough for Australia to generate wage growth, the Reserve Bank and Morrison government have been warned amid signs shoppers are continuing to tighten their belts.
As Labor calls on the government to do more for those parts of Australia where the jobless rate is above 20 per cent, exclusive analysis by Ernst & Young suggests a key part the RBA's plan to lift wages may fail without a major change in government policy.
The bank has cut official interest rates twice since the start of June with the stated aim of driving the unemployment rate down to at least 4.5 per cent, which it believes will be low enough to put upward pressure on wages.
But Ernst & Young chief economist Jo Masters said there were now 462,000 more Australians looking for work than job vacancies while under-employment - those people wanting more working hours - is 8.2 per cent.
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Despite the photo-op, the RBA knows the economy needs more stimulus
Ross Gittins
Economics Editor
July 22, 2019 — 12.01am
Never fear, Reserve Bank governor Dr Philip Lowe may have stumbled on the optics of agreeing to a photo-op with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg the other week, but the Reserve’s independence remains intact and our weak economy remains in need of budgetary stimulus.
Politicians have damaged our trust so badly that they like having respected econocrats appearing beside them to bolster their credibility. But central bank governors who wish to preserve the authority of their office don’t oblige, just as Lowe’s predecessor, Glenn Stevens, declined to be used as a prop by Kevin Rudd.
That’s the trouble, of course. There’s nothing wrong with treasurers and governors having private meetings – the more the better – but once the media are invited in the pollies will always be playing their own game, and it’s always one that puts their political standing ahead of the economy’s interests.
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Only 12 per cent super will deliver security in later years
A few decades ago most Australians had no savings. Now a noisy minority want to curb super for a short-term sugar hit.
Martin Fahy
Jul 24, 2019 — 12.00am
While no one could deny the unprecedented prosperity of the last 25 years, the impact on our collective long-term financial security has been more mixed. Debt-fuelled property inflation has priced our children and grandchildren out of the market – more and more people will retire without a house and one in 10 will retire with a mortgage.
Boomers may take false comfort in the value of the “family home” but know that they can’t eat their house and worry about retirement adequacy. Year on year productivity/profitability growth has delivered record returns to capital – the ASX trades at 6700 – but little growth in real wages.
In the midst of this, one positive figure stands out. The $2.8 trillion of ordinary Australians’ superannuation savings, representing $225,000 for each of our almost 12 million workers. At a time when most Australians are living pay-cheque to pay-cheque superannuation is the most important household asset after the family home.
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There's a strange logic to Josh Frydenberg's stand on Newstart
Ross Gittins
Economics Editor
July 24, 2019 — 12.00am
It’s so familiar a part of political economy you could call it Galbraith’s Law, after John Kenneth Galbraith, the literary Canadian-American economist who put it into words. As the late senator John Button paraphrased it: the rich need more money as an incentive and the poor need less money as an incentive.
Consider the first actions of the re-elected Scott Morrison and his government. First, pushing through its three-stage tax plan, which in time will cut the income tax of those on the minimum wage by 1.5¢ in every dollar, those full-time workers on the median wage by 2.4¢ in every dollar, and those on $200,000 a year by 5.8¢ in the dollar.
Tuesday's budget delivered no extra benefits to the unemployed and clamped down further on welfare recipients.
Second, steadfastly resisting the ever-mounting calls for a rise in the single dole of $278 a week (less than 38 per cent of the minimum wage), which hasn’t been increased beyond inflation since 1997, making it now about $180 a week less than the pension.
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Health Issues.
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Future-proofing health: National Medicines Policy review
Authored by Cate Swannell
AUSTRALIA’S 20-year-old National Medicines Policy (NMP) lags behind other developed nations as 21st century phenomena such as disruptive innovation, precision medicine and climate change have transformed the landscape, say experts.
Developed cooperatively by the government, the pharmaceutical industry, health care professionals and consumers in 1999, the NMP provided “overarching policy direction around four interlinked pillars: timely access to the medicines that Australians need and at an affordable cost; medicines meeting appropriate standards of quality, safety and efficacy; quality use of medicines; and maintaining a responsible and viable medicines industry”.
In an exclusive podcast with InSight+ Associate Professor Orin Chisholm, Program Director of Pharmaceutical Medicine at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), and Dr Brendan Shaw, Principal at Shawview Consulting and Adjunct Senior Lecturer at UNSW, said technological breakthroughs, changes in the Australian population and the way doctors treat their patients had rendered the NMP obsolete.
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'It's not minutes to midnight': Private Health insurers are financially robust, says former regulator
By Colin Kruger
July 22, 2019 — 12.00am
Australia's private health insurers including ASX listed Medibank and NIB are in robust financial health, the former head of the industry's prudential regulator has claimed, amid concerns urgent reforms in the sector are needed for smaller players to survive.
“It is not minutes to midnight, in fact the private health insurance industry is remarkably well capitalised,” Shaun Gath, who headed the Private Health Insurance Administration Council until 2015 when its prudential regulatory role was handed to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) said.
Mr Gath conceded there is an affordability crisis in private health insurance that threatens its long term viability. But he says the sector could have easily survived Labor's proposed 2 per cent premium cap for 2 years while a Productivity Commission review was conducted into the entire health sector for much needed reforms.
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Insurers ‘dictate health treatment’
- 12:00AM July 22, 2019
The head of Australia’s largest not-for-profit health and aged-care provider says health insurers are using contract negotiations to dictate the clinical management of patients.
Toby Hall, chief executive of St Vincent’s Health Australia — operator of both public and private hospitals — said there should be a symbiotic relationship between private hospitals and health insurers, but he writes in The Australian today that the partnership is under “serious strain”.
The hospital boss told The Australian the large health insurers wanted to dictate how many patients were allowed to go to rehabilitation for post-orthopaedic operations.
“Insurers are starting to say they are going to mandate in their contracts how patients get treated,” he said.
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Universal healthcare need private insurance for survival
As with the introduction of compulsory super, we have to shift more health funding responsibility towards those with the means to provide for themselves.
Mark Fitzgibbon
Jul 23, 2019 — 12.00am
The Grattan Institute’s latest missive about our healthcare system is a useful historical account of a painful dichotomy of public versus private funding and delivery. It highlights how two competing “world views” about an ideal health system for Australia and political partisanship have created today’s “muddled” outcome. The Grattan Institute also poses some interesting questions about whether the role of the private healthcare sector should be complementary or substitutional for our public system and public policy implications.
Unfortunately, Grattan sidesteps what should be the primary question for policymakers. That is, how do we continue to pay for a “universal” healthcare system with an ageing population, burgeoning spending and ever-increasing dependency ratio of older retired Australians to younger taxpayers? And why the important goal of universal healthcare means government must subsidise everyone irrespective of their income or means.
When Medicare (nee Medibank) was first introduced in 1974, Australia had over 10 taxpayers for every retired person. Today there’s a bit over five taxpayers and depending on who you believe, by 2050 there will be about three. As we did with other crucial social obligations, such as pensions with the introduction of compulsory superannuation in 1991, we have to somehow ease the burden and shift more healthcare funding responsibility towards those with the means to provide for their lifetime healthcare costs.
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Scrap Medicare, mandate private health cover: NIB boss
Jul 23, 2019 — 12.00am
The head of one of Australia's biggest health insurers has called on the government to abolish Medicare and make private health insurance compulsory, with the government paying the premiums of those unable to meet the costs themselves.
In a radical solution to the growing crisis facing private health funds, Mark Fitzgibbon, managing director of NIB, said his proposal would protect the most vulnerable, while allowing the private sector to flourish without competition from Medicare, which he called a "government monopoly".
"[A] sensible policy approach would be to make private health insurance compulsory for all Australians with taxation devoted to subsidising the premiums for those who would otherwise be left behind. That is, high-income earners would at one end of the scale pay the entire premium while at the other, those with low income fully subsidised," Mr Fitzgibbon writes in an op-ed in The Australian Financial Review.
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Doctors unveil new approach to tackling medical bill shock
By Dana McCauley
July 23, 2019 — 12.00am
Australia's peak medical body plans to address patient concerns over out-of-pocket medical costs by educating consumers about the healthcare system.
Australian Medical Association (AMA) president Tony Bartone said the association's informed financial consent guide, to be launched by Health Minister Greg Hunt on Tuesday, would empower patients to better navigate the healthcare system by improving "health financial literacy".
Dr Bartone said the guide would help patients in their conversations with doctors and practice managers about fees for their medical procedures and hospital costs, equipping them to challenge inappropriate billing and shop around for specialists and health funds.
"It will empower them to ask questions – the right questions," he said.
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Watchdog awake to high sleep care costs
- 12:00AM July 23, 2019
Doctors wrongly billing Medicare for lucrative sleep studies and chronic disease plans, and often having no proof of the services they claimed to deliver, contributed to a record $4.5 million in rebates last month to be repaid.
After the extraordinary June result, the Medicare watchdog, the Professional Services Review, now expects to recoup $30m in public funds this financial year. It ended up raising $20.8m in debts last year, compared with $10.4m the year before.
The PSR is at the forefront of efforts that helped the Department of Health recover $49.3m last year — more than double the $22.1m it collected in 2017-18.
The Australian has previously revealed how new laws will allow the department to demand money from corporate clinics and other employers over misused Medicare funds, not just the holder of the Medicare provider number. Assets will also be seized and sold.
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Government's new plan to tackle health insurance premiums
By Dana McCauley
July 23, 2019 — 6.58pm
Health Minister Greg Hunt has launched a fresh review of private health insurance that aims to reduce premiums and reverse declining membership, which experts warn risks pushing out wait times in the public system.
The minister is looking for savings and wants stakeholders to come to him with suggestions, having already cut the cost of prosthetic devices such as hip and knee replacements.
"I've already been meeting with private hospitals, insurers and medical leaders on the next stage in terms of private health insurance reforms," Mr Hunt said.
"My goal is to continue to reduce the pressure on health insurance costs, but also to increase the value proposition," he said. "You can only do it by actually taking out cost drivers."
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Private health insurance leaves plenty of people unhappy, so how can it be fixed?
25 July, 2019
With young and healthy people baulking at the cost of private health insurance, there are fears the sector could be headed towards disaster unless things turn around.
Australian Medical Association president Tony Bartone yesterday went as far as to say the system was on the "precipice of possible demise" and demanded the Federal Government act urgently.
That came after a Grattan Institute report warned of an "impending crisis" without urgent changes to the healthcare sector.
Among its central concerns were young people ditching private health cover, which was forcing up prices because those who continued with their coverage tended to be older and in need of more medical assistance.
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Health insurance exodus continues: APRA
Jul 25, 2019 — 3.52pm
The number of young people taking out private health insurance for hospital treatment plummeted by almost 7 per cent in 2018, in a continuation of the health fund exodus that has been called a "death spiral" for the industry.
Figures released by the the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority on Thursday showed the percentage of 20-29 year olds with private cover fell 6.9 per cent over the 12 months to December 2018. That represented 33,975 fewer people in the age cohort with hospital cover.
The percentage of over-90s with health cover rocketed, meanwhile, in a trend that is threatening the affordability of private health cover. Health insurance relies on younger, healthier members of the pool subsidising older, sicker members.
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Testosterone improves sex for older women
Jul 26, 2019 — 9.12am
Testosterone may significantly improve sexual desire, function, responsiveness and pleasure in post-menopausal women, according to a new high-level review that involved almost 8500 women.
Although known as a male hormone, testosterone is essential for women and the review shows it may also reduce their concerns and their distress about sex.
Professor Susan Davis: "Increasing their frequency of a positive sexual experience from never, or occasionally, to once or twice a month can improve self-image."
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'The course is making money': University to drop Chinese medicine degree
By Jordan Baker
July 25, 2019 — 6.34pm
The University of Technology Sydney intends to stop offering its degree in traditional Chinese medicine after more than 25 years, angering students and alumni who say the quality of Sydney's acupuncture and herbalist services will suffer.
A review of the Chinese Medicine Department found it should be wound up at the end of 2021 because it was no longer financially viable, did not produce enough research, and did not fit with the "strategic direction" of the science faculty.
The university's Chinese Medicine Clinic, which offers low-cost acupuncture and herbal treatments, would also close.
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'Being sold a dud': Health insurance 'death spiral' getting worse, data shows
By Dana McCauley
July 25, 2019 — 6.50pm
The number of Australians abandoning private hospital cover has surged, with the latest official data igniting concerns about the viability of the system as public hospitals struggle to cope with thousands more patients.
Figures released by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority on Thursday show that 65,000 fewer Australians had health insurance in December 2018 compared to a year earlier.
It marked the largest 12-month fall in private hospital coverage in 15 years, with falls across most age groups - and the most pronounced falls among healthy young adults.
AMA president Tony Bartone said young Australians were ditching private health insurance because they realised they were being sold a "dud".
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Reform of abortion law is long overdue
July 28, 2019 — 12.05am
NSW is on the verge of the repealing its anti-abortion laws. It is the only state that has not completed the task of decriminalisation. The move is long overdue.
As The Sun-Herald reports today, a bill to be brought to the Legislative Assembly is designed to expunge from the statute books the last restrictions on a woman's right to safe abortion procedures.
The Reproductive Healthcare Reform Bill 2019 will be introduced by independent MP for Sydney Alex Greenwich, supported by Health Minister Brad Hazzard. A bipartisan committee consisting of Trevor Khan (Nationals) and Penny Sharpe and Jo Haylen (both Labor) helped draft the bill.
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Your rights and Refundable Accommodation Deposits
By Rachel Lane
July 28, 2019 — 12.00am
The recent move by aged-care provider Berrington Care Group to go into voluntary administration holding more than $100 million in Refundable Accommodation Deposits has a lot of retirees asking “How safe is my RAD?”
The Department of Health is responsible for monitoring compliance with prudential standards, which include a requirement for operators who invest their cash beyond approved deposit-taking institutions to have an investment management strategy.
Operators must also have a liquidity management strategy, to ensure they can meet their refund obligations as they fall due, maintain a record of the deposits they hold and meet disclosure requirements.
As part of the disclosure requirements, operators must provide information not only to residents but also to prospective residents and their representatives about how RAD monies are invested, if they are invested outside approved deposit-taking institutions, information about the operators' investment strategy and the asset classes in which they invest.
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Science, big pharma, and why we don't have a universal flu shot yet
By Liam Mannix
July 28, 2019 — 12.01am
A one-jab vaccine that protects you from every strain of the flu for life. It’s the Holy Grail.
Researchers around the world have been working towards it for decades.
Yet - we have nothing, except an annual vaccine that cuts your chances of getting sick by between 30 and 60 per cent.
Which raises the question: why do we continue to fail?
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NSW lagging on children’s heart surgery as the turf war continues
- By Agencies
- July 28, 2019
NSW comprehensive children’s cardiac services are falling further behind other states, a leading paediatric surgeon has told a crisis meeting in Sydney. Health workers, administrators and parents are split on a proposed move to cease heart surgery at one of the state’s two premier children’s hospitals — Sydney Children’s Hospital at Randwick and the Children’s Hospital at Westmead. Westmead’s chief paediatric cardiologist told key stakeholders on Saturday there was “no turf war” but concern for the state’s ability to offer comprehensive surgical care to kids with heart issues.
“Comprehensive means antenatal to transition-to-adult services,” Dr Phil Roberts told the crisis meeting.
“We are definitely behind the other states in Australia in delivering a comprehensive service.
“We do not have an adequate transplant service and we do not have an adequate primary hypertension service.” Westmead and Sydney Children’s Hospital at Randwick merged under one banner nearly a decade ago.
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International Issues.
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Here comes Boris Johnson ... what comes next?
Tony Walker
Columnist and award-winning foreign correspondent
July 21, 2019 — 11.44pm
Boris Johnson may be a buffoon in the eyes of many of his fellow countrymen but in the next day or so he is likely to become prime minister of Britain, resident of 10 Downing Street and a man committed to taking Britain out of Europe.
Putting this into context, Johnson will occupy the same premises and assume the same office as some of the outstanding Whig, Tory, Liberal and Labour figures of the 19th and 20th centuries in peace and in war.
How a man who was sacked from The Times and whose shambolic personal life goes beyond tabloid fodder is about to hold the same office as Palmerston, Gladstone, Disraeli, Asquith, Churchill, Wilson or Thatcher is little short of astonishing.
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Impossible for Iran to disown and for allies to ignore
The Economist
- 12:00AM July 22, 2019
After more than a week of warnings, Iran has made good on its threat to seize a British oil tanker.
The Stena Impero, a 30,000-tonne vessel, was travelling west through the Strait of Hormuz on the afternoon of July 19, bound for Saudi Arabia.
Then the ship’s owner says it was “approached by unidentified small crafts and a helicopter”. It soon lost contact. That evening, tracking data showed the tanker and its 23 crew members in Iranian waters off Qeshm island, where the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps maintains a base.
The IRGC says it was seized for “failing to respect international maritime rules”.
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The FAANGs are looking long in the tooth
Jul 22, 2019 — 3.30pm
When Netflix told investors last week that subscriber numbers in the US market had fallen in the June quarter, chief financial officer Spencer Neumann told investors that it was no big deal.
Investors didn't buy it. The Netflix share price slumped, falling 13 per cent from when the company's operational update was released on Wednesday to close of trade on Friday.
Neumann had told investors that the subscriber fall-off was just temporary. "There'll be some quarter-by-quarter choppiness along the way, based on things like seasonality and content slate and so forth," he argued.
Aoris Investment Management's chief investment officer, Stephen Arnold, didn't buy it, either.
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Simon Schama on Brexit and how historians might have stopped it
The English historian and author discusses Trump, Mueller, the rise of populism, and a surprising link between history and poetry.
Nicole Abadee
Jul 23, 2019 — 9.34am
Award-winning British author and polymath Sir Simon Schama, 74, is known for his extensive writing and his BBC documentaries on the history of art, revolutions, Britain, the United States, slavery and Jews. The professor of art history and history at Columbia University was in Australia for the Sydney Writers’ Festival in May and gave The Australian Financial Review Magazine his only print interview.
Let’s start by talking books. Which writers do you look to for inspiration?
In terms of the older writers, Chekhov, Flaubert and Stendhal. More recently, W.G. Sebald, who invented a voice that was somewhere between fiction and non-fiction, almost a poetic translation of non-fictional experiences. It was extraordinary and deeply affecting.
I love David Grossman’s novels when he’s in top form. He won the Man Booker International Prize in 2017 for A Horse Walks into a Bar, which is searing and astounding, but I thought his earlier book, To the End of the Land, was his great masterpiece. It is about a mother whose son is fighting in the war, who leaves home to walk across Israel so she can avoid having to see officials arrive at her door to tell her that he has died in battle. Incredibly, Grossman’s son Yuri did in fact die during one of the Lebanese incursions while he was writing that book.
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Trump announces deal on debt ceiling to avert budget calamity
Jul 23, 2019 — 8.11am
Washington | Donald Trump has announced a deal with Democrats that would raise America's $US22 trillion ($31 trillion) debt ceiling to avert a looming a budget crisis and kicking serious spending reform into the next presidency.
Struck with Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator minority leader Chuck Schumer, Mr Trump said the US government's limit on borrowing would be raised for two years through mid-2021, alongside an increase in defense spending.
"This was a real compromise in order to give another big victory to our Great Military and Vets!", Mr Trump wrote on Twitter.
The deal, which still needs to pass Congress, follows warnings from Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin that absent a debt agreement the US government would run out of money as soon as September, potentially before law makers return to Washington from their summer break.
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China's Xi Jinping is not a god and the backlash against him is building
Peter Hartcher
Political and international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald
July 23, 2019 — 12.00am
Politically, the strongman ruler of China, Xi Jinping, resembles a clenched fist. At home, he is clenching hard to assert his control. To the outside world, he is a hard-thrusting force determined to get his way.
At home, he is not only repressing less powerful groups including China's human rights activists, religious believers, dissidents and ethnic minorities such as the Uighurs of Xinjiang province, he is also cracking down on some of its famous entrepreneurs, top generals, respected scholars and big figures in the power elites of the Chinese Communist Party.
And abroad he is forcing his will on dozens of countries, both large and small. Xi forced China's claims on the territory of its small neighbours around the South China Sea, continues to press China's territorial claims against Japan and India and is sweetening China's offers to entice more countries into its mammoth Belt and Road Initiative.
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Britain announces joint European task force to protect ships in Gulf
By Josie Ensor
July 23, 2019 — 8.00am
Washington: Jeremy Hunt announced on Monday that Britain will join a European-led marine protection force to guard against Iranian threats in the Gulf, as he described Tehran's hijacking of a UK-flagged tanker an act of "state piracy".
The Foreign Secretary said he had wanted to "keep diplomacy going", but the seizure last week by Iran of the Stena Impero tanker meant it had to take more robust action.
"If Iran continues on this dangerous path, they must accept the price will be a larger Western military presence in the waters along their coastline," he said. "Not because we wish to increase tensions but simply because freedom of navigation is a principle which Britain and its allies will always defend."
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Business cautious after do-or-die Boris's coronation
Jul 23, 2019 — 10.48pm
London | Markets were calm and business groups took a constructive tone as Boris Johnson was declared the next British prime minister, despite his crash-or-crash-through approach to Brexit.
The pound fluctuated around the $US1.247 mark, putting on a little in morning trade and holding steady after Mr Johnson used a victory speech to try to rev up some optimism. The FTSE 100 was up slightly.
Ms Carolyn Fairbairn, director-general of the business lobby group CBI - a fierce critic of the government's Brexit policy - took her tone from Mr Johnson.
"Significant opportunities ahead. Business and government can get the British economy back on track," she tweeted. "Seize the chance to show the UK is open for business. Restore confidence in the economy. Together we can deliver for every region and nation in the UK."
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Boris Johnson confirmed as next British PM in landslide win
Hans van LeeuwenEurope correspondent
Jul 23, 2019 — 9.09pm
London | Boris Johnson has been confirmed as the next British prime minister in a landslide victory, winning the leadership votes of two-thirds of the Conservative Party's 160,000 members, against one-third for his vanquished rival, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt.
The Queen will formally appoint Mr Johnson as prime minister on Wednesday afternoon (early Thursday AEST), after incumbent Theresa May holds a valedictory question time session in parliament and then tenders her resignation at Buckingham Palace.
"The campaign is over and the work begins," the victor told a packed conference hall of MPs and party officials in central London who had come to see the result, as a mass of pro- and anti-Brexit protesters gathered outside.
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Boris Johnson's overflowing in-tray: Five urgent tasks for Britain's new leader
By William James
July 24, 2019 — 10.13am
London: Britain's incoming Prime Minister Boris Johnson faces an overflowing inbox when he takes office on Wednesday: delivering Brexit, building a relationship with US President Donald Trump, deciding what to do about Iran - and governing without a majority in Parliament.
Johnson, a Brexiteer who has promised to lead Britain out of the European Union with or without a deal by the end of October, was named as the replacement for Theresa May on Tuesday after sweeping to victory in a leadership contest.
Below are the most urgent tasks he will have to tackle:
Governing
To deliver Brexit, one of the most divisive policies in decades, Johnson will have to show he can win votes in parliament and govern after three years of political crisis.
The opposition Labour Party is likely to test his ability to govern by calling a vote of no confidence in the 650-seat parliament - although that is not expected to happen before the summer break starts at the end of Thursday's business. Parliament resumes on September 3.
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Trump's Mars plan no bad moon rising
Shane Wright
Senior economics correspondent
July 22, 2019 — 6.00pm
Could Donald Trump deliver a surge in productivity the like of which the world has not seen in a generation?
Yes, we're talking about that Donald Trump but it's got nothing to do with unfunded tax cuts, foreign policy or his approach to minorities and immigrants.
The President's demand that NASA send an American to Mars by 2033, however, may actually deliver a long-term economic boost that even he cannot comprehend.
The past week's celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon have focused on the drama of those few days in July and how they pulled together the world in an unparalleled manner.
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Tech giants hit with broad US antitrust probe as scrutiny mounts
By David McLaughlin
July 24, 2019 — 8.32am
The US Justice Department said it's investigating whether dominant technology companies are thwarting competition in their markets, stepping up scrutiny of the industry's biggest names as they come under fire in Washington.
The department's antitrust division will look at concerns that consumers, businesses and entrepreneurs have expressed about search, social media, and online retail, according to a statement Tuesday. The statement didn't name any companies.
"Without the discipline of meaningful market-based competition, digital platforms may act in ways that are not responsive to consumer demands," said Makan Delrahim, the head of the department's antitrust division. "The department's antitrust review will explore these important issues."
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Lib Dem chief Jo Swinson can upset the big boys’ apple cart
- By Alice Thomson
- The Times
- 9:19AM July 24, 2019
“It was pretty grim,” said Jo Swinson about the 2015 general election in which she and her husband, Duncan Hames, not only both lost their seats with a 16-month-old baby to care for, but the Liberal Democrats were almost wiped out. Her party seemed in its death throes.
No one wanted Nick Clegg any more. I interviewed him on his yellow bus the day before his defeat. He had no idea that his party was about to be eviscerated as he tucked into his croissant. But he should have seen it coming. After five years in coalition with the Conservatives it was hard to understand what the Lib Dems were for. If there had been another coalition they might have stopped a referendum on the EU but that didn’t seem important then. For two years they had dragged themselves along on single figures in the polls.
Now they are back, regularly polling more than 20 per cent in a four-way battle with the Tories, Labour and the Brexit Party. It’s easy to dismiss them as a single-issue party for Remainers who want a second referendum and to indulge in the odd protest vote; an irrelevance on the day Boris Johnson becomes prime minister.
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Can Boris use his honeymoon to pull off Britain's divorce?
Jul 25, 2019 — 9.16am
London | "Do or die". "No ifs or buts". It's barely possible to box yourself into a promise more tightly than new British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has to his pledge to take Britain out of the European Union by October 31.
But can he do it? Is his energy, optimism and novelty enough of a fair wind to get the stricken Britannia off the Brexit quicksand and back onto the open sea?
Will a cabinet stacked to the ceiling with Brexiteers - along with a British bureaucracy visibly preparing for a disruptive, disorderly no-deal Brexit - be enough to scare those obstinate Continentals and their insubordinate Irish back-seat driver into shifting gear?
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Mute on impeachment Robert Mueller says he didn't 'clear' Donald Trump
Jul 25, 2019 — 5.07am
Washington | Robert Mueller has directly challenged Donald Trump's claim to have been cleared of obstructing justice and denied his probe was a "witch hunt", while pointedly refusing to countenance whether presidential impeachment should follow.
Over seven hours of long-anticipated congressional testimony marked by tense and faltering exchanges, the former special counsel said he did not reach a decision on whether Mr Trump meddled with his probe into "sweeping and systematic" Russian interference in the 2016 US election.
The investigation "did not reach a determination as to whether the President committed a crime" on obstruction, Mr Mueller said in reference to Justice Department rules barring the charging of a sitting president.
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North Korea fires two projectiles 430 km offshore
Joyce Lee
Jul 25, 2019 — 8.06am
Seoul | North Korea fired at least two unidentified projectiles early on Thursday from an area near Wonsan, on North Korea's eastern coast, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
The projectiles flew about 430 kilometers, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, but did not elaborate further.
This would be the first launching of projectiles reported since President Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un met at the demilitarised zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas at the end of June.
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Brexiteer 'dream team' takes power as PM Johnson purges the unbelievers
By Nick Miller
Updated July 25, 2019 — 11.32amfirst published at 7.22am
London: Boris Johnson has purged Brexit unbelievers from his new government in what shocked observers believe is one of the biggest cabinet reshuffles in the UK’s political history that didn't follow an election.
9NEWS Europe Correspondent Ben Avery is outside 10 Downing Street as Boris Johnson delivers his first speech as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
As more than half Theresa May’s cabinet were summarily dismissed to the backbenches (or pre-empted the move by resigning), one political commentator said Johnson was "bringing the Brexit gang back together".
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It’s all in the message. But what is Johnson’s message?
THE ECONOMIST
- 12:00AM July 25, 2019
“I can’t imagine Boris in charge of a whelk stall, let alone the economy and nuclear weapons!” So David Laws, then a Liberal Democrat MP, dispensed with the ludicrous notion that Boris Johnson might become prime minister one day.
Seven years after he wrote that quip in his diary, the joke is on Laws — and the rest of Britain.
Johnson has made it to the top through a combination of charm, political nous and ruthlessness. He spent years cultivating an air of rumpled silliness, which looks like authenticity to many Britons. An opinion poll in September 2012 (when Johnson was mayor of London and still illuminated by the Olympic flame) showed he was by far the country’s most respected politician.
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Why Boris Johnson may prove his liberal mockers wrong
By Michael Fullilove
July 26, 2019 — 10.47am
Earlier this week, after decades of speculation, Boris Johnson was driven to Buckingham Palace, where he "kissed hands" with the Queen and received his appointment as Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and First Lord of the Treasury.
Johnson is one of the most compelling and original political figures of his generation. Like Madonna and Prince, Boris has achieved global first-name recognition.
To read the liberal press this week is to be certain that Johnson will be a complete disaster as Prime Minister. In The New York Review of Books, Fintan O’Toole claims that Johnson “quite literally made a career of mendacity”. The Guardian’s editorial about Johnson’s leadership was subtitled “the years of a clown”. James Butler published an overwrought oped in The New York Times titled "Boris Johnson is how Britain ends".
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Ukraine seizes Russian tanker in Black Sea in retaliation for 2018 flotilla clash
By Matthew Bodner
July 26, 2019 — 7.00am
Moscow: Ukraine seized a Russian tanker anchored in the Black Sea on Thursday, freeing the crew but holding onto the vessel in apparent retaliation for Russia's capture of Ukrainian ships and sailors last year.
The release of the 10 crew member from the ship Nika Spirit appeared to slightly lower tensions after the tanker seizure, but Ukraine's move underscored the ongoing diplomatic and military flash points between the two nations.
It also posed a major test for Ukraine's newly elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky. The actor-turned-politician has pledged to seek peace efforts with the Kremlin after more than five years of conflict between Ukrainian forces and pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine.
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US warship steams through the Taiwan Strait
- Reuters
- 12:00AM July 26, 2019
The US military says it sent a warship through the Taiwan Strait, a move likely to anger China during a period of tense relations between Washington and Beijing.
Taiwan is among a growing number of flashpoints in the US-China relationship, which include a trade war, US sanctions and China’s increasingly muscular military posture in the South China Sea, where the US also conducts freedom-of-navigation patrols.
China on Wednesday warned that it was ready for war if there was any move towards Taiwan’s independence, accusing the US of undermining global stability and denouncing its arms sales to the self-ruled island.
The US warship was identified as USS Antietam, a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser.
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Evidence that the climate is on thinning ice
- AFP
- 12:00AM July 26, 2019
High in the French Alps on the Mont Blanc mountain range, it is not hard to find evidence of the toll of global warming.
Visitors arriving from the last tramstop before the 4809m summit are forced to take 20 steps more each year to reach the retreating Mer de Glace, or Sea of Ice glacier, France’s largest.
At one point, a sign on the edge of the valley says: “Level of the Glacier: 1990.” Now the ice has shrunk far below. On the glacier itself, the once immaculate pristine surface is now depressed and greyish.
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Swimming spat weighs on Australia-China relations
Jul 26, 2019 — 3.28pm
Shanghai | Forget Huawei, foreign interference laws or territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
A spat on the sports podium at the swimming world championships is shaping up to be Australia's biggest diplomatic headache with China this year.
While Australian AFL, rugby, tennis and other sporting bodies have been working overtime on Chinese sports diplomacy, tension between two swimming stars triggered a backlash on social media this week.
China is accusing Australia of being a bad sport after swimming champ Mack Horton snubbed one of its own sporting heroes, Sun Yang, by refusing to stand alongside him during the 400 metres freestyle ceremony in South Korea on Sunday.
His protest reignited the feud between the two rivals which goes back to 2014 when Sun tested positive for a banned substance. Horton labelled Sun a "drug cheat" at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
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US Supreme Court hands Donald Trump his border wall
July 27, 2019 — 10.27am
Washington: The US Supreme Court has cleared the way for the Trump administration to tap billions of dollars in defence funds to build sections of a border wall with Mexico.
The court's five conservative justices gave the administration the green light to begin work on four contracts it has awarded using Defence Department money. Funding for the projects had been frozen by lower courts. The court's four liberal justices wouldn't have allowed construction to start.
The justices' decision to lift the freeze on the Pentagon money allows Trump to make progress on a major 2016 campaign promise heading into his race for a second term. Trump tweeted after the announcement: "Wow! Big VICTORY on the Wall. The United States Supreme Court overturns lower court injunction, allows Southern Border Wall to proceed. Big WIN for Border Security and the Rule of Law!"
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Waiting 'for another dope': Trump says China may delay trade deal
By Steve Holland and Jeff Mason
July 27, 2019 — 10.50am
US President Donald Trump has said Beijing may not sign a deal to end the trade war before the November 2020 election in hopes an easier-to-deal-with Democrat will win.
During a wide-ranging session with reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, Trump said China is using stalling tactics and he doubted a trade deal will be reached any time soon. He made his comments just ahead of fresh meetings of lead negotiators for the two countries in Shanghai next week.
"I think that China will probably say 'let's wait,'" he said. "'Let's see if one of these people who gives the United States away, let's see if one of them could get elected.'"
He said the Chinese leadership is probably thinking, "Maybe we can deal with another dope or another stiff" instead of him.
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Johnson realises his destiny as Britain loses its credibility
- 12:00AM July 27, 2019
The bluster, bravado and unpredictability of Boris Johnson, now realising his destiny, cannot conceal the omens of British decline as Johnson seeks to remove Britain from the EU and counter the impression of a nation perilously divided and losing global influence.
“The doubters, the doomsters, the gloomsters, they are going to get it wrong again,” he declared in characteristic fashion after his audience with the Queen. “The people who bet against Britain are going to lose their shirts because we’re going to restore trust in our democracy.”
Right now there are lots of people betting against Britain. Its influence has never been weaker in Europe or the US. Its declining power is about to be exposed by Iranian strongarm tactics in the Gulf. Nations that have long admired Britain’s profound stability, resilience, maturity and national judgment are shocked at the internal unravelling triggered by Brexit.
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What Boris Johnson's premiership means for Brexit and the UK
TIME
26 July 2019
26 July 2019
By: Ian Bremmer
Boris Johnson became the United Kingdom's prime minister this week. The former London mayor and foreign secretary assumed the UK's premiership with a mandate to lead the UK out of the EU. He has promised to secure a better Brexit deal with Brussels than his predecessor, Theresa May He has also promised to pull the UK out of the EU by the 31 October deadline, deal or no.
Why it matters:
Because the UK is heading into the biggest peacetime political crisis in generations, and the person leading his country into the great unknown must corral a British public and political class that has never fundamentally agreed on what form Brexit should take—Hard Brexit, Soft Brexit, No-Deal Brexit, or anything in between.
In Boris Johnson, that task has now fallen to someone who can charitably be described as Britain's most divisive politician. Johnson himself has taken a hardline stance on Brexit, which he needed to do in order to win over the Conservative Party membership and become prime minister. It was a strategy that worked, as 66% of Tory members selected him over his more-centrist rival. There are those who still harbor hope that Boris's hardline approach to Brexit and Brussels is more bluster than anything else; Boris has a well-deserved reputation for political opportunism. But even if that's the case, renegotiating a deal with EU leaders is an uphill battle—the EU is adamant that it is done negotiating, and the deadline is less than three months away. Complicating matters even further, Johnson has spent decades taking swipes at EU leaders and Brussels … the same kind of EU leaders who he now needs to play ball with.
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Why it matters:
Because the UK is heading into the biggest peacetime political crisis in generations, and the person leading his country into the great unknown must corral a British public and political class that has never fundamentally agreed on what form Brexit should take—Hard Brexit, Soft Brexit, No-Deal Brexit, or anything in between.
In Boris Johnson, that task has now fallen to someone who can charitably be described as Britain's most divisive politician. Johnson himself has taken a hardline stance on Brexit, which he needed to do in order to win over the Conservative Party membership and become prime minister. It was a strategy that worked, as 66% of Tory members selected him over his more-centrist rival. There are those who still harbor hope that Boris's hardline approach to Brexit and Brussels is more bluster than anything else; Boris has a well-deserved reputation for political opportunism. But even if that's the case, renegotiating a deal with EU leaders is an uphill battle—the EU is adamant that it is done negotiating, and the deadline is less than three months away. Complicating matters even further, Johnson has spent decades taking swipes at EU leaders and Brussels … the same kind of EU leaders who he now needs to play ball with.
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
