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Anthony Albanese has called a snap press conference in Canberra at 8.30am. We’ll have coverage of this for you soon.
A man has died in Melbourne’s south after being struck by a truck on a major highway near Frankston.
Continue reading...Around 9,500 tonnes of track will be provided for north African country’s first fully electrified mainline
British Steel has won a multimillion-pound contract to supply rail for a new route in north Africa, the company has announced.
Approximately 9,500 tonnes of track, produced in Scunthorpe, will be provided for Egypt’s first fully electrified mainline and freight network which stretches from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean.
Continue reading...Struggling retailer announced decision by Julian Dunkerton after markets closed on Thursday
Superdry’s share price has been almost cut in half after its chief executive decided against making an offer for the struggling fashion retailer.
The company announced after markets closed on Thursday that Julian Dunkerton, the founder and chief executive of Superdry, had opted against a takeover after a two-month pursuit.
Continue reading...Output improves to 20-month high and job losses slow but global problems continue to restrict foreign orders
A jump in domestic orders helped pull UK factories out of almost two years of contraction last month, according to a leading business survey.
Output from the manufacturing sector improved to a 20-month high in March, marking the end of a period of shrinking activity that started in July 2022.
Continue reading...Airline faces delay in receiving new planes as Boeing struggles with production due to manufacturing problems
United Airlines is asking its pilots to take time off in May because of delays in receiving new planes that the airline ordered from Boeing, which is struggling with production due to manufacturing problems.
A United spokesperson said Monday that the offer is voluntary.
Continue reading...A ‘pipeline’ of clean projects is being assembled, says the head of the agency charged with multibillion-dollar transformation
Australia faces a postwar-scale reconstruction costing hundreds of billions of dollars in private and public investment to reach net zero emissions by mid-century, the former Labor climate minister and incoming Future Fund chair, Greg Combet, says.
Speaking at the National Press Club, Combet said the Net Zero Economy Authority – a new government agency proposed to help manage the country’s transformation from a dirty to a clean economy – was putting together a “pipeline” of clean industrial projects and would be “figuring out how to help bring them to concrete investment decisions”.
Continue reading...Emma Gilthorpe is tasked with turning company around and takes up newly created CEO role in May
Royal Mail has appointed a senior executive from Heathrow to become its next boss, charged with delivering a turnaround to the ailing postal company.
Emma Gilthorpe, who has been the chief operating officer at the airport since 2020, will join Royal Mail in May.
Continue reading...Fall to 14.4p comes after shareholders said they were unwilling to inject further funds
A bond issued by Thames Water’s parent company has fallen to record lows as the embattled company scrambles to secure its future, and the government signalled it is “ready to step in if necessary”.
The £400m bond, issued by the water supplier’s parent company, Kemble, has slumped to only 14.4p after shareholders indicated that they were unwilling to inject further funds into the heavily indebted utility company.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed.
Aviation firefighters will walk off the job amid revelations many of the nation’s airports are ill-equipped to handle emergencies, AAP reports.
Leaked risk assessments carried out by Airservices Australia reveal travellers at 13 airports including Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide airports, were found to be at extreme risk if there was a fire or aircraft incident because of a lack of firefighting resources.
These leaked documents confirm that Australia’s air travellers face a dire risk every time they set foot on an aircraft in Australia.
Clearly, this significant and ongoing risk to all Australian air travellers is unacceptable and cannot be allowed to continue.
Continue reading...Shares dropped by as much as 25% as investors scrutinize fundamentals of company’s business
Shares in Donald Trump’s Truth Social dropped by as much as 25% on Monday after the social media company revealed it lost $58.2m last year and an auditor disclosed “substantial doubt” over its ability to continue operating.
An extraordinary stock market debut last week left Trump Media & Technology Group valued at more than $7bn. But it generated sales of just $4.13m in 2023, according to regulatory filings.
Continue reading...Crunch talks expected after investors refuse to secure short-term cashflow and parent company due to repay £190m loan
Thames Water has assembled a team of City experts to lead urgent restructuring talks this week amid fears that its parent company may collapse by the end of the month.
The crunch talks are expected to take place days after Thames Water’s investors signalled they would not put further funds into the company to secure its short-term cashflow, according to a source.
Continue reading...Company founded in China and promoted on social media is thought to be considering London listing
Shein, the online fast fashion retailer founded in China, has more than doubled its profits to more than $2bn (£1.6bn) as it awaits approval for a stock market listing in New York or London.
The company, which is growing rapidly around the world by using social media to promote its goods, recorded sales of about $45bn last year, according to a report in the Financial Times based on information from sources close to the company.
Continue reading...Services Australia is working with Ergon to return overpayments, prompting fears the issue first identified at AGL could be widespread
A second Australian energy company wrongly received money from the welfare payments of former customers, prompting fears that the issue identified at AGL could be widespread.
Guardian Australia revealed last week that $700,000 had been diverted via the government-run Centrepay debit system from the pockets of more than 500 welfare recipients to the energy giant AGL.
Continue reading...Pilot scheme supplies 1,000 folding boxes to farms and wholesalers to reduce single-use cardboard, paper and plastic
A pilot scheme to replace cardboard produce boxes with reusable plastic crates has been launched in Victoria, with the aim to cut “invisible” cardboard waste.
The Victoria Unboxed project, led by the food charity Sustain with Sustainable Victoria, has supplied 1,000 reusable plastic crates to transport produce from farms to venues, wholesalers and homes across Melbourne. The trial aims to reduce the need for single-use packaging, including cardboard, plastic and paper waste.
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Continue reading...Whoever wins the next election, a reckoning is overdue on the costs of Britain’s nuclear deterrent
When Rishi Sunak visited Barrow-in-Furness on Monday he said the Cumbrian town was “mission critical for our country” because of its role building four new nuclear submarines to carry the UK’s nuclear weapons. If you believe Sunak’s erstwhile ally, Dominic Cummings, then that mission faces serious problems.
Cummings, once Boris Johnson’s most powerful adviser, said this month – in characteristically aggressive terms – that spiralling costs were making a mockery of the government’s budget plans. He wrote on X: “the nuclear enterprise is so fkd [sic] it’s further cannibalising the broken budgets and will for decades because it’s been highly classified to avoid MPs thinking about it.”
Continue reading...Experts say the global shortage of the main ingredient of chocolate is linked to poor conditions for farmers supplying large companies
Every Easter, UK consumers collectively spend more than £1bn on food, drink, gifts, entertainment and about 80m chocolate eggs, racking up an average bill exceeding £50 each. But shoppers this year are paying more than usual: since last Easter, chocolate prices have increased by more than 12.6%, more than double the rise in supermarket food and drink prices.
The cost of cocoa, chocolate’s main ingredient, has been increasing all year, hitting a record high just before Valentine’s Day and again this week, when it was priced at more than $10,000 a tonne – meaning it is currently more valuable than several precious metals, and growing in value more quickly than bitcoin.
Continue reading...Company says information found on the dark web includes social security numbers for current and former account holders
US telecommunications giant AT&T says it has started notifying millions of customers about the theft of personal data recently discovered online.
The company said Saturday that a dataset found on the “dark web” contains information such as social security numbers for about 7.6 million current AT&T account holders and 65.4 million former account holders.
Continue reading...Correspondence shows tax officials defended program, which aimed to claw back ‘on-hold’ debts, as being in line with watchdog advice
The Australian Taxation Office assured the government that its widely criticised “robotax” scheme adhered to best practice principles months before it suspended a major component of the program and it was publicly reprimanded by the ombudsman.
Internal ATO documents released to Guardian Australia show the tax office responded to a query from the office of the assistant treasurer, Stephen Jones, about the scheme’s methods by arguing the agency had taken on previously issued advice designed to improve how it communicated with taxpayers.
Continue reading...Theme park generates $343.4m in profit for Hollywood giant as it shores up wider business amid weaker box office returns
Disney’s Parisian theme park complex has delivered a welcome boost to the embattled Hollywood giant, generating $343.4m (€317m) in profits and royalties despite a wave of strikes last summer.
Sales at Disneyland Paris – Europe’s most-visited tourist destination – were driven to record levels by higher room rates and the opening of a site built around Marvel’s hit Avengers movies.
Continue reading...Despite a 12.3% cut in April’s energy price cap, there is an important fixed element in your bill that is rising again
“Great news! Your unit rates are going down.” E.ON’s letter to customers starts with glad tidings – but, as it soon admits, there is an element of their bills that is set to go up in most parts of the country.
Despite a headline cut of 12.3% in April’s energy price cap, yet again standing charges are rising. In E.ON’s case, on its Next Flex tariff, electricity charges are due to rise from 62.205p to 67.9041p – an increase of just over 9% – while for gas, charges go up from 29.595p to 31.894p (up almost 8%).
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