Category Archives: Australian economy

‘Great migrant nation’: bid to protect Australian prosecco and feta from EU bans

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Trade minister Don Farrell says many producers took their food and culture to Australia from Europe and have the right to use traditional terms

The trade minister, Don Farrell, has asked his European counterparts to recognise Australia as a “great migrant nation” and not force its producers to stop using terms like prosecco and feta.

In an interview from Berlin, Farrell said he was hopeful of clinching a free trade agreement with the European Union early in the new year because he had received an “extremely positive response in all of the countries we visited”.

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Australia’s unemployment rate remains at 3.4% in November as 64,000 new jobs added

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The national jobless rate remains at a near 50-year-low as rebounding economy faces labor shortages from lack of migration

Australia’s jobless rate remained steady in November even as the economy added about 2,000 jobs a day, underscoring the tight conditions in the labour market.

The unemployment rate last month was 3.4% with employers taking on 64,000 extra positions, more than half of them full time, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday. Economists from the ANZ and CBA forecast the rate would remain at October’s 3.4% rate with a net increase of about 15-20,000 jobs.

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Australia’s skilled migration program needs overhaul to boost economy, report says

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Grattan Institute says government should target permanent skilled visas at younger, higher-skilled migrants

A better skilled migration program could be the solution to Australia’s major economic challenges, a new report says.

A lack of productivity growth, growing debt in the federal budget and the economy’s transition to net-zero could be assisted by key reforms, the submission by the public policy thinktank, the Grattan Institute, to the federal government’s migration review has said.

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Man who fired gun inside Canberra airport was on parole for attempted murder – as it happened

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Butler defends decision to cut Medicare-funded psychology sessions

The federal health minister, Mark Butler, is speaking to ABC Radio following his decision Monday to cut the number of Medicare psychologist sessions. He’s come under serious heat for the move which experts say is “appalling.”

This program has been around for a number of years, and it has for many years had a limit of 10 sessions for people to access over that long period the average person has used 4 - 5 of those sessions.

This is a good program, I’ve been familiar with it for many, many years, but its problem has always been one of equity.

The evaluation found that the lowest-income communities have more than twice the levels of mental distress as the highest-income communities, but they get the lowest level of support and, under this program, that inequality was substantially worsened by these additional 10 sessions.

People like Prof Ian Hickey said at the time that those additional sessions in a sector with a limit workforce, was going to have the effect of cutting out other people, meaning other people couldn’t get any support whatsoever.

And the evaluation I .. released on Monday showed exactly that, that it had the impact of cutting more people out of the system. Most of those people were in some of the poorest communities, where the evaluation said there is the highest need.

The recommendation of the report was we would consider additional sessions for people with complex needs, now this system was not designed to focus on people with complex needs.

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Australia news live: Queensland police pay tribute to two officers killed in ‘absolutely devastating’ shooting ambush

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Two police officers and another member of the public were shot dead at a Wieambilla property, then two men and a woman were killed by police late last night. Follow the day’s news live

Police officers who were shot and killed on a regional Queensland property were searching for a New South Wales man last seen by his family almost a year ago, Guardian Australia understands.

On Monday, four officers attended the remote property at Wieambilla in the Western Downs region in connection with the disappearance of Nathaniel Train, 46, from Dubbo in NSW.

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Senator says plan ‘a Band-Aid on a festering wound’ – as it happened

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Severe weather warning for damaging winds in NSW and Victoria

Several children have been injured after a firework shot into a crowd during a Christmas event in Sydney’s northern beaches last night.

An 11-year-old boy was initially taken to Royal North Shore hospital, before being transferred to the Children’s hospital at Westmead for treatment of burns and a chest injury.

An eight-year-old girl was taken to Northern Beaches hospital for treatment of burns and a wrist injury. She has since been released.

Police have been told a 12-year-old boy was taken to hospital by his parents for treatment to minor burns and has since been released, and six other people were treated on scene by NSW Rural Fire Service for minor injuries, and left prior to the arrival of paramedics and police.

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MPs’ Pacific islands tour to show bipartisan support – As it happened

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Senior politicians from both major parties to travel to Vanuatu, the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and Palau this week. This blog is now closed

The Bureau of Meteorology expects scattered showers expected over South Australia.

Meanwhile the heatwave that has settled across northern Australia is expected to ease.

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$1.5bn energy price relief package for Australians including caps on coal and gas

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Treasury advised the PM and premiers not to deliver the rebates as cash handouts due to risk of fuelling inflationary pressure

Canberra and the states have agreed to cap coal and gas prices, and provide additional rebates for Australians on low and middle incomes, as part of a $1.5bn intervention that will shave hundreds of dollars off power bills.

After a national cabinet meeting on Friday, governments have agreed to cap gas prices temporarily at $12 per gigajoule and cap coal prices at $125 per tonne. Parliament will be recalled next week to implement the change.

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Andrews government on track to surpass ‘Danslide’ – as it happened

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Government yet to cap wholesale coal price, but still aiming to land ‘before Christmas’, treasurer says

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, is speaking to ABC Radio. RN Breakfast host Patricia Karvelas asks him:

Has the government resolved to cap the wholesale coal price at $125 a tonne and the gas price at $13 a gigajoule?

There hasn’t been a concluded view reached yet, and that’s because this is a challenge of such complexity and such consequence for industry and for Australians around the country, that it needs to be a genuine partnership between governments and that requires all sides to come to the table in a reasonable and a constructive way, which recognises that one level of government can’t fix this all on its own.

The need for Aukus is even clearer today. More than ever, our three countries share of similar outlook on the key challenges and opportunities confronting our world. Aukus will enhance our shared ability to sustain peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific, and since creating this trilateral security partnership our defense forces, industries, and scientific communities have been hard at work. Over the past 15 months we’ve made great progress toward identifying a pathway for Australia to acquire conventionally armed and nuclear-powered submarines. Today on behalf of President Biden, I want to reaffirm the US commitment to ensuring that Australia acquires this capability at the earliest possible date, and in adherence with the highest nonproliferation standards.

And central to that is Australia being able to acquire a nuclear-powered, highly capable submarine and we are deeply grateful for the work that we’ve been able to do with both the UK and the US to enable Australia to acquire that capability. And it’s not lost on us the significance of the US and the UK, working together and transferring this technology to Australia. And there has been an enormous amount of work being done by our officials to bring this about, and obviously to bring today about. I think as we talk today, we’re all going to speak to the fact that we’re on track to be able to make this announcement in respect of what will be the optimal pathway for Australia to take in the first part of next year, which is what we have always intended to do.

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Australia news live: treasurer says full impact of interest rate rises still to come as RBA flags further hikes

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The central bank has raised the cash rate by 25 basis points to a decade high of 3.1%. Follow the day’s news

Shorten confident solution will be found ‘well before Christmas’

The national cabinet meeting was supposed to see the federal government negotiate with the states on an acceptable intervention on soaring energy prices.

It will be delayed just a few days. The fact of the matter is all options are on the table.

It’s no secret with the premiers, the challenge is Putin’s war in Ukraine has flowed through to coal and gas prices all around the world and it’s affecting Australian families.

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Consumer watchdog puts Australian airlines on notice over high domestic air fares

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ACCC says they will closely monitor companies to ensure they do not keep prices high through artificial scarcity

The consumer watchdog has put airlines on notice, warning carriers they will be “closely” monitored to ensure they aren’t deliberately slowing their return to full service capacity so they can “keep air fares high”.

In its quarterly airline competition report, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission found a 27% increase in all air fare types between October 2019 and October 2022. It noted the price of discounted economy fares had increased the most because “with fewer flights but strong demand, the airlines don’t currently need to offer special fares to fill their planes”.

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RBA tipped to lift cash rate again at board meeting as mortgage cliff looms

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Economists widely predict 25 basis point rise but some say central bank may consider pausing rates after seven straight hikes

The Reserve Bank is likely to give serious consideration to pausing interest rates for the first time since it began its record series of hikes, analysts say, but economists are still predicting an eighth consecutive increase when the board meets on Tuesday.

Concerns about the lagging effects of seven rate rises in as many months will be part of discussions at the monthly gathering. So, too, will the looming “mortgage cliff”, with at least $270bn in housing debt coming off historically low fixed-interest rates next year.

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Australian women will need ‘more than 200 years’ to reach income equity with men

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New report has called for urgent structural reform after finding women’s income and health have deteriorated in the past decade

Australian women have poorer health, lower incomes and less engagement in the labour force than men, a new report has found.

A health and wellbeing scorecard, published on Monday, has found that women’s economic equity and health have deteriorated in the past decade.

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In 2020, women reported poorer health than men in all bar one domain, including in mental health, physical and social functioning, and bodily pain.

More women than men experienced elevated psychological distress, with rates since 2011 rising sharply in women aged 18-24 and 55-64.

Women’s social functioning, emotional and physical ability to perform their role declined between 2001 and 2020 – and was linked to financial inequity.

There are 2.7 million women missing from the labour force, costing the Australian economy $72bn in lost GDP annually – and also resulting in lower lifetime superannuation accumulations.

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PM urges climate ‘wake up’ amid floods; man mauled to death by dogs – as it happened

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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange fights extradition from Britain to US, where he is wanted on criminal charges. This blog is now closed

We now have more details from NSW authorities about the four-vehicle crash on Sydney’s Anzac Bridge shortly before midnight last night, which killed two people.

NSW police have named the two victims as a 25-year-old female from the local area and a 38-year-old man from Sydney’s south-west. A police representative has been speaking to reporters:

At about 11:45 last night, there was a minor collision on the Anzac Bridge involving two vehicles. A 25-year-old female and a 38-year-old male were exchanging details or doing what you need to do after you’ve had a minor collision.

At that point, there’s been another two vehicles that have become involved in that stationary collision. One was a taxi and the second was a Commodore. Tragically, the way those vehicles have collided into the stationary cars has impacted with the two pedestrians who were out on the road exchanging details and unfortunately those two people have been killed.

The last 12 hours have seen an absolute tragic number of road trauma incidents in NSW. Six people have lost their lives. Six families are grieving the loss of family members.

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Lower house to return on Friday – as it happened

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The government services minister Bill Shorten was on ABC radio RN Breakfast when he learned the Medibank hackers had released all the customer information on the dark web.

Josh Taylor has reported on that here.

Our democracy is precious, our federal government is crucial to the success of the nation, and I know, as you do, that trust in our parliament, in our commonwealth, in politicians, has been falling dramatically. That’s a real problem and I really hope this begins to restore the trust.

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Australia’s banks likely to reduce lending to regions and sectors at risk of climate change impacts, regulator says

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Apra finds country’s banks may be more vulnerable to economic downturns as they face threefold increase in lending losses

Banks expect to reduce lending to households and businesses in northern Australia and to fossil fuel industries across the country as the risk of losses due to the climate crisis escalates, the industry regulator says.

A new report by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (Apra) found climate change could make banks more vulnerable to economic downturns as they face up to a threefold increase in lending losses by 2050, but that the system should be able to absorb the impact.

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Reserve Bank review to consider changing inflation target and board selection

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With the RBA challenged by the pandemic, surging inflation and calls for reform, one expert says its recent report card has been ‘mixed’

The Reserve Bank review is assessing calls for changes to the central bank’s inflation target, the selection of board members and how authorities should manage shocks from asset bubbles to the climate crisis.

The review, launched in July with a reporting deadline for next March, has received more than 114 submissions, interviewed 230-plus people and surveyed almost 1,100 current and former RBA staff, the panel told a CEDA briefing in Sydney on Thursday.

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Dutton given official warning by Speaker – as it happened

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How can strengthening federal laws stop the destruction of sacred heritage sites?

Tanya Plibersek:

I think I think it’s really worth having a look at the two inquiries that the the parliament undertook into the Juukan Gorge destruction because it describes not just the failure of laws, but the failure of process and the failure of people to listen and that happened at the commonwealth level and it also happened at the West Australian state government level.

The other thing that it describes is a company that paid lip service to consultation and really, you know, really didn’t do what it should have done when Aboriginal people said you can’t blow up caves that are 46,000 years old, that have examples of continuous use and habitation that you know, the site of finds like a 4,000-year-old hair belt, and tools that are tens of thousands of years old.

There’s absolutely a sense of urgency to ensure that this sort of cultural heritage destruction doesn’t happen again.

I completely agree with that, but a very strong message from the the First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance is also that they genuinely want to sit at the table to work through these issues in partnership and cooperation.

Yeah, I’m not going to put I’m not going to put a timeline on it yet. I think that’s something that we determined as we work through the complexity of these issues, and there are a lot of complexities involved.

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Victorians face a choice of major parties determined to spend their way to power, analysts say

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The state suffered country’s sharpest economic slowdown due to long lockdowns, requiring bigger fiscal repair job, one expert says

Profligate Coalition spending promises, a “build bigger” Labor campaign, and limited efforts by either major political party to rein in debt dominate the economic choices facing Victorians as they go to the polls, analysts say.

Victoria, which generates just under a quarter of Australia’s annual GDP, suffered the sharpest economic slowdown in the nation because of its lengthy lockdowns, leaving it with a bigger fiscal repair job, according to rating agency S&P.

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Australia politics live: Qantas plays ‘hardball’ on workplace relations, Shorten says; Karen Andrews makes emotional speech on domestic violence

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Liberal MP Karen Andrews addressed the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in parliament. Follow all the day’s news

Independents to launch report on whistleblower protections

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie has been arguing for more protections for whistleblowers for years. The attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, has proposed new laws to boost whistleblower protections, but there are still calls the law needs to go further.

Protecting Australia’s Whistleblowers: The Federal Roadmap draws on landmark research and synthesises three decades of reviews to outline a comprehensive, 12-step roadmap for better protecting and empowering whistleblowers.

Establishment of a whistleblower protection authority to oversee and enforce Australia’s whistleblower protections;

Upgraded whistleblower protections for Australian public servants in line with domestic and international best practice, including a positive duty to protect whistleblowers and steps to make it easier for whistleblowers to enforce their rights;

Consolidation and harmonisation of whistleblowing laws across the private sector in one new single law covering all non-public sector whistleblowers; and

Stronger, simpler protections for whistleblowers who make disclosures to the media and members of parliament.

The mortality ratios from Covid in Australia are quite similar to those estimated in other advanced nations. As a share of the population, fewer people died from Covid in Australia than in most other affluent nations. Yet among those who died, the same health inequalities can be seen in Australia as in other advanced countries.

What might have driven the socioeconomic disparities in Covid mortality? And why might many of those disparities have been largest in the Delta wave? As I have noted, disadvantaged people may be less able to work remotely, more reliant on public transport, and more likely to live in crowded households. Uptake of vaccination and antiviral treatments have varied across society as vaccines and treatment became increasingly available. Another factor is that successive Covid waves have had varying degrees of severity. A final factor is that in the years since Covid began, population immunity has steadily risen.”

Across all waves of the pandemic, deaths from Covid were highest among those aged 80‑89 years. The median age of those who died from Covid was 87.4 years for females and 83.6 years for males. Males had a higher number of registered Covid deaths than females. For every 100 female Covid deaths, there were 126 male Covid deaths. Around 3-quarters of all Covid deaths occurred in Victoria and New South Wales.

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