Morning Headlines

Security fears as Huawei snares $136m rail contract

The McGowan government has been criticised for ignoring security concerns by awarding a $136 million telecommunications contract to controversial Chinese telco giant Huawei. The Aus

Directors hit in Hayne fallout

The loss-making directors’ and officers’ insurance sector, which covers directors, executives and employees involved in the management of a company, has over the past six months lifted premiums by 70 per cent on average and up to 400 per cent as it sees its profits sliced by an increase in class actions, a key cost it covers for Australian public companies. The Fin

ATCO and QIC set to vie for planned APA Group WA spin-off

As part of its APA Group bid, CKI has proposed spinning off two West Australian gas pipelines and a storage facility, which when combined are expected to be worth as much as $3 billion. The Fin

Bidding war looms over GST reform

West Australians could be the subject of a GST bidding war in the run-up to the next Federal election with Labor considering improving the Coalition Government’s plan. The West

Poll points to 16-seat hit for Coalition

Federal Labor could win up to 16 mainland seats from the Coalition, including two held by Cabinet ministers, and take government with a comfortable majority, according to an aggregate of the first three Fairfax/Ipsos polls published this year. The Fin

Diggers’ golden boy dies suddenly

And so the tributes flowed last night for John Langford, who has become synonymous with gold mining’s annual global headliner, the Diggers & Dealers conference in Kalgoorlie. The West

BP’s $13bn swoop on BHP’s US shale assets

Oil and gas giant BP is reportedly in the box seat to secure BHP’s onshore oil and gas assets in the US with an offer of more than $US10 billion ($13.45bn). The Aus

Brexit deal may make Aust-UK trade harder

Australia’s rural exporters have little to gain from a UK trade deal after Theresa May stared down Eurosceptic party opponents of her "soft Brexit" strategy, which keeps Britain subject to European Union rules on agriculture, former Canberra trade negotiator Alan Oxley said. The Fin

The Australian Financial Review

Page 1: The loss-making directors’ and officers’ insurance sector, which covers directors, executives and employees involved in the management of a company, has over the past six months lifted premiums by 70 per cent on average and up to 400 per cent as it sees its profits sliced by an increase in class actions, a key cost it covers for Australian public companies.

Page 4: Federal Labor could win up to 16 mainland seats from the Coalition, including two held by Cabinet ministers, and take government with a comfortable majority, according to an aggregate of the first three Fairfax/Ipsos polls published this year.

Federal Labor has come close to endorsing Treasurer Scott Morrison’s GST plan to hand over an extra $9 billion to states and territories, saying the level of extra funding was not ‘‘the major point of disagreement between us and the government’’.

Page 5: Australia’s rural exporters have little to gain from a UK trade deal after Theresa May stared down Eurosceptic party opponents of her "soft Brexit" strategy, which keeps Britain subject to European Union rules on agriculture, former Canberra trade negotiator Alan Oxley said.

Page 6: As Australia considers changing laws to allow more tax to be collected from digital businesses, the US Supreme Court has handed down a groundbreaking judgment that signals a radical change in taxing rights over tech companies.

Page 8: The Reserve Bank of Australia has warned that fintech companies will eventually pose a systemic risk if they become big enough and regulators must work out standards to set for the technological change sweeping the payments sector.

Page 13: The financial planning industry is poised for a shake-up as the government’s plan to make it easier for customers to access banking data drives new technology that will allow advisers to respond in real-time to the changing financial circumstances of their clients.

Page 14: As part of its APA Group bid, CKI has proposed spinning off two West Australian gas pipelines and a storage facility, which when combined are expected to be worth as much as $3 billion.

Page 15: Investment banks will have to fight even harder to get the investment community to draw on their stock research, as sweeping changes grip the industry and the unbundling of research and brokerage fees becomes more widespread.

Page 16: A new private-sector fund has been proposed by the industry ombudsman as part of a package of reforms to kick-start business credit growth after the Hayne inquiry exposed a market failure – banks reluctant to supply patient capital for small businesses to grow.

The prudential regulator is preparing to investigate life insurers after a preliminary review of the sector revealed the ‘‘bells and whistles’’ and cheap pricing associated with loss-making individual income protection insurance is putting the product’s long-term viability at risk.

Page 29: Blue Sky Alternative Investments has purchased about $40 million worth of general security water entitlements from the Harvard Endowment Fund.

Harvey Norman’s disastrous foray into dairy farming is coming to an end, with agency Elders appointed to sell the entire Coomboona dairies operation in Victoria.

The Australian

Page 1: Four boys walked free from a flooded cave in northern Thailand last night as divers scrambled to extract the remaining eight members of a football team and their coach trapped for 15 days.

Malcolm Turnbull is facing pressure from both sides of politics to establish a royal commission into retail electricity pricing, with the Greens to table a bill for a wide-ranging inquiry amid a push by Coalition backbenchers for the Prime Minister to launch an investigation into the conduct of power companies.

Page 2: The McGowan government has been criticised for ignoring security concerns by awarding a $136 million telecommunications contract to controversial Chinese telco giant Huawei.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s latest report on the composition of Australian trade confirms 2017 was a record year for Australian trade, with exports up 14.8 per cent to $386 billion.

Page 4: Malcolm Turnbull faces a showdown with the nation’s Catholic leadership over his government’s bungled education funding policy that could cost taxpayers between $2.5 billion and $3bn to fix.

Page 17: Revelations at the royal commission of companies swindling Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, including potential criminal offences by a notorious funeral insurer, have driven the corporate watchdog to call on senior bankers to break out of their city bubbles to better understand remote communities.

The Australian sharemarket is expected to open higher this morning after global markets safely navigated their way through the formal introduction of trade tariffs between the US and China.

Fortescue Metals Group chief executive Elizabeth Gaines has urged Australian companies to take advantage of the “significant” business opportunities from China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Page 19: Local “neobank” pioneer Xinja is gearing up to raise up to $20 million through a Series C funding round, valuing the company at just over $95m.

Page 20: Oil and gas giant BP is reportedly in the box seat to secure BHP’s onshore oil and gas assets in the US with an offer of more than $US10 billion ($13.45bn).

Page 21: Investment in commercial assets is running close to a record pace after some $15 billion of deals in the first half of the year.

The West Australian

Page 3: Everything from a trip to the gym to a litre of milk has become cheaper in Perth as the end of the resources boom has taken price pressures out of the local economy.

Page 6: In the Zero Excuses survey of more than 6750 motorists, one in three admitted being perpetrators of road rage over the past year.

Page 9: But just 16 months after it opened to massive fanfare, Ku De Ta in East Perth has gone into administration and lost 25 of its kitchen staff in an extraordinary walkout.

Page 11: West Australians could be the subject of a GST bidding war in the run-up to the next Federal election with Labor considering improving the Coalition Government’s plan.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is facing calls from within his party to give States the ability to raise their own income tax to help pay for new roads and services amid warnings that cities such as Perth face a “population shock”.

Page 12: The Federal Government is targeting Australia’s growing army of greying voters with a promise to cut red tape when applying for aged-care services.

An international flying squad of tax officials led by members of the Australian Taxation Office is looking for dodgy promoters across the globe seeking to fleece Australians of important tax dollars.

Business: Dacian Gold has cleared its first significant hurdle, delivering on its maiden quarterly production guidance at a time fraught for new entrants and effectively de-risking full-year output.

And so the tributes flowed last night for John Langford, who has become synonymous with gold mining’s annual global headliner, the Diggers & Dealers conference in Kalgoorlie.

Acquisitive South African engineering group DRA Global has made another Australian acquisition with the purchase of G&S Engineering from Calibre Group.