Today's Business Headlines

Gillard safe, by hook or Crook

Nationals crossbencher Tony Crook made clear yesterday the Coaliton could not count on succeeding with a no-confidence motion in the government despite the uncertainty in parliamentary numbers since Speaker Peter Slipper stood down. The Fin

Barnett rejects push for Alinta buyback

Premier Colin Barnett has ruled out any government buyback of Alinta Energy's WA retail gas business, declaring household prices had to rise because gas and the cost of accessing the pipeline network were getting more expensive. The West

Employers beg FWA to put off minimum wage rises

Employers are pushing to delay a significant pay rise for workers on the minimum wage, declaring they cannot afford to absorb it as costs skyrocket because of Labor’s Fair Work Act, the carbon price and proposed increases to superannuation levies. The Aus

Forrest's job plan stalemate

Andrew ‘‘Twiggy’’ Forrest has been accused of peddling false facts on indigenous jobs, with the Gillard government refusing to back the mining magnate’s new Aboriginal employment scheme. The Aus

THE WEST AUSTRALIAN:

Page 3: Qantas' Perth domestic airport terminal was evacuated at lunchtime yesterday after a security breach – the second in two months – that allowed unscreened passengers to enter the terminal beyond the security checkpoint and mingle with screened passengers and visitors.

Page 6: Australian's pay packets have outpaced the cost of living for the past 20 years and people have found new ways to spend their extra thousands of dollars.

Mortgage holders are being kept waiting by the big banks on interest rate relief after the lenders failed to immediately pass on an emergency-sized cut in official interest rates by the Reserve Bank yesterday.

Page 7: Motorists will feel pain at the bowser from today as some Perth service stations raise their petrol prices by 10c a litre.

Page 8: Opposition Leader Tony Abbott refused to say yesterday whether as prime minister he would oversee a fundamental restructure of GST distribution favoured by all four Liberal premiers.

Page 11: Waiting times and the backlog of cases at WA's highest court will blow out unless it gets more resources, Supreme Court Chief Justice Wayne Martin has warned.

Page 12: Premier Colin Barnett has ruled out any government buyback of Alinta Energy's WA retail gas business, declaring household prices had to rise because gas and the cost of accessing the pipeline network were getting more expensive.

Lawyers for insurers fighting a damages claim over an allegedly inflated sale price for Lang Hancock's share in Hancock Prospecting 20 years ago claim there was no damage because the mining magnate also controlled the purchaser.

Page 10: Lord Mayor Lisa Scaffidi has criticised a proposal to introduce a congestion charge in Perth, saying it is an insult to the city.

Business liftout:

Page 1: Former primer minister John Howard has warned Australia about becoming too reliant on China at the expense of longer-serving economic and political partners.

Page 3: Woodside Petroleum has delighted investors with a $2 billion plus deal to bring the entire North West Shelf investment team in behind its Browse liquefied natural gas project.

Page 16: Ramelius Resources earned the dubious distinction of becoming one of the worst performing stocks on the local market yesterday, as investors punished it on the announcement of the looming closure of its Wattle Dam mine.

Page 17: The former managing director of IFS Construction Services has sought to overthrow the board of the embattled scaffolding group.

Page 26: The City of Busselton is calling for expressions of interest to develop hotel and convention facilities valued at more than $50 million on three sites overlooking the town's famous 1.9km jetty.

Page 27: The Property Council of Australia says Perth's private sector would be best served by a cut in the number of metropolitan local government councils from 30 to 10, with the new local authorities based on activity centres created in planning document Directions 2031.

Page 28: Global hotel players GIC Real Estate and Host Hotels and Resorts have entered Perth's hotel market by buying the four-star Citigate Perth Hotel for $61 million.

WA property developer Cedar Woods Properties Limited has added to its Victorian portfolio with the $12 million acquisition of a 7ha residential infill site at St Albans in Melbourne's north-west.

THE AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW:

Page 1: The Reserve Bank of Australia has challenged the nation's banks to slash mortgage rates, with the biggest cut in official interest rates since the height of the global financial crisis.

Rupert Murdoch is not a fit person to lead a major corporation and his son, James, showed wilful ignorance about the extent of telephone hacking at the now defunct News of the World, a British parliamentary committee found.

Page 3: Julia Gillard rallied business leaders from across the spectrum to a private dinner in Sydney last night as the Prime Minister attempts to shore up shaky support in the corporate sector before next week's budget.

Employees in pubs, restaurants and fast food outlets should be paid more on weekends, but only if they have already worked five days in the same week, says industry lobby group Restaurant & Catering Australia.

Page 4: Tax breaks worth $1 billion to encourage property developers to improve the energy efficiency of older buildings could be scrapped in the federal budget next week.

Page 5: Nationals crossbencher Tony Crook made clear yesterday the Coaliton could not count on succeeding with a no-confidence motion in the government despite the uncertainty in parliamentary numbers since Speaker Peter Slipper stood down.

Page 8: Business leaders welcomed the Reserve Bank's outsized rate cut as a bold move with the potential to quickly restore confidence across the struggling housing, retailing and manufacturing industries and urged banks to quickly pass on the savings to consumers.

Page 15: Australian shares rocketed to their highest level in more than nine months on the back of a bigger than expected rate cut, but some strategists say this won't be enough to boost struggling sectors unless the central bank provides more support.

Page 17: Woodside Petroleum is set for a showdown with its venture partners on developing gas from its $40 billion Browse development at the controversial James Price Point site near Broome after it emerged a new Japanese investor may favour piping the gas south to Karratha.

THE AUSTRALIAN:

Page 1: Wayne Swan has moved to claim credit for the Reserve Bank’s decision to slash interest rates, saying tight fiscal policy and a promised return to surplus in the budget had made yesterday’s 50-basis-point cut possible.

Page 2: Employers are pushing to delay a significant pay rise for workers on the minimum wage, declaring they cannot afford to absorb it as costs skyrocket because of Labor’s Fair Work Act, the carbon price and proposed increases to superannuation levies.

One of Australia’s largest banks, the ANZ, will not pass on any of yesterday’s 50-basis-point rate cut to its home loan customers for more than two weeks.

Rio Tinto boss Tom Albanese met with Julia Gillard in her Sydney office yesterday, expressing his concerns at the increased cost of doing business in Australia.

Page 4: Julia Gillard has pinned her recovery hopes on a plan to use Tuesday’s budget to entrench a battlers-first strategy aimed at recapturing Labor’s lost blue-collar base and painting Coalition parties as captives to privilege.

Page 5: Wayne Swan is facing a new call to give small companies a tax break worth $300 million in next week’s budget amid a dispute over how to pay for the aid.

Anglo-swiss miner Xstrata has flagged a possible income tax benefit in the first year of its Australian mining tax obligations, fuelling doubt about Treasury’s ability to hit targeted revenue from the impost.

Page 8: Andrew ‘‘Twiggy’’ Forrest has been accused of peddling false facts on indigenous jobs, with the Gillard government refusing to back the mining magnate’s new Aboriginal employment scheme.

The union representing the licensed engineers of Qantas has urged the Baillieu government not to subsidise the airline’s heavy maintenance operations in Victoria unless it is prepared to commit to their long-term future.

Business: Australia's business leaders are urging the Reserve Bank to cut interest rates again to lift consumer confidence, after it shocked the markets with a 50-basis-point reduction in the official cash rate to try to stimulate the economy.

Westpac has engaged management consultancy Mckinsey to help drive cost reductions worth tens of millions of dollars across the bank.

Peter Coleman has pulled off his first major deal since taking the reins at Woodside Petroleum a year ago, selling a chunk of the company’s stake in the planned Browse gas project to Japanese interests for $US2 billion ($1.9bn).

Gloomy retailers and manufacturers are hoping the Reserve Bank’s surprisingly big interest rate cut kick-starts economic growth, but Australia’s investment pipeline continues to burst at the seams.

The Grange Resources-led joint venture has priced a development of its Southdown magnetite project near Albany in Western Australia at $2.88 billion and hopes to secure financing before the end of the year to allow a go-ahead decision to be made.

Leading property company Mirvac Group reaffirmed its earnings guidance of 10.5c-10.6c per security when it updated investors yesterday on its third-quarter performance.

THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD:

Page 1: Treasurer Wayne Swan has claimed credit for the RBA's decision to cut interest rates by an unexpected 50-basis points.

Kevin Rudd is the government's only hope of avoiding "electoral annihilation" after key ALP factional backers from the NSW Right abandoned Julia Gillard, whose approval rating has collapsed.

The first forced public service redundancies in Victoria since the Kennett era will be imposed as the Baillieu government announces budget savings of $8.8 billion.

Senior bureaucrats warned the Gillard government of problems with Peter Slipper's expenses.

Page 2: Independent MP Rob Oakeshott has called on the treasurer to deliver a small company tax break worth $300 million in next week's budget.

Page 3: The deaths four members of a family discovered in the Melbourne home are being treated by police as a murder-suicide.

World: Hilary Clinton has flown to China to resolve a diplomatic crisis over a blind activist believed to be sheltering in the US embassy. (Beijing)

Business: Australian business leaders are calling on the Reserve Bank to cut interest rates again.

Westpac has engaged a management consultant to drive cost reductions worth tens of millions of dollars.

The net profit of local UBS operation has fallen from $92.9 million to $37.2 million following a big trading loss.

Duluxgroup may be forced to sweeten its $188 million takeover offer of building materials supplier Alesco after the bid failed to impress shareholders.

Sport: The future of the Newcastle Jets in the A-League has been guaranteed after a deal was brokered between Football Federation Australia chairman Frank Lowry and billionaire Nathan Tinkler.

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH:

Page 1: RBA slashes rates by 50 basis points. Fifty reasons the Big Four banks must pass on the full interest rate cut. Residents in Sydney's mortgage belt and the nation's business leaders called on the banks to "do the right thing".

Page 2: The driver at the centre of the Peter Slipper Cabcharge affair, Antwan Kaikaty, has previously been caught forging sequential Carbcharge dockets. He pleaded guilty and was given a 12-month jail sentence.

Page 3: US rapper Flo Rida has been served with a damages claim via Facebook. The rapper left a NSW music festival $55,000 out-of-pocket after a last-minute no-show.

World: The wife of a political aide in the US has revealed she pretended her husband was the father of a child that had actually been fathered by disgraced senator John Edwards. (US) A man charged with killing seven people in a gun rampage in California has pleaded not guilty in a US court. One Goh is charged with seven counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder. (US)

Business: Commonwealth bank CEO Ian Narev refused to discuss interest rate cuts at a business luncheon in Sydney on Monday.

Economists warn lowering interest rates might not be enough to reverse the fall in house prices. Capital city house prices fell 1.1 per cent in the past three months and 4.5 per cent in the past year.

Duluxgroup has launched a takeover proposal for garage door, construction, cabinet and window products supplier Alesco Corporation.

Sport: Parramatta coach Steve Kearney says he doesn't have a magic answer to what's gone wrong with $550,000-a-season Chris Sandow, who has been benched for Friday night's game against Canterbury.

The Waratahs will ask SANZAR to let them play all their home games on Sunday afternoons next year.

THE CANBERRA TIMES:

Page 1: Gillard backers desert as poll chances slide.

Page 2: Canberra has the highest standard of living, a new report says.

Page 3: Female students avoiding "hard" subjects.

World: Murdoch guilty of wilful blindness.

Finance: Woodside lands $2 billion LNG sale.

Sport: Black Caviar forces AFL match to be pushed back