Today's Business Headlines
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Stokes leads media rebellion
Kerry Stokes “violently” opposes the Labor government's media overhaul, a key crossbench MP declared he would have nothing to do with the changes and Labor backbenchers expressed alarm about picking an election year fight with Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd. The Fin
Rinehart's $300m offer to daughter
Gina Rinehart offered to give her daughter Hope Welker $300 million and set her up for life if she agreed to pull out of the bitter court action she launched against the mining magnate. The West
More 457 rhetoric in speech to ACTU
Julia Gillard will today ramp up her attack on foreign worker visa rorts, declaring importing workers on 457 visas ‘‘is a substitute for spreading important economic opportunity to Australian working people’’. The Aus
Clyne shaves off $800m
National Australia Bank chief Cameron Clyne has declared he is no longer committed to having the lowest home loan rates of the big four banks, as he pulled the trigger on a sweeping management restructure and an $800 million yearly cost cutting plan. The Fin
LNG 'green corridor' on Hume
In an Australian first, energy giant Royal Dutch Shell will develop a liquefied natural gas supply chain for trucks along the Hume Highway, with a guarantee to provide a cheaper and cleaner burning fuel alternative to diesel. The Aus
THE WEST AUSTRALIAN
Page 1: Media boss Kerry Stokes has attacked the federal government's planned media reforms and signalled he would be prepared to give up tens of millions of dollars in licence fee cuts if the plans were shelved.
Page 3: Gina Rinehart offered to give her daughter Hope Welker $300 million and set her up for life if she agreed to pull out of the bitter court action she launched against the mining magnate.
Page 4: A key independent and central figure in the push for press reform says the federal government's proposed media laws were “constructed to fail” and were unlikely to survive a vote in parliament.
Joe Hockey and fellow economic “dries” have been rolled in shadow cabinet, with Opposition Leader Tony Abbott siding with social conservative Kevin Andrews to knock back a proposed $500 million trim of the baby bonus.
Premier Colin Barnett's hopes of a financial windfall from a Tony Abbott federal government appear to have been dashed by the Opposition Leader.
Page 5: Margaret River bushfire victims, including prominent businessman Michael Chaney, have launched Supreme Court action against the state government in a bid for damages that could run into millions of dollars.
Page 9: Median house prices in parts of Perth are approaching $900,000 as increasing consumer confidence signals a rebounding economy,
The State theatre and ballet companies were the big winners, but the WA Academy of Performing Arts lost out in the first national cultural policy since 1994.
Page 12: Adam Giles is the Northern Territory's new chief minister – and Australia's first indigenous head of government – after rolling Terry Mills from the top job.
Labor was confident last night of winning its 19th seat – the four way fight for the Kimberley – and still had a slim lead in Collie-Preston and Midland as counting continued.
Page 17: Independent public schools to not appear to attain consistently superior results over neighbouring schools, an analysis of the latest version of the My School website reveals.
Business: Apex Minerals boss Ed Eshuys says the sale of its struggling Wiluna gold mine is the best option available to the company, admitting yesterday that long-suffering shareholders have run out of patience.
An insider trading trial has been told of widespread market and fund manager speculation ahead of a 2006 takeover bid for diagnostics group Vision Systems.
The world's biggest sovereign wealth fund last year bulked up on a welter of WA companies, including Atlas Iron and Gryphon Minerals, as it cut back in Europe in favour of more attractive investment destinations.
Chevron says its exploration success in the Carnarvon Basin, of 20 discoveries in less than four years, has yielded 10 trillion cubic feet of gas and confidence about the eventual expansion of the Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG projects.
One of Australia's most respected corporate leaders, Mike Fitzpatrick, has called on politicians to stop meddling in areas such as renewable energy and superannuation to provide business with certainty in a potential volatile election year.
A glut of cheap shale gas in the United States will eventually drive Asian and Australian gas prices lower, according to Mike Fitzpatrick.
The Kimberley cattle industry is holding its breath in the hope it can dodge a Bovine Johne's Disease bullet as authorities continue an intensive testing regime.
The lure of the uranium story has led Julian Tapp to take the reins of Energy and Minerals Australia, with the well-known former Fortescue Metals Group external affairs boss declaring that EMA would be producing uranium by 2016.
Sirius Resources has poached the leadership team that built Sandfire Resources' DeGrussa mine.
Kagara's administrators have suffered a setback in their efforts to recapitalise the failed base metals miner, with the collapse of a deal to unwind a gold rights agreement with Mungana Gold Mines.
Skywest Airlines shareholders have overwhelmingly backed the $99 million sale of the regional operator to Virgin Australia.
THE AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW
Page 1: Kerry Stokes “violently” opposes the Labor government's media overhaul, a key crossbench MP declared he would have nothing to do with the changes and Labor backbenchers expressed alarm about picking an election year fight with Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd.
Page 3: The Northern Territory's Terry Mills has become the second first-term Liberal leader to be dumped by his party in a week.
Business Council of Australia chairman Tony Sheperd has started sounding out senior executives to replace him overseeing the country's top business group, after his two-year term expires in November.
Page 4: Gina Rinehart secretly offered her daughter Hope a $300 million payment to settle their bitter family dispute less than two months after rejecting a multi-million-dollar deal from her son, John Hancock.
Page 6: Manufacturers, energy generators and the oil and gas sector have made a rare joint appeal to state and federal governments to avoid “knee-jerk policies” when faced with community concerns about coal seam gas and wind farms.
Page 7: BHP Billiton said its activities surrounding sponsorship of the 2008 Beijing Olympics complied with “all applicable law”.
Page 8: Prime Minister Julia Gillard has accused the Coalition of “bandwagoning” with media organisations as she defended Labor's planned media changes.
Page 11: Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey has vowed to fight a decision by his colleagues to oppose a $514 million cut to the baby bonus after he was rolled on the basis that the payment was good for fertility and maintained equity for stay-at-home mothers.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard will cite information technology as a sector abusing 457 visas when she uses a keynote address to unions to bolster her argument for clamping down on temporary foreign skilled labour.
Treasurer Wayne Swan is seeking to further tighten the noose on the official opposition by giving the Parliamentary Budget Office an obligation to request information from private auditors hired by political parties to undertake their pre-election costings.
Page 12: Unions will lobby the four independent MPs who hold the balance of power in the federal parliament to win support for the Gillard government's second round of changes to national workplace laws before election.
Page 21: National Australia Bank chief Cameron Clyne has declared he is no longer committed to having the lowest home loan rates of the big four banks, as he pulled the trigger on a sweeping management restructure and an $800 million yearly cost cutting plan.
Page 23: Myer and David Jones are stepping up pressure on landlords to reduce rents in shopping malls as the online retail incursion and subdued discretionary spending further undermine the business case for marginal stores.
Virgin Australia chief executive John Borghetti says the airline is open to the competition regulator placing “reasonable” conditions on its proposed takeover of Tiger Airways Australia.
THE AUSTRALIAN
Page 1: Labor is unveiling a spate of new policies that will help it secure the support of independent MPs for its controversial media reforms amid signs key parliamentary allies, including Rob Oakeshott, are prepared to scuttle the new laws.
In an Australian first, energy giant Royal Dutch Shell will develop a liquefied natural gas supply chain for trucks along the Hume Highway, with a guarantee to provide a cheaper and cleaner burning fuel alternative to diesel.
Australia has its first indigenous head of government after the Northern Territory became the second Liberal jurisdiction in a week to dump a first-term leader.
Mining magnate Gina Rinehart offered daughter Hope Welker $300 million to put a stop to the bitter fighting over the family’s vast wealth, according to explosive emails that reveal the depths of the family feud.
Page 2: The Gillard government is preparing to turn the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission into a grocery cop by arming it with a mandatory code to police dealings between supermarkets and suppliers.
A $100 million coal-seam gas program has been mothballed and workers laid off in response to rising uncertainty about state and federal environmental regulation.
Julia Gillard will today ramp up her attack on foreign worker visa rorts, declaring importing workers on 457 visas ‘‘is a substitute for spreading important economic opportunity to Australian working people’’.
Surging share prices are cheering consumers up but lower interest rates are not convincing them to take out home loans, impeding hopes that residential building will bolster the economy as the resources boom slows.
Page 3: BillionaireJames Packer will today urge the federal and state governments to work more cooperatively with the nation’s universities to greatly increase the number of Chinese and Asian students studying in Australia.
Page 4: West Australian Newspapers editor-in-chief Bob Cronin has called for a decentralised press regulation system where the Australian Press Council would be effectively abandoned for a series of independent state councils.
Page 5: Labor's long-awaited cultural policy draws together such things as indigenous heritage and opportunity, the school arts curriculum, the National Broadband Network and the Asian century, as well as music, theatre and dance.
Business: National Australia Bank chief executive Cameron Clyne hopes a $1 billion-plus annual spend on technology and a rejigged senior management team will underwrite the future of the nation’s fourth-largest bank as it trades out of its troubles in Britain.
A senior regulator is urging the Chinese government to develop an iron ore futures market to help the nation control the rising price of the commodity.
Listed companies have been warned to upgrade their disclosure practices in light of new rules from the Australian Securities Exchange or risk enforcement action from the corporate regulator.
Australia's multi-billion dollar-a-year liquefied natural gas export industry faces a new threat after its top customer — Japan — used groundbreaking technology to potentially unlock vast new subsea gas deposits just off its coast.
National Party senator John Williams has launched a blistering attack on the Commonwealth Bank subsidiary Bankwest, urging it to start treating people as ‘‘human beings’’ and not as numbers.
BHP Billiton believes it has nothing to fear from an ongoing US-Australian anti-graft probe, which has been extended to include possible violations related to BHP’s major sponsorship of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
The Ed Eshuys-led Apex Minerals will reposition itself as a cashed-up explorer after striking a deal to sell its long-embattled Wiluna goldmine in Western Australia to Chinese interests for $50 million.
Leighton Holdings has been left largely unscathed in a review and restructure by its major shareholder Hochtief under new chief executive Marcelino Fernandez Verdes, who has made his second visit to Australia in six weeks.
Virgin Australia’s proposed acquisition of Perth-based airline Skywest moved a step closer yesterday after shareholders approved the deal.
THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
Page 1: A senior Army commander says some soldiers in Afghanistan are ill-disciplined and base their perceptions of war on movies and video games.
Page 2: Over the next five years every NSW apartment above the ground floor will be required to install safety devices to prevent children falling through windows.
Page 3: A Brisbane Supreme Court has acquitted former Bundaberg surgeon Jayant Patel of the manslaughter of 75-year-old Mervyn Morris.
World: North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has threatened to wipe out a South Korean island as sanctions and UN charges of gross rights abuse were levelled at Pyongyang.
Business: The NAB says it will save $800 million a year by making customers engage in self service banking.
Sport: Cricket Australia performance chief Pat Howard has offered to fly to Sydney to talk with suspended vice captain Shane Watson.
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
Page 1: Federal government ministers were not given any warning and little time to read proposed media reform laws before they were approved by cabinet.
Page 2: ICAC commissioner David Ipp is expected to advise whether public servants were involved in a cover-up relating to the Mount Penny mining site at the centre of recent hearings at the corruption watchdog.
Page 3: A Chinese airline is set to commence services to Europe and will sell tickets at half the cost of those offered by Australian rivals.
World: The first round of voting in the papal elections has failed to resolve who will lead the world's 1.2 billion Catholics.
Business: The NAB will reduce branch sizes and focus on increasing digital self-service options.
Sport: An additional 10 investigators will join the team tasked with uncovering the use of illegal peptides in the NRL.
THE AGE
Page 1: Gina Rinehart's youngest daughter, Ginia, told her estranged sister Hope to take the $300 million being offered to her and just walk away. A senior army says some Diggers in Afghanistan acted like Roman gladiators and had an image of war based on movies and computer games.
Page 2: The accused murderer of Jill Meagher allegedly fought with his girlfriend just hours before the young Irish-born woman was killed, court hears. Chilling CCTV footage of shows the movements of Adrian Ernest Bayley in the hours before and after he raped and allegedly murdered Jill Meagher.
Page 3: An account of Bayley's movements, as captured by CCTV, as he moves about the city before and after the death of Jill Meagher.
World: North Korean threatens to wipe out a South Korean island as Pyongyang comes under new economic and diplomatic fire from US sanctions.
Business: NAB looks to cut costs by $800 million annually while encouraging customers to do more "self service" banking.
Sport: New Hawthorn president Andrew Newbold says the club can prove itself a strong organisation by overcoming a succession of setbacks since Christmas and having a successful season in 2013.
THE HERALD SUN
Page 1: Tracking Jill Meagher's mobile phone and tollway data analysis led police to accused killer Adrian Ernest Bayley.
Page 2: Media reform plan faces defeat with independent MP Rob Oakeshott not willing to toe the line on Labor's ultimatum.
Page 3: Collingwood legend Lou Richards celebrates his 90th birthday and says he'd love to see his Magpies win a few more premierships while he is still alive. Cardinals set for another round of voting as they look for a new pope.
World: US says cyber attacks and cyber espionage pose a greater potential threat to national security than terrorists.
Business: National Australia Bank revamp includes reducing the size of its offices and halving the number of banking products.
Sport: Hawks say they can retain Buddy Franklin despite losing the man whose job it was to keep him at Hawthorn - football boss Mark Evans - who has gone to AFL HQ.
THE ADELAIDE ADVERTISER
Page 1: South Australia's chief doctor has called for an end to the vaccination debate, urging everyone to "do the right thing" to protect themselves and save lives.
Page 3: Senior Gillard ministers have confirmed that the Cabinet was cornered into backing the government's draconian media regulations during a special meeting on Tuesday.
World: Michelle Obama and a string of top names from US politics and show business were at the centre of a major security investigation yesterday after their private financial information was hacked and posted online.
Business: Smaller branches with a greater focus on self-service through its increased digital channels are one of the key platforms to National Australia Bank's new strategy.
Sport: Port Adelaide believes the confronting training conducted under controversial tackling coach John Donehue will be one of its greatest weapons this season.