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More budget pain: $3bn carbon hole
The federal government is scrambling to find over $3 billion of additional savings in the two weeks before the budget after Treasury halved the projected price of carbon when Australia links to the European scheme. The Fin
Budget bounce from levy rise
Julia Gillard’s $3.3 billion-a-year increase in the Medicare levy to fund the national disability insurance scheme will improve the budget bottom line in the short term, raising the prospect Wayne Swan will be able to forecast a return to surplus within four years. The Aus
Verve says no truth to turbine rumours
Verve Energy has been forced to deny rampant industry speculation that faulty concrete wind turbine tower foundations at its troubled Mumbida green power project were responsible for a six-month delay and cost blowouts on the $130 million venture. The West
Boral cuts 100 more jobs in Australia
Building materials group Boral has cut another 100 jobs from its Australian business, taking total job losses from its global operations in the past six months to 1100. The Fin
Drill hits see Pegasus take off
Pegasus Metals brought some much-needed blue-sky to the exploration sector yesterday with a near 100 per cent spike in its share price on the back of copper-sulphide hits at its Mt Mulcahy project in the Murchison. The West
Top Resources Headlines
Verve says no truth to turbine rumours
Verve Energy has been forced to deny rampant industry speculation that faulty concrete wind turbine tower foundations at its troubled Mumbida green power project were responsible for a six-month delay and cost blowouts on the $130 million venture. The West
Fortescue Metals, Atlas Iron agreement a win win for WA
An infrastructure deal is getting closer between Fortescue Metals Group and Atlas Iron, but it could hinge on WA Premier Colin Barnett letting go of his dreams of shared user export berths at Port Hedland. The Fin
Iron ore discovery fails to spark miner's recovery
News of an iron ore discovery within trucking distance of Port Hedland yesterday failed to inspire a rally in Atlas Iron's share price, which remains anchored at levels not seen since late 2008. The West
Lack of revenue forces Galaxy to tighten belt
A lack of lithium revenue has forced Galaxy Resources to tighten its fiscal belt, with the company saying goodbye to four directors alongside reporting that it burnt through $13 million cash in the March quarter. The West
Drill hits see Pegasus take off
Pegasus Metals brought some much-needed blue-sky to the exploration sector yesterday with a near 100 per cent spike in its share price on the back of copper-sulphide hits at its Mt Mulcahy project in the Murchison. The West
Top Politics Headlines
Budget bounce from levy rise
Julia Gillard’s $3.3 billion-a-year increase in the Medicare levy to fund the national disability insurance scheme will improve the budget bottom line in the short term, raising the prospect Wayne Swan will be able to forecast a return to surplus within four years. The Aus
More budget pain: $3bn carbon hole
The federal government is scrambling to find over $3 billion of additional savings in the two weeks before the budget after Treasury halved the projected price of carbon when Australia links to the European scheme. The Fin
$12m blitz for plans Libs pledge to ditch
The Gillard government has spent $12 million this financial year alone promoting two cash payments to families that Tony Abbott will ditch if he wins office. The Aus
Tanna takes aim at excessive regulation
Gas industry leader and Reserve Bank of Australia board member Catherine Tanna has launched an extraordinary attack on the nation's regulatory system, adding Australia, with its nine federal, state and territory governments, is “hopelessly over-governed”. The Fin
Top Property Headlines
Boral cuts 100 more jobs in Australia
Building materials group Boral has cut another 100 jobs from its Australian business, taking total job losses from its global operations in the past six months to 1100. The Fin
Coles strikes joint venture with ISPT
Wesfarmers-owned supermarket giant Coles has struck up a joint venture with superannuation fund-backed property group ISPT over a 19-strong portfolio of shopping centres worth $532 million and flagged plans to grow the venture. The Fin
Perth home prices and sales sag
The Perth property market has hit a speed bump with house prices and sales falling despite signs of improvement elsewhere in the country. The West
The West Australian
Page 3: Doctors fear supplies of the influenza vaccine could run out in coming weeks after unprecedented demand.
Page 5: Julia Gillard has sought to make the National Disability Insurance Scheme contingent on Tony Abbott's support even though the government would get enough parliamentary support if put to a vote.
A major West Australian disability support agency has a simple message for Colin Barnett over his refusal to sign up to the proposed National Disability Insurance Scheme model: “Stay the course”.
Page 7: The Perth property market has hit a speed bump with house prices and sales falling despite signs of improvement elsewhere in the country.
Page 9: Colin Barnett has linked Ian Johnson's dumping as Corrective Services Commissioner to industrial relations issues within the prisons system, declaring “absenteeism” among prison officers is a problem.
Page 11: The state's flagship performing arts companies are feeling the chill winds of a tighter marketplace, their annual reports reveal.
Page 16: WA's main farm group is investigating having $60 million in concessional loans from the federal government administered from interstate if the state government fails to fully support the scheme.
Page 18: WA's tourism heavyweights have devised a plethora of public relations strategies to use the international release of the movie Drift to lure a wave of visitors to the South West.
Business: Verve Energy has been forced to deny rampant industry speculation that faulty concrete wind turbine tower foundations at its troubled Mumbida green power project were responsible for a six-month delay and cost blowouts on the $130 million venture.
Pegasus Metals brought some much-needed blue-sky to the exploration sector yesterday with a near 100 per cent spike in its share price on the back of copper-sulphide hits at its Mt Mulcahy project in the Murchison.
Wesfarmers has struck a deal to unlock hundreds of millions of dollars from property acquired by supermarket chain Coles in the wake of the global financial crisis.
News of an iron ore discovery within trucking distance of Port Hedland yesterday failed to inspire a rally in Atlas Iron's share price, which remains anchored at levels not seen since late 2008.
A lack of lithium revenue has forced Galaxy Resources to tighten its fiscal belt, with the company saying goodbye to four directors alongside reporting that it burnt through $13 million cash in the March quarter.
A junior member of the Barnett government has launched a scathing attack on the management of CBH and urged the co-operative's grower members to consider voting to change to a corporate entity.
The growing political clout of WA's blue-collar unions has been matched by their financial muscle, with the CFMEU buying the historic Trades Hall building in Beaufort Street for about $5 million.
The Australian Financial Review
Page 1: The federal government is scrambling to find over $3 billion of additional savings in the two weeks before the budget after Treasury halved the projected price of carbon when Australia links to the European scheme.
Former federal energy minister Martin Ferguson warns that strikes by electricity workers seeking improved workplace deals jeopardise the future of power stations in Victoria's Latrobe Valley.
Page 3: Gas industry leader and Reserve Bank of Australia board member Catherine Tanna has launched an extraordinary attack on the nation's regulatory system, adding Australia, with its nine federal, state and territory governments, is “hopelessly over-governed”.
Page 4: Productivity Commission chairman Peter Harris has signalled his support for Labor's national broadband network, but welcomed the idea of doing a cost-benefit analysis for an Abbott government.
The Coalition has given strong backing to Productivity Commission scrutiny of its pending industrial relations policy, but said that it will not use the body as political cover to return WorkChoices.
Page 5: Qantas says safety will remain its top priority after an economist questioned the impact of airline delays on passengers' productivity.
Page 7: Home prices stopped rising in April, losing 0.5 per cent in the eight capitals, despite improvements in the first three months of the year.
Page 11: Experts foreshadowed the entry of large, for-profit and foreign players as disability services become big business.
Page 13: One of Australia's most prominent retailers, Myer chief executive Bernie Brookes, has called for another interest rate cut by the Reserve Bank of Australia when its board meets next week.
Page 16: Some business leaders have backed guidelines for improving gender balance in Australian companies, saying the reporting initiative is not about additional red tape but about pushing needed cultural change.
Page 19: As neighbouring farmers begin sowing winter crops into their parched paddocks, Western Australia's largest grain farmer, John Nicoletti, is sitting still as he holds firm on a threat to forgo planting crops in response to tightening credit conditions from his financier, ANZ Banking Group.
Page 25: Woolworths has opened up a new front in the war over customer data by making a strategic acquisition that will allow it to better analyse the shopping habits of Australians beyond its customer base.
Arrow LNG has been holding negotiations on potential consolidation with rival ventures in Queensland, raising expectations that Shell and PetroChina will scrap plans for a $20 billion-plus stand-alone plant.
Page 26: An infrastructure deal is getting closer between Fortescue Metals Group and Atlas Iron, but it could hinge on WA Premier Colin Barnett letting go of his dreams of shared user export berths at Port Hedland.
Page 27: Building materials group Boral has cut another 100 jobs from its Australian business, taking total job losses from its global operations in the past six months to 1100.
Page 33: Investor appetite for high-yield banking stocks is eating into the market power of the country’s biggest miners, signalling a shift in the dynamics of the Australian sharemarket.
Page 43: Wesfarmers-owned supermarket giant Coles has struck up a joint venture with superannuation fund-backed property group ISPT over a 19-strong portfolio of shopping centres worth $532 million and flagged plans to grow the venture.
Page 47: West Australian apartment developer Finbar has acquired a 3410 square metre development site in West Perth for $10.55 million.
The Australian
Page 1: Julia Gillard’s $3.3 billion-a-year increase in the Medicare levy to fund the national disability insurance scheme will improve the budget bottom line in the short term, raising the prospect Wayne Swan will be able to forecast a return to surplus within four years.
The biggest contractor handling the rollout of the $37.4 billion National Broadband Network has gagged its scores of subcontractors carrying out the work on the ground.
Page 2: Labor faces another battle over free speech, with the nation’s media giants uniting to demand the Gillard government dump plans to exclude the misconduct of ministers, judges and intelligence agencies from its whistle-blowing scheme.
The Gillard government has spent $12 million this financial year alone promoting two cash payments to families that Tony Abbott will ditch if he wins office.
Page 4: The announcement of a levy to fund the national disability insurance scheme has given the states a $9.7 billion incentive to sign up to one of Julia Gillard’s signature reforms.
The increase in the Medicare levy will cost the top 10 per cent of income earners about $1000 a year more, while most of the bottom 40 per cent will pay nothing because their incomes are below the threshold at which the levy applies.
Labor is sitting on $35 billion in budget promises it is yet to legislate for as it runs out of time to get major reforms through parliament in the next two months, raising the risk that changes will lapse when the federal election campaign begins.
Page 6: Campbell Newman has declared that his government can pay down $20 billion in debt — and set a path to regaining a AAA credit rating — without selling off big-ticket electricity assets.
Business: Macquarie Group is seeking control of a $500 million portfolio of nine Gunns-managed investment schemes, in a move that could generate tens of millions of dollars in fees but also put the investment bank on a collision course with the liquidator of the failed timber group.
Telstra shares broke through the $5 mark yesterday as the telco giant reaffirmed its full-year guidance, recommitted to its dividend and revealed that more than 2.1 million devices were now operating on its superfast 4G mobile network.
The next big push to increase the number of women in corporate leadership roles looks set to come from shareholder pressure, especially from the big superannuation fund investors.
China's economic slowdown is showing signs of worsening, with the nation’s powerful state-owned enterprises heading towards a contraction.
Global mining giant Rio Tinto has warned that it could cut hundreds of jobs from its Warkworth mine this year as it seeks an expedition of the appeal process over the decision to block an expansion at the NSW coal operation.
The crisis in the nation’s manufacturing sector is deepening as the high value of the currency recreates the conditions business faced in the thick of the global financial crisis.
BHP Billiton’s proposed $US10 billion ($9.7bn)plus diversification into the global bulk fertilisers market through the development of its Jansen potash project in Canada has received a seal of approval from Goldman Sachs.
Origin Energy has confirmed no imminent plans to sell down a further stake in its $24 billion Queensland liquefied natural gas project.
Santos chief David Knox has pledged to ‘‘reward’’ shareholders next year as one of its major LNG projects comes online and has forecast costs in the industry to continue to cool as companies re-tender work with contractors.
Virgin Australia chief executive John Borghetti has promised customers the airline’s acquisition of Tiger Airways Australia will not see it pull out of routes and service them with the budget carrier.
The Sydney Morning Herald
Page 1: South Korean spies have been caught cultivating public servants in Canberra to obtain trade secrets.
Page 2: A blood test could soon identify those at risk of Alzheimer's disease after Australian scientists identified a series of markers associated with the degenerative condition.
Page 3: Consortia led by detention centre company Serco and Hong Kong metro operator MTR, which also runs Melbourne's trains, have been shortlisted to operate Sydney's north-west rail link.
World: (Washington) President Barack Obama said he would redouble efforts on a failed first-term campaign promise to close the prison for terrorism suspects at the US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Business: Vodafone's Australian venture came close to breaching covenants on a $3 billion loan earlier this year, but was saved by its global parents in February who paid off $173 million to its international banking syndicate.
Sport: Josh Dugan is on the verge of returning to the NRL after his manager met St George Illawarra officials on Wednesday to finalise a contract with the joint venture club.
The Daily Telegraph
Page 1: The government's decision to raise the Medicare levy means Australians will pay the highest effective top marginal rate of tax in nearly a decade.
Page 2: Australia's international competitiveness is being threatened by its renewable energy target and our fixed price on carbon, the head of one of the nation's largest energy providers has said.
Page 3: Australians live longer, healthier lives than people in almost every other country, a study shows.
World: (Boston) The CIA and Department of Justice and Homeland security have launched a review of whether intelligence was mishandled prior to the Boston Marathon bombings.
Business: Telstra has maintained its full-year earnings guidance and is aiming to lift dividends over time.
Sport: Shane Carter, the biochemist embroiled in the drugs-in-sport scandal, will detail Essendon's alleged peptides regimen to Australia's anti-doping agency.
The Age
Page 1: South Koreans caught spying in economic espionage against Australia, as senior Australian public servant sacked for allegedly disclosing sensitive trade information. Two Carlton officials secretly taped a meeting with the chemist who supplied Essendon's controversial supplement program. Australian on terror charge in Saudi Arabia while his brother is in hiding after being stripped of his passport.
Page 2: Victorian government rejects a community campaign to turn the Beaumaris campus of Sandringham College into a stand-alone year 7 to 12 school.
Page 3: Fruit grower rips out his peach trees as SPC Ardmona cuts production by half. Australian doctors find a way to predict the onset of seizures in people with epilepsy that does not respond to drug treatments.
World: President Barack Obama vows to redouble efforts to close the prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay.
Business: Vodafone's Australian global parents stepped in with a $173 million payment to stop it breaching covenants on a $3 billion loan.
Sport: Sports scientist Peter Dank, the man at the centre of Essendon's supplements program which led to the club's drug scandal, was not interviewed by the internal investigation into the case.
The Herald Sun
Page 1: Julia Gillard gambles that her $3.3 billion-a-year tax slug to bankroll the National Disability Insurance Scheme will win Labor votes at the September 14 election.
Page 2: Witnesses have told of their horror at seeing a man mauled by a pack of dogs.
Page 3: Biochemist Shane Charter will tell all he knows to anti-doping agency about an alleged peptides regimen at Essendon. Labradors being trained at the Collingwood Children's Farm before being placed with disabled children.
World: Damascus bombing kills 13.
Business: Report warns that the slowdown in the resources sector has the potential to undermine the Australian economy.
Sport: Jobe Watson could keep his Brownlow Medal at the discretion of the AFL Tribunal and Bomber players could get six month suspensions but not miss a game if they are found to have taken banned supplements under World Anti-Doping Agency guidelines.