Today's News - Friday 18 December 2020
Today's News - Friday 18 December 2020
Our Backyard
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the budget update confirmed that the Australian economy was rebounding strongly following the biggest economic shocks since the Great Depression.
Australia now has a $197.7bn deficit, or 9.9 of GDP in 2020-21. Mr Frydenberg said that was an improvement of $15.9 billion in the two months since the budget, which forecast a $214bn shortfall due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Net debt stands at $690bn and is expected to peak at 43 per cent of GDP in 2024.
Mr Frydenberg said the unemployment rate was expected to return to pre-COVID levels in around four years and predicted the jobs recovery would be faster than after recessions in the 1980s and 1990s.
Real GDP is forecast to grow by 4.5 per cent in 2021 following a reduction of 2.5 per cent in 2020.
Another solid month for the labour market has pushed the unemployment rate in November down to 6.8 per cent from 7 per cent a month before, as the economy added 90,000 jobs.
Full-time jobs climbed by 84,200, while part-time employment increased by 5800, seasonally adjusted figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed. There were 2.5 per cent more hours worked in total over the month – still 1.2 per cent below where it was a year before.
Victoria led the jobs growth in November, with employment in the state jumping by 74,000 in November – building on the previous month’s gain of 82,000.
Seasonally adjusted estimates for November 2020:
- Unemployment rate decreased to 6.8%.
- Participation rate increased to 66.1%.
- Employment increased to 12,860,700.
- Employment to population ratio increased to 61.6%.
- Underemployment rate decreased to 9.4%.
- Monthly hours worked increased by 43 million hours.
https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/recovery-employment-and-hours-continues-november
Qantas will no longer have to backpay hundreds of workers after the Full Federal Court overturned a recent landmark decision that companies have to pass on the full JobKeeper wage subsidy.
The win was a relief not just for Qantas, but business lobbies that had argued the court's initial interpretation of the law relating to the Federal Government's JobKeeper wage subsidy could have opened the floodgates for other companies to have to backpay workers.
But key unions representing airline workers are devastated, saying people who need the money will now miss out.
A former St George Bank employee allegedly used her staff access to create an online banking account for an elderly client without their knowledge to drain almost $350,000 of their life savings, a court has heard.
Police allege Sara Daizli also used her position at the bank to open accounts in the names of fictitious people and swindle hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Ms Daizli - also known as Sara Diaz Sukkar - was refused bail at Central Local Court on Thursday after she was arrested at a beauty venue on Pitt Street, Sydney the day before.
Police will allege she was a key player in a scheme that defrauded the bank and customers of more than $590,000 between February 2016 and December 2018.
She allegedly used her employee logins to make 82 transfers into those accounts between February 2016 and October 2017, with those transactions totalling more than $146,000.
She also allegedly made three personal loan applications in fake names to the tune of almost $62,000, and persuaded another bank employee to withdraw almost $19,000 from accounts.
Ms Daizli is set to spend Christmas behind bars and will next appear in court on February 25.
The owners of Australia's newest coal-fired power station have written down the value of the asset to zero, wiping out a $1.2 billion investment in the face of an onslaught of renewable energy.
In what a financial market analyst said was a "classic example" of changes predicted in the energy industry, Japanese conglomerate Sumitomo has written off its $250 million equity stake in the Bluewaters power plant in Western Australia's south-west.
The decision was booked in Sumitomo's September accounts, in which the company acknowledged the facility was worthless despite being barely 10 years old.
It comes just nine years after Sumitomo, in a joint venture with fellow Japanese firm Kansai, bought Bluewaters for a reported $1.2 billion from the wreckage of fallen coal tycoon Ric Stowe's failed business empire.
Qantas has a signed a new deal with global courier service FedEx Express to distribute all its domestic freight needs for the next six years.
The deal is a major financial blow to rival airline Virgin Australia, which used to hold the freight agreement with the recently merged FedEx and TNT freight company.
FedEx’s agreement with Qantas Freight is expected to generate more than $350m in revenue over the life of the contract.
The major airline’s freight business has been the most resilient division during the coronavirus pandemic that has grounded the majority of the airline’s domestic and international commercial travel flights.
Transurban says the $2.8 billion sale of a 50 per cent stake in its network of American roads to three superannuation funds will bolster a war chest to bid for new growth assets likely to include the remainder of Sydney’s Westconnex.
The toll road giant’s boss Scott Charlton said on Thursday the partial sale of its roads in the Greater Washington area to AustralianSuper, UniSuper and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP) had been on the cards for 18 months and was not a response to COVID-19.
World News
A French court has convicted 14 people of crimes ranging from financing terrorism to membership of a criminal gang in relation to the Islamist attack on the office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket.
The trial has reopened one of modern France's darkest episodes, just as the country is hit with another wave of Islamist attacks, including the beheading of a schoolteacher that prompted the Government to crack down on what it calls Islamist separatism.
Mining giant Rio Tinto is accelerating plans to tackle the greenhouse gas emissions caused by its customers across Asia, inking a deal with Japan’s biggest steel-maker and investing $13 million with top global producer China Baowu on decarbonisation projects.
Rio Tinto entered into an agreement with Baowu and Tsinghua University in 2019 to develop and implement methods to reduce carbon emissions. Rio’s latest investment was the “next step” in the partnership and would be used to fund a low-carbon raw materials research and development centre, the company said.
The Fijian Government has declared a State of Natural Disaster and introduced a 4pm curfew.
The severe category five Cyclone Yasa was carrying wind speeds of up to 240 kilometres per hour when it made landfall on the island of Vanua Levu, with wind gusts of up to 345kph, Fiji's meteorological service said.
Fiji's Prime Minister has warned 95 per cent of the population could be affected.
More than 1,000 evacuation centres have been opened to provide shelter to cyclone victims.
A French court has convicted 14 people of crimes ranging from financing terrorism to membership of a criminal gang in relation to the Islamist attack on the office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket.
Some were sentenced in absentia while eleven were jailed with sentences ranging from four to 30 years.
A Chinese lunar capsule has returned to Earth with the first fresh samples of rock and debris from the Moon in more than 40 years.
The capsule from China's Chang'e 5 probe landed in the Siziwang district of the Inner Mongolia region, state media reported shortly after 2:00am local time on Thursday.
Chang'e collected about 2 kilograms of samples by scooping them from the surface and by drilling 2 metres into the Moon's crust.
The rocks are thought to be billions of years younger than those obtained earlier by the US and former Soviet Union.
Israel's Justice Minister said he has signed an extradition order to send former Melbourne school principal Malka Leifer back to Australia to face 74 charges of sexual abuse.
Justice Minister Avi Nissenkorn said that after a years-long legal saga, it was Israel's "moral responsibility" to extradite Ms Leifer.
The former Melbourne school principal faces 74 charges of sexual abuse against former pupils.
Covid-19
An RSL club has been named the believed source of COVID-19 infection in Sydney’s northern beaches as health authorities scramble to alert everyone who attended the venue.
NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant said it was “critical” to locate everyone that visited the Avalon RSL Club on December 11.
Anyone who visited the following locations is urged to get tested and then isolate for 14 days, even if they receive a negative result:
- The Avalon RSL Club, 1 Bowling Green Ln, Avalon Beach — Friday, December 11, all day til close
- The Penrith RSL Club, 8 Tindale St, Penrith — Sunday, December 13, 1pm to 6pm
- The Kirribilli Club, 11 Harbourview Cres, Lavender Bay — Monday, December 14, 12 to 3pm
- Hungry Ghost Cafe, 20 Avalon Parade, Avalon – Sunday, December 13, 9.30am-11am and Tuesday, December 15, 9.30-11am
- Sneaky Grind Cafe, 3/48 Old Barrenjoey Road, Avalon Beach – Monday, December 14, 9.30-11am
- Barramee Thai Massage and Spa, 4/42-44 Old Barrenjoey Road, Avalon Beach – Monday, December 14, 2-3.30pm
- Bangkok Sidewalk Restaurant, 1/21-23 Old Barrenjoey Road, Avalon Beach – Monday, December 14, 7-8pm
- Avalon Bowlo (bowling club), 4 Bowling Green Lane Avalon Beach – Sunday, December 13, 5-7pm (not 3-5pm as previously reported) and Tuesday, December 15, 3-5pm
- Palm Beach female change rooms – Sunday, 13 December 9-9.15am
- Coast Palm Beach Cafe, Barren Joey Road, Palm Beach – Sunday, December 13, 10?11am
Travellers from Sydney to Western Australia are now required to quarantine and take a COVID-19 test, and remain in self quarantine until they receive a negative result, as the WA Government considers another hard border with New South Wales.
Queensland health officials will spend the next 24 hours closely monitoring a coronavirus outbreak in Sydney's Northern Beaches before making a decision on whether border restrictions will need to be reimposed.
Authorities have urged Queenslanders to wait until Friday before travelling south in case the situation worsens.
South Korea has added more than 1000 infections to its coronavirus caseload for the second straight day amid growing fears that the virus is spreading out of control in the greater capital area.
It also reported a record number of coronavirus deaths as the country’s biggest wave of infections since the start of the pandemic strained hospital resources and sparked panic buying in anticipation of a harsh new lockdown.
New Zealand will begin offering free COVID-19 vaccines to its entire population by the middle of next year, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Thursday.
Ardern said the country had secured enough vaccines to inoculate all of the country’s 5 million people as well as Pacific island nations, including the Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga and Tuvalu, if they choose to accept the offer.
The rollout counts on two new agreements signed with pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca and Novavax.
French President Emmanuel Macron has tested positive for COVID-19 and will self-isolate for the next week, as virus cases surge in Europe.
Property
The Sydney office market is snapping back into recovery mode, with British funds manager M&G striking yet another big deal by purchasing a further one-quarter slice in a George Street office tower for about $300m.
M&G already owns a quarter of the building, and the pending purchase of another stake in the building that houses tenants including Telstra is yet another sign that prime offices have come through the coronavirus crisis relatively unscathed, despite rising vacancy levels.
The building, on the corner of George and King Streets, is the latest A-grade office building to trade at or above book value in recent weeks.
In the biggest play, the Chinese sovereign wealth fund swooped on a half stake in Sydney’s landmark Grosvenor Place, in a deal worth $925m, although it’s awaiting FIRB approval.
Markets
Rio Tinto’s next chief executive, Jakob Stausholm, has vowed that rebuilding trust with traditional owners will be one of his key priorities following the mining giant’s disastrous decision to blow up two ancient Aboriginal rock shelters at Western Australia’s Juukan Gorge.
Australian shares jumped to their highest close in almost 10 months, as projection of a faster economic recovery next year was announced by the Treasurer and unemployment figures were better than expected.
The ASX200 settled at 6,757 points at the close (+1.2pc), its highest close since February, and the All Ords rose by the same margin to 7,000 points.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the economy would grow 4.5 per cent next year, up from a previous forecast of 4.3 per cent made in October.
November employment figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics beat expectations with the unemployment dropping to 6.8 per cent last month.
The big four grew modestly by about 1 per cent each while Macquarie Group gained 2.3 per cent to $141.6.
Iron ore prices have continued to soar (+0.9pc) to $US156.45 a tonne, leading to miners performing well on Thursday morning.
The top movers were Netwealth Group (+6.8pc), Westgold Resources (6.3pc), and Perseus Mining and Perenti Group, which were both up 6.2 per cent.
Service Stream carried its loss through the day (-12pc) after it announced a long-term contract with NBN under a unified field operations agreement.
The Australian dollar has risen again after yesterday's 2.5-month high to 75.7 US cents.
Meanwhile, the Dow Jones closed down 45 points (0.2pc) while the S&P500 and Nasdaq rose by the same margin, 0.2 per cent and 0.5 per cent, respectively.
Nine Entertainment (+3.4pc) lifted its first-half underlying earnings guidance as trading conditions improve across its television network.
Zip Co hit a two-week high this morning after raising $120 million from institutional investors with a further $30 million expected next month from retail investors, before dropping to $5.6. Toll road operator Transurban (+1.2pc) says it will sell 50 per cent of its stake in Transurban Chesapeake assets, including three express lanes and other projects in the Greater Washington Area, to three pension funds for $2.8 billion.