Super, property fight heats up; Aust loses cruise ships; Pentagon hunts leaks
News in brief
Australia’s productivity crisis is deepening, hitting a ten-year low in government-funded industries including health, aged care, education and disability services, according to the Productivity Commission.
Australia is losing cruise ships to cheaper destinations, with the industry blaming high port costs and regulation. The sector’s annual economic contribution fell $1.1 billion last year to $7.3 billion.
Thousands of workers at eight freight and transport companies will strike from Thursday, potentially disrupting supply chains for customers including Aldi, BHP, Coca-Cola and Metcash.
More than 200 workers have now been stood down following the $3.4 billion collapse of Sydney developer Bathla Group, which has around 2,500 partially built apartments across 45 sites.
Around 50 senior Pentagon staff have reportedly been subjected to lie-detector tests as the Trump administration hunts for leaks about the war with Iran, including reports about depleted US weapons stocks.
Fear-o-meter
Josh Gilbert - Lead Analyst, APAC and Middle East at eToro - on what investors will be looking for from new Apple CEO John Ternus:
"The foldable is the one to watch. A foldable at a premium price tells you whether Apple can still make people pay up for a genuinely new iPhone, which matters because the iPhone still does just over half of Apple's revenue, USD$210 billion of the USD$416 billion the company made last financial year. Beyond the foldable, Apple's pipeline is reported to include AirPods with cameras, smart glasses, a tabletop robot for the home and a touch-screen MacBook.
If Cook's decade was about services, Ternus's looks like it'll be about devices. The plan is to get more Apple products into more rooms, which is why the board handed the job to a hardware engineer rather than an AI name.
Siri AI is the other watch point. Apple deploys it at scale this month as a proper competitor to the chatbots, and the ambition is eventually to charge for it or earn from third-party apps plugged into it. This will be a big focus for the street, because Siri has spent a decade building a reputation for not doing what you ask it to. The question is whether it arrives with a price attached or it runs for free, because a free assistant means Apple carries the running costs with no revenue against it. Investors haven’t been impressed with the lack of movement in AI over recent years, but Apple has been written off for being late plenty of times before and it has usually been the wrong call."
Fear & Greed Q+A today
A fascinating chat about coal's future in the economy, starting with this question from Sean Aylmer: In a transitioning world - and none of us are arguing that we aren't transitioning - where does coal fit?
“I probably would argue about transitioning energy because we really don't have a direct replacement for, you know, good base load, reliable, affordable energies that exist around the world, whether that be coal, whether that be gas, whether that be nuclear. So I think I've always been one, and certainly supported by our members, not to really dig into energy transition, but to really talk about energy diversity and energy addition.
"And that doesn't mean there's not a place for renewables, but we know, as has been the IPCC guidance, that there's no 100% credible renewable scenario. And so this idea that we're talking about an energy transition away from something that is reliable, affordable, and provides a kind of energy security that's necessary is quite irresponsible.”
Australia’s two biggest sources of household wealth - property and superannuation - are shaping up as major political battlegrounds.
The Property Council says the government’s changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax are contributing to falling house prices and could ultimately discourage new construction. National prices have now fallen for five straight months, while CBA expects a peak-to-trough decline of around 9%. The government argues the changes will instead encourage investment in new housing.
Meanwhile One Nation wants Australians paying rent or a mortgage to be able to redirect a quarter of their compulsory super contributions into their take-home pay for up to three years. It says that would give an average full-time worker about $44 extra a week. Treasurer Jim Chalmers calls it a “full-frontal attack on superannuation”. The Super Members Council estimates a typical 30-year-old using the scheme for three years could receive $6,900 now, but retire around $25,000 worse off.
Greed-o-meter
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