Jacinta Allan defends Victoria after Business Council last-place ranking
Benita Kolovos
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, has defended the state’s business credentials after the Business Council of Australia ranked it the worst place to do business in the country.
The Regulation Rumble 2024 report ranked Victoria last for overall business settings and found “with a low ranking for its property taxes and charges, payroll taxes, and business licencing requirements, the state has much room for improvement if it is to attract and generate business-driven growth”.
But speaking in Melbourne this morning Allan says there’s key data missing from the report. She says:
The ABS data tells us that more and more businesses are choosing Victoria as a place to invest in record numbers. … when you look at our energy prices, we have amongst the lowest energy prices of anywhere in the nation and we have a great and strong skilled workforce.
Allan says the report also fails to take into account a string of announcements she made in October to streamline planning and build more homes.
These are the priorities that I’m focused on – a future where we need to keep building homes, renewable energies, building productive transport infrastructure, most certainly focused on building more jobs.
She says she will be releasing an “economic growth statement” “very soon”.
Key events
Paul Karp
The assistant minister for treasury, Andrew Leigh, has been doing the rounds spruiking Labor’s country-by-country tax reporting changes, one of the measures passed in a flurry of bills through parliament last week.
The essence of the law is that multinational companies must report on their revenues and profits in 41 countries, a transparency measure to make it harder to shift profits around to minimise tax.
Leigh said that Australia will have “most forward reaching” country-by-country tax reporting regime in the world. The European Union also has one coming, but Australia’s will include more countries.
Leigh told Guardian Australia:
This shouldn’t be a concern to any company that has already good tax affairs and is reporting to their shareholders …[But for the others] being big isn’t a licence to dodge tax. Small Australian businesses aren’t sitting down with their accountant, trying to work out whether to open a subsidiary in the Cayman islands. That’s what we want from multinational companies too: less time spent dodging tax, more time spent producing great products and services.
Aussie small businesses aren’t hiding their profits in tax havens, and they shouldn’t be competing against multinationals that do. We’re cracking down on multinational tax dodging, enacting a global minimum tax and a world-leading country-by-country reporting regime. #auspol pic.twitter.com/LAUX7XeSus
— Andrew Leigh (@ALeighMP) December 2, 2024
In October we reported a push by the Coalition to allow companies to declare their information was commercially confidential, delaying publication by five years. Leigh noted the government “didn’t yield to that”. Instead companies can apply to the tax office if they want an exemption to publishing sensitive information “but they can’t mark their own homework”, he said.
Paul Karp
Suicide Prevention Australia has released new data showing that 85% of Australians with children under 18 at home are feeling elevated levels of distress ahead of the holiday season, significantly higher than the general population (75%) and Australians without children under 18 at home (69%). Households with children under 18 are more likely to call a frontline suicide prevention service for help (31%) than the national average (20%).
According to its community tracker, cost-of-living and personal debt is the number one cause of distress for people with children under 18 at home (50%), followed by family and relationship breakdown (32%) and housing access and affordability (28%).
Suicide Prevention Australia executive director, Christopher Stone, said:
As the holiday season approaches, a time meant for joy and connection, many families are instead facing overwhelming distress. We’re seeing a concerning increase in demand for suicide prevention services, which underscores the urgent need to provide hope and support to those struggling.
Peter Hannam
(Continued from last post)
The readiness of the grid will probably come down to how hot – or wet – the summer turns out to be.
“The advice is, temperatures will be similar to last summer for most of Australia, with potential for above average rainfall and flooding in some states,” said Aemo’s executive general manager of operations, Michael Gatt.
As of the end of October (ie slightly dated data), the outlook was for an elevated chance of above-average hot days, Aemo said, using a Bureau of Meteorology chart as shown here:
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Now temperatures are particularly high in eastern Australia today, but even then power supplies in NSW might get a bit tight again this evening.
Aemo had issued a second-level lack of reserve warning for the state. While that’s been cancelled after the market responded, a LOR1 exists for a couple of hours from 2.30pm Aedt.
That means there’s not a lot of spare capacity should some (usually a coal-fired) plant trips out without warning.
Summer might turn out to be a long one for energy authorities.
Energy industry readied for summer – although more tests likely soon
As you may have noticed, last week was a tough one for the power grid in NSW, prompting one well-regarded analyst to assess major outages this season were a “toss-up”.
The Australian Energy Market Operator delayed the release of its summer readiness report (a slightly bad sign) until this week, releasing it today.
Now it doesn’t actually say “everything’s just fine”, only that the industry has been briefed and that there are back-up plans in case things go awry.
The slightly good news is that since September last year, 3.175 gigawatts of new generation and storage (ie batteries) have come online, with another 750 megawatts due to reach full capacity in December. (See the following chart on how the capacity stacks up by state.)
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Generally there’s a similar amount of fossil fuel capacity in the grid as there was a year ago. But 12 months on, reliability of the ageing fleet is probably not going to be higher.
Continued in next post.
First new intercity trains arrive in Sydney’s Central station, five years past due
The first of a new fleet of intercity trains in Sydney arrived at Central station this morning from Newcastle, about five years after they were due to be in service, AAP reports.
The train left Newcastle at 8.21am on Tuesday – about five years after the first sets were originally due to enter service in NSW.
The Korean-built trains were too wide to fit through some tunnels, too long for some platforms and faced opposition from the Rail, Tram and Bus Union due to plans for drivers to monitor platforms using CCTV, reducing staffing requirements.
An agreement was eventually reached with the union after a long dispute with the former Coalition government and modifications were made locally beginning in August 2023.
The transport minister, Jo Haylen, said it should not have taken so long for the trains to enter service, but they were finally taking passengers along the Newcastle and Central Coast lines.
Passengers along the Blue Mountains, Illawarra and South Coast lines will have to wait a while longer, but Haylen said it would be worth it.
“These state-of-the-art trains will make travel between Sydney and our regional cities safer and more comfortable,” she said.
Meanwhile, over in Japan, replica Harry Potter weapons have been deemed too realistic for souvenir purposes.
Full-size replica swords sold as souvenirs at a popular Harry Potter exhibition in Tokyo have fallen foul of Japan’s strict weapons control law and been recalled.
The 86cm stainless steel blade, which comes mounted on a wooden plaque, is described on the Warner Bros website that promotes the event as an “authentic recreation of Godric Gryffindor’s sword”:
Ram raid and alleged ATM robbery being investigated in Mickleham, Victoria
Police in Victoria are investigating a ram raid and alleged ATM robbery in Mickleham.
A stolen Toyota utility vehicle rammed the front glass doors of a shopping centre on Donnybrook Road just after 4am, Victoria police said.
Once inside, the vehicle reversed into two ATMs. The offenders allegedly stole one ATM and the other was damaged.
Police said it was understood the offenders dumped the damaged vehicle at the shopping centre and, with the ATM in tow, fled the scene in a dark coloured sedan.
Police were called to reports of a dumped ATM on fire near Almurta Avenue in Coolaroo a short time later.
Neither the offenders nor the sedan have been found.
Police are appealing for any witnesses or holders of dashcam and CCTV footage of the incident to come forward.
Peter Hannam
ABS stats point to likelihood of another quarter of per-capita GDP contraction
Meanwhile, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has released the (nearly) final pieces of its GDP puzzle for the September quarter.
Total public demand is expected by the ABS to contribute a sizable 0.7 percentage points to the quarterly growth. Governments’ net operating balance swung from a surplus of more than $14bn to a deficit of $18.3bn in the quarter, helping to keep the economy from contracting.
Net trade also improved by $800m (in seasonally adjusted terms) and will add 0.1ppt to the quarter GDP figure as well.
Economists will be doing their final recalculation ahead of the ABS’s release of the September quarter numbers. The growth rate will probably pick up a bit from the June quarter’s 0.2% quarter-on-quarter expansion pace and 1% annual rate, but let’s see.
We’ll probably get another quarter of per-capita GDP contraction (which would make it a record seven in a row) but at least the overall economy looks to have avoided a contraction and may be past its worst point. (Not that we want to jinx anything.)
Peter Hannam
Consumer confidence rises to highest levels since Albanese government took office
There are a few more stats out today, including the regular weekly survey of consumer sentiment by ANZ and Roy Morgan.
For the week, it was up 2.7 points to 88.4 – or the highest since May 2022, coincidentally when the last federal elections were held.
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The four-week rolling consumer confidence average also nudged higher, as did most of the sub-indices, such as “time to buy a major household item”.
The weekly inflation expectations gauge also eased back 0.2 percentage points to 4.8% (but the four-week rolling average edged up 0.1ppt to 4.9%.)
Are Australia’s landmark social media bans protective or restricting? Australians are about to find out whether stopping under-16s accessing sites will protect against harmful content or stifle creativity and block opportunity. Read more, by Guardian Australia’s Rafqa Touma:
