Foreign ownership of land – particularly agricultural land – continues to generate debate in Australia.
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In 2020, the ground shifted a little for foreign investors in Australia as the Covid-19 pandemic took hold.
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Improving economic conditions have resulted in almost $16 billion being shaved off Australia’s Budget deficit for 2020-21, according to latest Federal Treasury estimates.
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Australia’s first annual Population Statement has revealed that population growth in 2020-21 will be the slowest since World War I, with sharp implications for short-term economic growth.
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Amid the social and economic gloom caused in Australia by the Covid-19 pandemic, a couple of shining export industries have stood out this year.
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Australia has bounced back from its first economic recession in almost 30 years, with a 3.3 per cent increase in Gross Domestic Product over the September quarter.
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Federal Minister for Defence Industry Melissa Price has announced two significant initiatives to strengthen Defence capabilities in artificial intelligence and in space technology.
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Australia’s total number of payroll jobs is edging up again, as the second wave of the domestic Covid-19 outbreak subsides.
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Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has released a draft exposure of its legislation to protect Australia’s critical infrastructure, which forms a central plank of its cyber security strategy.
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We won’t seek to compete with all of the election coverage this week but we will draw your attention to an interesting battle in Georgia which could determine which party has the balance of power in the Senate during the next term.
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All states and territories, except Western Australia, have agreed in-principle to a national re-opening of borders within Australia by Christmas as the nation recovers from Covid-19.
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If the current polls are correct and Joe Biden wins the presidency, expect the electoral momentum to deliver the Democrats control of the Senate, and the significant legislative and political power that comes with it.
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Industry and the Federal Government are ramping up pressure on Victoria to expedite the lifting of restrictions on business, as the state emerges slowly from its second wave of Covid-19.
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President Trump will be hoping that the voters who turned out to give him the edge in the swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio will do so again.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden will be pinning his hopes on securing the turnout rates that helped deliver Barack Obama the presidency in 2008.
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If the United States has a so-called Rust Belt – an unkind reference to the former industrial heartland in the north of the nation – it also has a ‘Sun Belt’.
That’s the title commonly given to the warmer climate of the southern-most states, stretching from the south-east coast, through the border states of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, across to southern California.
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With thousands of businesses in distress during the coronavirus restrictions, the Federal Government has moved to reform the insolvency process to enable more small companies to stay in operation. Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced a new debt restructuring process for incorporated businesses with liabilities of less than $1 million, drawing on features of the Chapter 11 bankruptcy model in the US. The proposed model would allow eligible small businesses to restructure their existing debts while remaining in control of their business. The Treasurer said the reforms would cover around 76 per cent of businesses subject to insolvencies today, 98 per cent of whom had less than 20 employees.
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To regain the White House, the Democrats face a major challenge in regaining the spotlight states of Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Commentators may call it the Rust Belt, but the region promises a golden return for the US presidential candidate who can win over the four crucial states.
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced on Thursday that the Government would introduce legislation to crack down on state and territory agreements with foreign countries that were not in the national interest. Under the reforms, the Foreign Minister would have the power to review existing and prospective arrangements between states and territories and all foreign governments.
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Observers may think the US votes directly for a Presidential candidate. Actually, the people vote for their respective state’s (and, in the national capital, the District of Columbia’s) members (‘Electors’) of the Electoral College.
It is the 538-member Electoral College that determines who will be President, albeit based on results cast in the election in early November.
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As the Federal Government moves to fight a major outbreak of coronavirus in Victorian aged care homes, the Prime Minister has confirmed that he is discussing with the Minister for Industrial Relations the prospect of introducing pandemic leave.
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