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Jim Chalmers says the budget will be good for women.

Budget tips fast inflation fall, reviving rate cut hopes

Treasurer Jim Chalmers says measures in Tuesday’s federal budget will help bring inflation down to within the Reserve Bank’s target band by Christmas.

Markets are expecting restraint from the federal budget as the government tries to balance its response to the cost of living with the need to lower inflation.

Markets on edge ahead of budget cash splash

Australian shares are set to edge lower on Monday as they wait to assess the impact of federal budget spending on the central bank’s path to an interest rate cut.

Bonza’s Tim Jordan

Bonza’s failure is a warning for corporate Australia

The private equity-backed airline’s abrupt collapse shines a spotlight on the potential risks brewing in the massive, unregulated private credit market, writes Karen Maley.

Payments innovation under threat from RBA

Buy now, pay later, which revolutionised Australia’s highly concentrated payments system, is under potential threat from increased regulation, writes Tony Boyd.

Why did Labor drop a big policy change at 6pm last Friday?

While the media scrambled to get across a housing announcement late Friday, the government quietly dropped long-awaited changes to foreign student numbers, writes Phillip Coorey.

Forget the hawks, the RBA’s next rate move will be lower

In my over 20 years in financial markets, I’ve never seen such a wide dispersion of views on interest rates as we currently have in Australia – we are at a pivotal moment in monetary policy.

Labor accused of ‘rewarding’ Hamas with Palestine vote

Opposition frontbencher Senator Jane Hume said there could be no sustainable two-state solution without the consent of Israel.

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FEDERAL BUDGET

Jim Chalmers says the budget will be good for women.

Budget to provide billions for wages, super blowout

Tuesday’s federal budget will include a massive provision for pay rises in aged care and childcare as well as the recent decision to apply compulsory superannuation to parental leave.

Jim Chalmers will deliver his third federal budget on May 14

Everything we know about the budget so far

Treasurer Jim Chalmers will hand down Labor’s third budget on May 14. Here’s what we know about the proposed spending measures.

Why did Labor drop a big policy change at 6pm last Friday?

While the media scrambled to get across a housing announcement late Friday, the government quietly dropped long-awaited changes to foreign student numbers.

Readers want government to cut debt, rein in spending

Almost 60 per cent readers want Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ federal budget priority to either reduce debt or reign in government spending in this year’s budget - but another 24 per cent want cost-of-living relief to be the focus.

New laws to cap international student intakes

The federal government has stopped short of imposing a hard cap on international student numbers, but will introduce new limits for each provider.

MONDAY MEDIA

ARN Media chairman Hamish McLennan and chief executive Ciaran Davis.

$250m deal to reshape radio market collapses

Southern Cross Austereo’s regional TV stations proved the sticking point for Anchorage Capital Partners’ deal. ARN is left to try and salvage a way forward.

There are similarities in the hitting style of Glenn Maxwell and former Red Sox player Dustin Pedroia.

New laws risk the end of free sports on tv

The government has one chance of modernising how broadcast rights are organised. Otherwise, iconic sporting events will be harder to find, writes Greg Hywood.

Dr Byron Sharp, the director of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute.

The researchers influencing billions in global marketing

The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute is sponsored by The Coca-Cola Company, McDonald’s, Mars, Nestlé and PepsiCo. Its findings guide global business decisions.

Showtime! Media CEOs’ last stand with Foxtel over future of TV

Years of lobbying by free-to-air networks and Foxtel have come down to this week, when two crucial pieces of legislation are set to go before the Senate.

Apple ad fail shows why we fear AI

Apple has apologised for an ad for its new iPads that was so tone-deaf that the creative types, who normally love the company, had an existential fright.

Features include the ability to save articles, dark mode and real time notifications.

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Companies

NWQ founder Jonathan Horton.

Hedge fund founder’s $550,000 loan to be questioned by liquidator

The founder of Perth’s NWQ Capital Management owed more than half a million dollars before its collapse and has told liquidators the loan cannot be repaid.

ARN Media chairman Hamish McLennan and chief executive Ciaran Davis.

$250m deal to reshape radio market collapses

Southern Cross Austereo’s regional TV stations proved the sticking point for Anchorage Capital Partners’ deal. ARN is left to try and salvage a way forward.

Soul Patts’ board’s decision to lob a $3 billion bid for Perpetual accelerated negotiations for this week’s $2.2 billion deal with KKR.

Inside Project Constantine, the plan to sell Perpetual

Soul Patts’ $3 billion offer for the asset manager set the stage for whirlwind negotiations and accelerated a sale that private equity firms had eyed for years.

For this Rich Lister, does the reality live up to the hype?

Property mogul and entrepreneur Shaun Bonett has a fortune of more than $2 billion, according to the Rich List. Those valuations might not live up to the hype.

Lex Greensill alleges his UK pursuers were protecting David Cameron

The fallen Aussie financier alleges a media leak by Britain’s Insolvency Service, which is seeking to ban him as a company director, was politically motivated.

Anglo’s South African investors open to improved BHP bid

The shareholder stance defies South African government hostility to the plan that would break up the national champion.

PE firm behind Bonza calls in insolvency experts

The private equity firm called in advisers overnight to assist with “operational challenges”. It is a major shareholder in the A-League club and budget airline.

Companies in the News

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Markets

Healthscope has a contract with the NSW government to run the public wing of Northern Beaches Hospital until 2038.

Brookfield’s Healthscope debt trap is a mess for everyone involved

The investment giant is bringing its punchy approach to restructuring – and tactics more often found in the US – to Australia as it works on the hospital group.

Bond manager Angus Coote says another rate hike would send Australia deeper into recession.

Forget the hawks, the RBA’s next rate move will be lower

In my over 20 years in financial markets, I’ve never seen such a wide dispersion of views on interest rates – we are at a pivotal moment in monetary policy, writes Angus Coote.

NWQ founder Jonathan Horton.

Hedge fund founder’s $550,000 loan to be questioned by liquidator

The founder of Perth’s NWQ Capital Management owed more than half a million dollars before its collapse and has told liquidators the loan cannot be repaid.

Confession season kick-off fails to derail ASX run

Fund managers say this year’s Macquarie Australia Conference was among the least eventful in recent memory – and that may be a good sign for investors.

Jim Simons, ‘quant king’ at Renaissance Technologies, dies at 86

The mathematician-investor created what many in finance consider the world’s greatest moneymaking machine at his secretive firm.

Opinion

Substantial surpluses, not bigger deficits, should be running at this point

Instead, Jim Chalmers has confirmed that forecast deficits will widen as Labor’s Future Made In Australia budget centrepiece rolls out subsidies for the green energy and advanced manufacturing subsides.

The AFR View

Editorial

The AFR View

Can Labor pick winners without being dudded? We have ideas

There needs to be a process of competitive public testing and discovery against a clear public interest standard so that government and taxpayers’ money don’t get skinned in a lopsided contest with investors and project promoters.

John Wylie and Peter Harris

Contributor

How Trump’s ‘imperial presidency’ will reshape the world

If Donald Trump wins in November, expect even greater strain on American institutions. But he’s unlikely to be an “imperial president” abroad.

James Curran

International editor

James Curran

Bonza’s failure is a warning for corporate Australia

The private equity-backed airline’s abrupt collapse shines a spotlight on the potential risks brewing in the massive, unregulated private credit market.

Karen Maley

Columnist

Karen Maley

Tax inertia pushes budget towards a black hole

Redesigning the tax system against the principles of fairness, efficiency, sustainability and coherence would deliver us all with an economic dividend.

Australia wants more than the Lucky Country can deliver

Successive terms of trade booms – the envy of other nations – have allowed Australian governments to splurge. But now it seems that even that is not enough.

The AFR View

Editorial

The AFR View

Reports

BOSS Best Places to Work

The awards celebrate the achievements of the best small, medium and large organisations and nine sector winners.

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Politics

Foreign Minister Penny Wong decided to be photographed with Palestinian lobbyist Nasser Mashni last October.

Palestinians’ aggressive lobbying upset Labor but it worked

Australia’s decision to support Palestinian UN membership follows seven months of intense, and aggressive, lobbying by a network of activists.

Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor.

Coalition warns Labor over RBA board ‘sack and stack’

The implication is Labor would seek to appoint board members inclined to lower interest rates ahead of the federal election, risking the push to curb high inflation.

Protesters march during a pro Palestine snap rally in Melbourne.

Labor accused of ‘rewarding’ Hamas with Palestine vote

Opposition frontbencher Senator Jane Hume said there could be no sustainable two-state solution without the consent of Israel.

Tax inertia pushes budget towards a black hole

Redesigning the tax system against the principles of fairness, efficiency, sustainability and coherence would deliver us all with an economic dividend.

Readers want government to cut debt, rein in spending

Almost 60 per cent readers want Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ federal budget priority to either reduce debt or reign in government spending in this year’s budget - but another 24 per cent want cost-of-living relief to be the focus.

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World

Citadel founder Ken Griffin is backing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Ken Griffin urges Harvard University to embrace ‘Western values’

The hedge fund founder who has given his alma mater more than $US500 million has slammed the pro-Palestinian protests sweeping colleges as “almost like performative art”.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators at an encampment at Columbia University on April 22.

Why the campus protests are so troubling

Hamas is against the existence of a Jewish state and believes there should be an Islamic state between the river and the sea. When protests on college campuses ignore that, they are part of the problem.

Israeli soldiers drive a tank at a staging ground near the border with the Gaza Strip.

Halting the bombs: Biden’s gamble to rein in Netanyahu

The US president paused a weapons shipment to Israel, piling pressure on Israel’s leader to change course. Will it work?

Russia ‘captures key villages’ as Ukraine races reinforcements

Military bloggers say the assault in the north-east could mark the start of an attempt to carve out the “buffer zone” sought by President Vladimir Putin.

Defiant Israel orders more Palestinians to flee Rafah

Benjamin Netanyahu insists that he must maintain military pressure in Gaza to eradicate Hamas despite warnings from the US and others.

Property

Developer Ashley Williams says Victoria’s decision to cut its infrastructure pipeline will free up little capacity to boost housing construction

House builders can’t compete with states’ cash splash

In the race for talent and materials in Australia’s construction game, housing has consistently run in second place to the infrastructure sector.

Tim Gurner.

Gurner-Roberts merger plan sinks

A lack of “chemistry” between the two Rich List business leaders also hindered a merger of their development and construction businesses.

Record levels of wheat production have helped fuel a price boom in WA.

WA farmland boom to end as drier conditions prevail

Farmers in Australia’s wheat and sheep powerhouse state enjoyed a 32 per cent uplift in land values in 2023, but there will be no repeat performance of that in 2024.

Former QIC boss Damien Frawley puts Qld cattle station on the market

Damien Frawley, who is a director at Mirvac and chair of Hostplus, is the biggest shareholder of Blue Sky Beef which is selling Gowan Station.

Liberman family to sell $17m Toorak ‘treehouse’

A glass and steel modernist retreat designed by Robin Boyd has joined Toorak’s prestige market with a guide of $15.9 million to $17 million.

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Wealth

ASIC’s Simone Constant says super funds found evidence of fees being charged but no service delivered.

ASIC finds super funds still charging fees for no service

Super funds are obliged to ensure members are only charged for financial advice they actually receive but not all are doing so.

A smarter way to tax high super balances

The government has tried to keep things simple, but in doing so fairness has gone out the window.

Coalition to oppose ‘sophisticated investor’ test overhaul

Labor is grappling with backlash from the start-up sector over calls to limit access to venture capital to investors worth more than $4.5 million.

Technology

X owner Elon Musk has slammed Australian government attempts to remove videos on his site.

15 minutes to get around X’s stabbing video ban, court hears

Lawyers for the social network argued that they had complied with a government take-down notice, which they said was invalid, by blocking footage in Australia.

Life360 co-founder Chris Hulls and chief financial officer Russell Burke are preparing the tracking company for the US IPO.

Life360 reheats plans to target US investors with Nasdaq listing

The ASX-listed, San Francisco-based family-tracking app does not expect to raise more than $US100 million. It had considered a similar move in 2021.

iPad

Apple ad fail shows why we fear AI

Apple has apologised for an ad for its new iPads that was so tone-deaf that the creative types, who normally love the company, had an existential fright.

Work & Careers

James Paterson and Rod Glover.

How Harvard’s leadership rules are helping train Australia’s MPs

Since 2019, groups of aspiring government ministers at the state and federal level have been undertaking specialist training programs, designed to improve standards.

Global push to get tax advisers to think ethically

New rules have been agreed to help restore trust in a profession battered by wrongdoing, including the PwC tax leaks scandal.

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Life & Luxury

Monster and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.

‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ and ‘Monster’ movie reviews

One is set to be a blockbuster, but the other is one of those critically acclaimed films that can expect to enjoy only a modest success at the box office.

Anthony Puharich, Jill Dupleix, Peter Gilmore and Andrew McConnell.

When business comes to dine: Fin Dining & Wine launches at Bennelong

The Financial Review’s first restaurant guide features 50 of the best business lunches across Australia, helmed by Jill Dupleix with wine tips from Max Allen.

This luxury spa in India costs $17k for five nights. Is it worth it?

We road-test celebrity magnet Ananda Spa in the Himalayas.

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How to host a business lunch

The lowdown on what to do – and what not to do – from three hosts who are legends in their own business lunch times.

International Energy Agency executive director Fatih Birol.

The world’s wiliest climate warrior? It’s not who you think

International Energy Agency boss Fatih Birol, a lifelong bureaucrat with roots in the oil industry, has made the net zero transition a personal mission.

From the gallery