Everything you need to know about Santos' deep-pocketed suitor
The little-known reincarnation of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company's international arm will have the ruler run over it as the Foreign Investment Review Board decides whether the bidding group it leads can buy Australia's second-biggest oil and gas company.
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The Australian
3 hours ago
- The Australian
Economic reform roundtable: What Chalmers has planned revealed
Jim Chalmers is shifting the goalposts on his economic reform roundtable to focus outcomes on deregulation, cutting red tape and housing productivity – rather than major tax reform or reining in record government spending. Ahead of the Treasurer meeting the Business Council of Australia and other top chief executives this week, Anthony Albanese and Dr Chalmers are lowering expectations of significant reforms across a range of tax and economic policy issues. Drawing inspiration from the book Abundance, penned by progressive liberals working at The New York Times and The Atlantic, Dr Chalmers will seek consensus from business, union and community leaders on deregulation, productivity and lifting housing activity. The move away from more ambitious proposals to turbocharge Australia's sluggish economy comes amid rising anxiety in private-sector ranks about a unions ambush and the government using business leaders as cover to pursue tax crackdowns on employers and property investors. Despite the hype fuelled by the government over the potential for a contest of ideas at the three-day roundtable hosted by Dr Chalmers at Parliament House from August 19 to 21, The Australian understands there will not be a shared communique at the end of the summit suggesting unanimous agreement on contentious proposals. Instead, Dr Chalmers is expected to provide a wrap-up of the roundtable, and mention a handful of specific changes he will be tasked with implementing. Dr Chalmers, who will have met 75 chief executives and senior industry representatives before the roundtable, is expected to elevate the focus on what Labor describes as 'better regulation' to ramp up productivity and speed-up housing approvals. The Australian understands Treasury secretary Jenny Wilkinson, who will not publicly release the 900 roundtable submissions her department has received, has been involved in 30 to 40 hours of discussions with Dr Chalmers about proposals put forward. On the back of those discussions, the government has decided that deregulation and speeding up approvals across all tiers of government will now be the roundtable's central plank. The Treasurer, who does not believe all regulation is negative, is recalibrating the summit away from tax reform amid tax policy clashes between unions, business and the Productivity Commission. The return to prioritising productivity follows the Prime Minister initially referring to the post-election gathering as the 'productivity roundtable' before Dr Chalmers dubbed it the 'economic reform roundtable'. Mr Albanese, who shut down Dr Chalmers' signalling that GST changes could be on the table for discussion, said on Monday: 'This is a roundtable … just that … it is not more than that, it's not a replacement of the cabinet.' In June, Dr Chalmers said he was open to most ideas on tax at the roundtable, including the GST. 'I suspect the states will have a view about the GST,' he said. 'It's not a view that I've been attracted to historically, but I'm going to try not to get in the process of shooting ideas between now and the roundtable.' The roundtable, to be officially launched by Mr Albanese, will focus on 'resilience' on day one, 'productivity' on day two and 'budget sustainability' on day three. Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock, Productivity Commission chair Danielle Wood and Ms Wilkinson will deliver presentations ahead of formal discussions on each day. Ms Wilkinson will outline some of the big spending areas in a budget Dr Chalmers has described as unsustainable. She will reinforce the Treasurer's criteria that any reforms need to be budget-neutral at a minimum, in the national interest, and specific and practical. Ms Wood, who has already provided recommendations to the Treasurer on tax, energy and AI, has suggested a cashflow tax that would have been neutral to the budget in the medium term but was immediately rejected by big business. The Board of Treasurers, chaired by NSW's Daniel Mookhey, met last week and will finalise state and territory government positions ahead of the roundtable at a meeting late next week. Mr Mookhey is the only state and territory government representative at the roundtable, which has excluded local government officials despite a deregulation push across all tiers of government. Housing Minister Clare O'Neil, who met industry and union bosses on Tuesday, will hold talks with local government representatives in a separate roundtable on Wednesday as she seeks to achieve Labor's target of 1.2 million new homes by mid-2029. Between July 8 and August 15, ministers will have held 41 separate roundtables with stakeholders. Ms O'Neil said: 'It takes much longer to approve a home than to build one … this needs to change. Building regulations need to be simpler, environmental approvals faster and new technologies easier to adopt.' Housing Industry Australia chief executive Simon Croft who attended Ms O'Neil's roundtable said he was encouraged to see this level of government engagement. Dr Chalmers has met business executives including Commonwealth Bank boss Matt Comyn, Westpac's Anthony Miller, HSBC's Antony Shaw and Barrenjoey's Matthew Grounds, as well as BHP's Mike Henry, Woodside's Meg O'Neill, Rio Tinto's Kellie Parker, INPEX's Bill Townsend, Fortescue's Dino Otranto, Shell Australia's Cecile Wake, Wesfarmers boss Rob Scott, Google chief Mel Silva, Telstra's Vicki Brady and AustralianSuper chief executive Paul Schroder. Invitees to Dr Chalmers' roundtable, who will not be forced to sign confidentiality agreements and can speak publicly about discussions, include Tech Council of Australia chair Scott Farquhar, ACTU secretary Sally McManus, BCA chief executive Bran Black, ACOSS chief Cassandra Goldie, IFM Investors chair Cath Bowtell, Australian Retirement Trust chair Andrew Fraser, Woodside board member Benn Wyatt and Mr Comyn. Opposition Treasury spokesman Ted O'Brien, who has been meeting business leaders, will attend but is unlikely to push any major reforms given the Coalition is working through a policy review. The Australian can reveal that a business alliance working together ahead of the roundtable has swelled to 30 industry groups and is preparing a pre-summit joint statement outlining their priorities for outcomes. BHP Australia president Geraldine Slattery on Tuesday warned that any 'meaningful conversation about productivity' must focus on making tax settings more globally competitive to help unlock new investment and growth across the private sector. Amid calls from unions for the Albanese government to hike taxes for the country's biggest companies, Ms Slattery said 'proposals to increase the tax burden on Australian businesses would be counter-productive'. Labor's too hard basket piles up ahead of roundtable Politics The Productivity Commission has proposed giving tech giants free access to Australian content for AI training, sparking fears creators will miss out on compensation. Economics New regulation risks $116bn in economic gains at risk, Productivity Commission warns Jim Chalmers.
AU Financial Review
9 hours ago
- AU Financial Review
Labor's bailouts for globally competitive smelters a contradiction
The economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s liberalised and opened up Australia's highly protected economy, which had long sheltered behind high tariff walls. The result was three decades of prosperity broken only by the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the past three years, living standards have fallen amid the nation's steep productivity decline. Jim Chalmers' economic reform roundtable needs to focus on a meaningful tax, workplace, and regulatory agenda to fix Australia's economic malaise by boosting investment in productive and globally competitive businesses. However, what is now gathering pace is Labor's revival of industry policy. Counter-productively, this marks a return to old 'Fortress Australia' days of government intervention cossetting select industries at the expense of the nation's overall international competitiveness.
The Age
16 hours ago
- The Age
Donald Trump to hike tariffs on India for buying Russian oil
'It is revealing that the very nations criticising India are themselves indulging in trade with Russia,' said a spokesman, citing US imports of uranium hexafluoride, palladium and fertilisers. 'Unlike our case, such trade is not even a vital national compulsion.' This week is shaping up as a critical juncture for Trump's stalled efforts to mediate a conflict he once boasted he could end in 24 hours. The president's revised ultimatum gives Putin until Friday to sign up to a ceasefire or face additional sanctions, along with Russian trading partners. A student of Gurukul School of Art in Mumbai puts the finishing touches to his take on the relationship between Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Credit: AP Trump said his special envoy Steve Witkoff might travel to Russia on Wednesday or Thursday ahead of the deadline, and that Moscow would face sanctions if a ceasefire wasn't brokered by then – though he noted the Russians were 'wily characters, and they're pretty good at avoiding sanctions'. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said officials were always happy to meet with Trump's envoy, and that the Kremlin considered such talks important, substantive and useful. While Reuters reported last week that Indian oil refineries had hit pause on imports of Russian crude, by the weekend the Times and Bloomberg were reporting that no instructions to halt imports had been issued, and Russian tankers continued to arrive at India's state-owned refineries. India, a Quad partner of the US along with Australia and Japan, was hit with some of the highest US tariffs among major US trading partners, 25 per cent, when the revised levies were announced late last week. They do not take effect until August 7. While Trump has edged closer to imposing so-called secondary sanctions on Russia by targeting countries to which it sells oil, he has stopped short of embracing a Senate-led bill to impose 500 per cent tariffs on nations that buy Russian oil. The president has, however, threatened tariffs of 100 per cent, saying this would be sufficient. Republican senator Lindsey Graham, a key author of the Senate bill, welcomed Trump's latest threat. 'I appreciate your strong commitment to ending this bloodbath in Ukraine,' Graham said. 'Making those like India pay a price for their war profiteering is a good place to start.' In February, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi became one of the first foreign leaders to visit the White House after Trump's return to the presidency, but relations have strained somewhat since then. Loading 'People will be shocked to learn that India is basically tied with China in purchasing Russian oil,' White House deputy chief of staff for policy, Stephen Miller, told Fox News on Sunday. 'That's an astonishing fact.' Miller said India 'portrays itself as being one of our closest friends', but then listed numerous grievances, alleging India maintains unfair trade practices and cheats on immigration, as well as helping finance the Russian war effort in Ukraine. Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what's making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.
