Albanese ‘in Beijing's pocket' following fluffy China visit
Albanese on Friday wrapped up his six-day visit to China where he held talks with President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Qiang and other senior leaders in Beijing earlier this week.
While the PM touted the trip as "another important step in the Australia-China relationship", he has come under fire for not pressing President Xi on more serious foreign policy issues.
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SBS Australia
17 minutes ago
- SBS Australia
Parliament is back. Here's what the parties have on their agenda
Labor's honeymoon period continues this week as a large cohort of new politicians joins the 48th parliament, ready to implement the mandate Australians voted for. Tuesday will largely be ceremonial before parliament resumes on Wednesday, and with it, a marathon of first speeches across several days, with 40 new senators and MPs to be sworn in. With an increased majority, holding 94 of 150 lower house seats, Labor will have 24 new MPs deliver their opening addresses. Newly elected federal MPs will be sworn in this week after a training session learning about their new roles. Source: AAP / Lukas Coch First up will be "leader slayers" Ali France and Sarah Witty, who ousted former Liberal leader Peter Dutton and former Greens leader Adam Bandt, respectively. Amid the formalities, the re-elected government now faces pressure to deliver the priorities it set out during the election. All eyes will also be on Question Time as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese adjusts to a new opponent in the House of Representatives chamber, with Liberal leader Sussan Ley taking her place across from him. So what can we expect from the major parties? LABOR The Albanese government has made its first sitting fortnight agenda clear: wiping student debt, increasing safety measures for children in childcare and protecting penalty rates. Labor will introduce a bill cutting student debt by 20 per cent retrospectively from 1 June, slashing roughly $16 billion from balances, amid wider reforms to the repayment system. The legislation should be passed quickly, breezing through the lower house where Labor holds a majority, and the upper house, where the Greens are expected to vote for the changes. Speaking to Labor Party caucus on Monday, Albanese said he hopes to "restore confidence in a system in which we should be confident caring for our vulnerable little ones". The Albanese government has vowed to strengthen protections, increase fines for poor quality operators and establish an independent regulator as part of the childcare centre reforms. THE COALITION After a short-lived split in May, the Liberal and National parties are adamant that they are back together, united and ready to hold Labor accountable with a strong opposition. New Liberal leader Sussan Ley sought to boost morale on Monday after May's election loss, firing up the Opposition caucus with vows not to "get out" of Labor's way. "Mr Albanese is giving interviews and suggesting we should just get out of the way. We will not," Ley said. Liberal leader Sussan Ley says the Coalition is ready to work hard for the millions of Australians that voted for them. Source: AAP / Mick Tsikas She singled out cost-of-living relief as a key issue to prosecute, as well as fighting against raising taxes , after ABC reported leaked documents show Treasury advised the government to raise taxes and cut spending after the election. "I have not met a single Australian who wants to pay more tax, who thinks they are paying not enough tax," she said. "What I do know is that every single Australian expects this government to minimise their tax bill, to work hard for them and to make sure that they run a responsible budget with responsible economic management across the country." While the Opposition's policies are still under review following the election, education spokesperson Jonathan Duniam conceded the pitch to cut international student numbers by 80,000 "wasn't as constructive as it could have otherwise been". "I think we need to have a proper and open discussion with both the university sector and the community more broadly about how we can approach this," he told ABC's Insiders program on Sunday. THE GREENS With the balance of power in the Senate, the Greens will be crucial to Labor passing its agenda. Senator Jordon Steele John has indicated the party may use the power to pressure Labor to review policies, like adding dental to Medicare. While points of contention remain unclear, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young stressed the party will be "constructive" as it scrutinises the bills introduced to parliament. "They don't have the numbers in the Senate, and that is because the Australian people want to make sure the Senate is a backstop for them, an insurance for them," she told reporters on Monday. "And the Greens take that responsibility very, very seriously."
ABC News
17 minutes ago
- ABC News
Australia to miss out on tax top-up from multinationals as Trump ends OECD reform
Australia could miss out on significant revenue from US multinational companies operating here, after the G7 "caved" to Donald Trump, says the man who spearheaded negotiations on a global minimum tax rate. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) former director of tax, Pascal Saint Amans, says Australia will no longer be able to apply a top-up tax if a US firm pays less than a 15 per cent tax rate. It comes after the US president undid more than a decade of progress towards multinationals paying their fair share of tax, striking a deal to exempt America from a worldwide corporate tax floor. In 2021, about 140 countries, including Australia, signed up to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) "Global Minimum Tax" deal, a plan that's been years in the making. These countries had, in principle, agreed to a set of rules for a 15 per cent global minimum tax. This was aimed at helping countries like Australia collect more tax from digital tech giants like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon and others by applying that minimum tax rate. The implementation of the law in Australia was expected to increase receipts by $370 million and increase payments by $111 million over the five years from 2022-23. But neither the US nor China implemented the tax rules. And, to convince US President Donald Trump to drop his threat to impose a "revenge tax" in a major spending bill, G7 countries agreed to exempt US companies from the rules. "What is clear is that [G7] countries have caved," argues Pascal Saint-Amans, who spearheaded the negotiations that culminated in the tax agreement worldwide. Mr Saint-Amans says the deal protects American companies. "The significance of it, the magnitude of it, is still unknown — to be seen. But the new system is unfair, discriminatory against non-US companies and, by itself, it kind of undermines the global minimum tax." Mr Saint-Amans says the rules were supposed to stop a race to the bottom. He says they would have applied to all multinational enterprise groups with an annual global revenue of at least EUR 750 million ($1.34 billion). But now it will be much harder for tax administrators, including the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), to tax US companies that operate in Australia. While Australia has avoided implementing a Digital Services Tax, it has been taxing foreign digital companies in other ways. Australia collects 10 per cent goods and services tax, or GST, on digital services provided to Australian companies, including streaming platforms and app subscriptions. The ATO has also been pursuing several multinationals using its Diverted Profits Tax (DPT) legislation powers. Known unofficially as the "Google tax", the DPT was introduced under former Liberal treasurer Joe Hockey, and allows the ATO to hit companies it deems to be engaging in "contrived arrangements" with a 40 per cent tax on all profits. Mr Saint-Amans said the ATO would now need to make sure that investments by multinationals in Australia "are not sheltered in the intermediary countries where you would have very low taxation". While there are still "tax loopholes", the one silver lining, he says, is that "we're no longer facing what the world was facing prior to the OECD work". "The international tax architecture needs to be revised, to better tax digital companies," he said. "But overall progress has been made. We're no longer in the case where you're a multinational company, [and] you pay taxes nowhere. … the days of zero tax are coming to an end." He says even the Trump administration recognises that there should be some form of minimum tax applied. "The minimum is not the same for the US and for the rest of the world. But there is some principle of a minimum tax," he said. Mr Saint-Amans says because of preferential tax treatment for US companies, the G7 tax backflip could cause Australian companies to move their headquarters to the US — or at least contemplate it. "And this is exactly what we will have to watch and monitor in the coming weeks and coming months." Now Australian startups are questioning the value of staying here. Maria Baker is the founder of Nobody's Princess, a startup that sells women's snow gear to markets globally, including in the United States. She says the situation disadvantages local startups and causes them to rethink whether they should keep their brands local. "Regardless of whether you're a big business owner or even just a consumer, it is frustrating to see essentially the rich getting richer." Ms Baker's business is based in Melbourne, and she is now considering moving offshore. "Do I actually have to go to the US and set up my business and be a US-based business?" she asks. "I'd rather not do that because I think there's this really big beauty about being an Australian business and, you know, putting an Australian brand on the stage." Anish Sinha is the co-founder and chief operating tech of startup, UpCover, which tailors insurance for small businesses. The company was founded in 2019 and has raised almost $20 million in debt and equity. Mr Sinha says insurance is "a highly regulated space, and we play by the rules". "We pay our fair share, and we expect others to do that as well, and so hearing about something like [the tax backflip] makes us feel like the big end of the town is not willing to pay their fair share." He says many Australian founders look to sell into the US market because it's the largest market in the world. He says there's still a lot of "regulatory uncertainty and flux" in the US, so he's not made the decision to move headquarters just yet. But the tax situation "does impact how we look at being headquartered in one country or another". "It impacts how we ultimately look at competitiveness long-term," Mr Sinha said. "It determines how our customers think about us being based in one geography or another. And we would want our business to be favoured by the tax jurisdiction we're based in." Tax experts are concerned that Australia could lose more revenue now that US multinationals are exempt from the global tax deal. Jason Ward, principal analyst at the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research, says the OECD global minimum tax was meant to set a floor to eliminate a race to the bottom and to set in place a system where every company everywhere was paying at least some tax. "It was set at a very low rate, which is 15 per cent, but that was the rate that was needed to bring the world on board. And really it was the Biden administration that really broke the loggerheads on this," Mr Ward said. "It's a terrible caving into Trump's demands here, and really unnecessary, and a major step backward for international tax reform. "Trump is essentially running a protection racket for larger US multinationals that most people already know are the most aggressive in dodging their tax obligations on the profits, the vast profits they make in Australia and around the world." He noted Australia had already passed legislation to implement Pillar 2 — or the global minimum tax — and there was an expectation that this would bring in some revenue. "This basically sends a clear signal to the likes of US big pharma companies, US big tech that 'It's okay. Trump's got their back'. And so this is not collecting extra tax for people in the United States. This is basically giving US multinationals a free pass to dodge taxes in the United States and in Australia and around the world." Mr Ward says with the G7 tax backflip allowing the US to pull out of global negotiations, "we're going to see a trend towards these global discussions happening at the United Nations level". "We're well advanced in terms of the development of the UN tax convention," he said. "And I think we're going to start seeing a lot more regional action to shore up the global tax systems to make sure that multinationals don't continue to steal the funding that we need to fund our healthcare, our hospitals, our public schools, education, and the infrastructure that we all need. "I think countries need to stand up and protect their own sovereignty and their own rights and collect the tax revenues that are due from multinational profits in their own jurisdiction." The Tax Justice Network's Mark Zirnsak also fears "Australia is likely to miss out on revenue that it otherwise would have counted on". "It also just creates an unequal playing field again further where these companies who are not paying taxes get an unfair advantage over companies who are doing the right thing and paying the taxes as they should be paying them," Mr Zirnsak said. He says Australia should now join the move to set up a UN tax convention. "This is where the action now needs to move to," he said. "It will work on a two-thirds majority for substantive matters, so it won't be possible for certain individual countries to derail or block it. "The other thing we probably need to keep in mind is that the Trump administration only has one more term and if there were to be a change in US administration, we might find a far more cooperative administration that thinks it is actually in the interest of everybody to have a more reasonable and fair tax global system."
News.com.au
17 minutes ago
- News.com.au
Argonaut Algorithm: Copper's a long-term theme for fundie David Franklyn
Argonaut Funds Management's David Franklyn joins Stockhead to share investing secrets from the high-conviction resource sector investing fund, including his junior stock pick of the month. When looking for inspiration as an investor it can pay to study the performance and philosophies of some of the masters. One whose work springs to mind for Argonaut's David Franklyn is Stanley Druckenmiller, a billionaire hedge fund manager whose legacy spans both sides of the political spectrum in the US. Druckenmiller worked with George Soros to bet against the British Pound in the 1990s and mentored current Republican Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at the same firm. An interview recorded last year between Druckenmiller and Norges Bank CEO Nicolai Tangen has Franklyn thinking about the famous investor – reputed to have never had a down year – and his bias towards long-term strategic thinking. "He's looking at the key themes that are impacting the market and trying to identify those and then the other, I think, key point is he looks 12 to 24 months out," Franklyn said. "He's not really focused on what's happening today, but he's looking forward to say how is the world going to look in 12 or 24 months and how do I position my portfolio for that." That's where Franklyn is taking inspiration through a resources investing lens. Recent movements in the US under President Donald Trump have Franklyn thinking critical minerals and copper will be key themes to focus on in the years ahead, exemplified in the rare earths supply deal signed by the Department of Defense with MP Materials and the threat of a 50% tariff on copper not refined in the US. Copper is the key theme, where Argonaut likes the longer term view. "I think the outlook for critical minerals, and I think copper is really a key one there, is very good if you look through the noise of what's happening globally and the discussions around tariffs. "A lot of the copper stocks are kind of on hold because people can't really see what the implications are. "But if you look at copper dynamics, on the supply side you've got constraints. Most of the world's copper comes out of Chile, Peru and the DRC, countries that aren't particularly reliable as far as their annual production. "And then on the other side you've got demand really strong and driven by a broad range of demand drivers. That comes from energy transition to the electrification of everything, data centres, increasing demand from China. "There's a whole range of key drivers there on the demand side. It's a big market, it's hard to manipulate which is a positive in this day and age. So we're very bullish on that." Copper bull run The tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump were generally viewed as negative for non-US based copper stocks, with prices in the US domestic market opening up a wide arbitrage against the LME benchmark. So why is the intense focus on the red metal potentially a good signal for long term investment in copper miners? "If you stand back and you say, what is this all about? It's that copper is a critical metal and increasingly required," Franklyn said. "While the US has copper resources, it's been very hard to get new projects up and running. And they do very little of their own refining or processing. " I think ultimately what it's all about is to make sure they're in control of the refining and processing and then obviously give their domestic projects fast tracking so they can bring new projects on at a quicker pace. "But even in having said that, bringing new projects online is a long, slow process. It's still going to take time, so I don't think it's really going to have a material impact on the supply-demand dynamic for quite some time." So where does Argonaut see the best opportunity in ASX copper? Argonaut's stock pick of the month There aren't many copper growth stocks on the ASX, with a dearth of options leaving most of the big players looking pricy. " Sandfire Resources (ASX:SFR) has done very well, but it's probably fairly priced relative to its global peers. You've got MAC Copper (ASX:MAC) disappearing under takeover from Harmony," Franklyn said. But one that does stick out for Franklyn is FireFly Metals (ASX:FFM). It owns the Green Bay copper and gold project in Newfoundland and the Pickle Crow in Ontario, both in Canada. The real focus is Green Bay, which includes 24.4Mt of measured and indicated resources for 460,000t copper equivalent and 34.5Mt of inferred at 2% for 690,000t CuEq, the vast bulk of that at the Ming mine. Led by Steve Parsons of Bellevue Gold fame, Firefly is currently running at a $760m market cap. "They've just done a capital raise in the last month or so, raised $95 million bucks in Australia and another $10 million from retail shareholders. That's going to leave them with about $135 million in cash, that will fund a major drilling campaign to boost their resource," Franklyn said. "So I think the fourth quarter of this year you'll see a resource upgrade and they'll move into some feasibility studies next year. "They've already got a pretty decent sized resource, they've also got a lot of infrastructure already on site and and some of the improvements that are required. So I think that's a real standout." Argonaut Funds Management is a high conviction resource sector investor managing the Argonaut Natural Resources Fund and the Argonaut Global Gold Fund. David Franklyn is the Fund Manager for the Argonaut Natural Resources Fund. The views, information, or opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the interviewee and do not represent the views of Stockhead. Stockhead does not provide, endorse or otherwise assume responsibility for any financial product advice contained in this article.
