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    Former NSW treasurer Matt Kean.

    Conflict concerns at Kean advising government and rich investors

    Former NSW treasurer Matt Kean has defended taking dual roles as a federal government climate change adviser and at a private green investment fund led by a former Macquarie banker.

    • 59 mins ago
    • John Kehoe
    Commentators telling the RBA to cut or raise rates are ‘false prophets’ who could cause damage with their poor predictions, deputy governor Andrew Hauser warns.

    Stop telling us what to do with interest rates: RBA deputy

    Commentators telling the RBA to cut or raise rates are “false prophets” who could cause damage with their poor predictions, deputy governor Andrew Hauser warns.

    • 1 hr ago
    • Michael Read

    When Keating went to war with the White House

    Secret cables reveal for the first time how Keating’s right-hand man and a senior White House official engaged in an extraordinary war of words in 1992, sometimes in personal terms.

    • James Curran

    BHP, Rio and Qantas back $250m carbon fund to beef up emission offsets

    The fund is being run by Silva Capital, itself a joint venture of agriculture-focused private capital investor ROC Capital and C6 Investment Management.

    • Ben Potter

    ‘Heartbreaking’: Melbourne stores bite the dust as workers stay home

    Small-business owner Chelsea McIntosh has been forced to close down six out of seven gift shops she ran in Melbourne’s CBD as the retail sector has been rattled.

    • Gus McCubbing

    RBA to cut rates three times next year

    Economists expect the Reserve Bank of Australia will deliver its first post-pandemic interest rate cut in February 2025.

    • Michael Read

    Opinion & Analysis

    We need overriding public interest test to break approval logjam

    Australia has to look at the global impacts of green projects, not just local ones. The alternative might be stagnation, or worse.

    Alan Finkel

    Former Chief Scientist

    Alan Finkel

    High-level dialogue shows China chill is ending

    The resumed annual face-to-face meeting of government and industry has been crucial to stabilising the relationship.

    Craig Emerson

    Former Labor minister and economist

    Craig Emerson

    Central banks need true transparency not fake consensus

    The Bank of England isn’t afraid to advertise its differences. That is better for creating trust than the obsession with a united front at the US Fed.

    Mohamed El-Erian

    Global financial commentator

    Mohamed El-Erian

    Washington can be a prickly and insecure great power ally

    The Russell-Zoellick correspondence reveals an Australian government not afraid to talk truth to American power, an art largely lost over recent years.

    James Curran

    International editor

    James Curran
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    More From Today

    Powdered lithium: Australia is losing out to other green metal exporters.

    We need overriding public interest test to break approval logjam

    Australia has to look at the global impacts of green projects, not just local ones. The alternative might be stagnation, or worse.

    • 9 mins ago
    • Alan Finkel
    Australia can start marketing wine in China again after tariffs were removed this year.

    High-level dialogue shows China chill is ending

    The resumed annual face-to-face meeting of government and industry has been crucial to stabilising the relationship.

    • 1 hr ago
    • Craig Emerson
    The Bank of England announces its voting splits on the day of the decision.

    Central banks need true transparency not fake consensus

    The Bank of England isn’t afraid to advertise its differences. That is better for creating trust than the obsession with a united front at the US Fed.

    • Mohamed El-Erian
    Then-prime minister Paul Keating’s principal adviser Don Russell and Robert Zoellick, a senior US president George HW Bush’s White House, sparred by correspondence.

    Washington can be a prickly and insecure great power ally

    The Russell-Zoellick correspondence reveals an Australian government not afraid to talk truth to American power, an art largely lost over recent years.

    • James Curran
    Climate Ltd cannot overlook emissions reduction.

    Cheap, fast and low-risk climate action opportunities

    The core principles that drive good investment are also at play in climate change. Climate Ltd should think about diversifying its emission reduction bets.

    • Kate Howitt and Gates Moss
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    Yesterday

    Ian Patrick managed a $10 billion switch into risky exposures.

    This $300b super fund is making a monster move to stocks

    Australian Retirement Trust has decided that a big chunk of its members will do a lot better with their pension nest egg invested in riskier assets.

    • Jonathan Shapiro
    Anthony Albanese’s government has to do the hard yards of growing productivity.

    PM’s election slogan must be: Get productivity moving again

    Readers’ letters on productivity; Labor’s Future Made in Australia policy; the Qantas board; the passing of Orica, Woodside director Gene Tilbrook; and Olympic breaking.

    A digital mock-up of a Virginia Class nuclear-powered submarine.

    Albanese is losing the AUKUS debate

    The government is prioritising platitudes over substance as critics question the $368 billion nuclear submarine project.

    • James Curran
    Reserve Bank of Australia governor Michele Bullock: If her word is her bond, then it’s been downgraded to junk.

    Reserve Bank has finally taken the inflation crisis seriously

    The consumer price index reading gave the RBA an out. Instead, governor Michele Bullock’s tough talk dumped cold water on a rate cut any time soon.

    • Steven Hamilton

    This Month

    Nina Kennedy on her way to a rare athletics gold for Australia.

    Australia has its own secret Olympic recipe

    The point can be stretched too far, but there is a line from our sporting success to our economic, social and cultural success.

    • The AFR View
    Federal Labor just matches profligate state governments with more spending of its own.

    Can our prosperity survive a year of political madness?

    Public policy is now swinging in the populist wind. And it’s hard to imagine the election of a government that can rationally take back control of it all.

    • Michael Stutchbury
    Reserve Bank of Australia governor Michele Bullock addresses year 9-12 business and economics students at Armidale Secondary College this week.

    ‘Hottest ticket since Cold Chisel’: Bullock returns home to Armidale

    The RBA governor’s formative years helped make the country’s most high-profile economist a ‘tough’ leader.

    • John Kehoe
    The RBA now alleges it will hit 2.9 per cent by December 2025.

    The Reserve Bank of Australia’s credibility is shot

    The central bank’s hawkish pivot has no credibility given it is not willing to do the bare minimum and raise interest rates in line with global peers.

    • Christopher Joye
    Future at stake: more than half of Australia’s corporate decision-makers believe the nation’s energy transition is trailing the rest of the world.

    Corporate heavyweights fear nation falling behind on climate

    Leaders across the nation’s largest industries are increasingly concerned that Australia is falling behind in the global race to address climate change.

    Sponsored 

    by Schneider Electric

    David Speirs took over as Liberal leader from Steven Marshall after the election loss by the Liberals in 2022.

    ‘I’ve had a gutful’ of factional squabbles: SA Liberal leader quits

    The leader of the Liberal Party in South Australia, David Speirs, has angrily criticised internal factional squabbles as he resigned

    • Simon Evans
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    Anthony Albanese, Michele Bullock, Jim Chalmers

    RBA returns serve on inflation

    The RBA’s take down of government spending is reverberating loudly in Canberra and can only undermine Labor’s key argument that its fiscal policy complements monetary policy.

    • Jennifer Hewett
    (From left) US Secretary of State Antony Blinken; Foreign Minister Penny Wong; Defence Minister Richard Marles and US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin in Brisbane on Saturday.

    Next AUSMIN needs to turn alignment into outcomes

    This year’s ministerial consultations moved away from defence announcements. But progress on many key initiatives is yet to deliver tangible results.

    • Jennifer Parker
    Michele Bullock’s remarks come amid a split between the RBA and the Albanese government over the economic outlook.

    Rising costs hit Mirvac margins, new homes

    Property developer Mirvac blamed the steep rise in labour and material costs for halving its profit margins on some residential projects, triggering a 13 per cent fall in operating earnings this year.

    • Michael Read and Nick Lenaghan

    Chalmers’ rebates not helping inflation, RBA warns

    Federal and state government energy bill subsidies will not help get inflation under control, and big-spending public sector budgets are making it worse, the bank says.

    • Michael Read