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    Opinion

    The AFR View

    Today

    BHP chief executive Mike Henry   has called for a “comprehensive competitive agenda”.

    Union iron ore claim poses risks for green superpower hopes

    Let’s hope for the sake of Australia’s energy transition that we don’t return to the bad old days of industrial disruption in the Pilbara.

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    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.

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    Richard Goyder and Alan Joyce do not come out of the governance review in a good light.

    Indispensable Joyce became excess liability for Qantas

    That the former CEO stayed on long enough for hubris to set sad is reality behind an often striking success story.

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    Police officers detain a woman during a protest in Nottingham.

    British riots show importance of managing migration

    Australia can credit its overall success as a migrant nation on having got its immigration policy broadly right, and thereby avoiding an anti-immigration populist backlash.

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    David Rowe.

    RBA holds prudent course on rates and inflation

    Australia’s central bank is rightly refusing to take the soft option that would risk forcing it to confront less palatable choices later. The political debate needs to face up to this.

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    Last week’s Consumer Price Index reading is unlikely to be bad enough to prompt Michele Bullock’s Reserve Bank into a 14th increase in its benchmark policy rate.

    Recession fears no reason for RBA rate cut

    It remains a long bow to suggest the sell-off by rattled investors heralds a hard landing in the US economy and a global recession.

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    Federal Labor’s institutional failure to face up to the CFMEU mess raises integrity issues.

    Labor must call an inquiry to permanently clean up the CFMEU

    Amid the seeming powerlessness of anti-corruption bodies and the traditional reluctance of the police to investigate industrial relations matters, the call for a royal commission appears justified.

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    Aussie record medal holder Jess Fox still has another medal chance this weekend.

    Paris shines in the glory of Olympic gold

    Paris has used its unique sights and attractions as the backdrop to its Games. But in terms of organisation too, this is the one that Brisbane must learn from in 2032.

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    Hamas supporters rally in southern Lebanon to condemn the killing of political chief Ismail Haniyeh.

    Israel’s righteous strike another delay in enduring peace

    The Middle East may be lucky if it avoids a serious war out of this round of killings, but it is still a long way from the two-state solution backed by Australia and other Western powers.

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    July

    Treasurer Jim Chalmers has talked up Labor’s supposed inflation-fighting prudence.

    August reprieve but no interest rate relief yet

    Inflation remains sticky, well-above the 2 per cent to 3 per cent target band, and has basically moved sideways.

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    Disappointed, but disciplined: BHP chief executive Mike Henry.

    BHP’s energy transition truths

    The peaking of iron ore and coal and the need to shift to new sources of income has left the threadbare reform agenda exposed. In fact, it’s worse: it is going backwards.

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    Rex

    Rex turmoil flies into airline competition confusion

    The Transport Minister seems too inclined to accept Australia’s two-airline syndrome, that a third player on the busiest routes will inevitably be trampled by Qantas.

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    Health Minister Mark Butler and Ramsay Health Care’s Australia boss, Carmel Monaghan, are key figures in working to resolve the financial crisis in private hospitals.

    Beware propping up ‘bricks and mortar’ hospitals disrupted by ‘virtual care’

    Australia needs a big picture reimagining of how to organise and pay for the kind of healthcare services an ageing society needs, setting aside scare tactics about ‘US-style managed care’.

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    Uranium mining bans belong to a previous era

    Labor’s efforts to keep Australia’s energy transition uranium mining-free amount to a self-defeating hobbling of the nation’s green superpower hopes.

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    The two ministers responsible for immigration, Clare O’Neil and Andrew Giles, have gone to sideways.

    Will Albanese’s ‘no losers’ reshuffle be enough?

    The former workplace relations minister who let the law-breaking CFMEU off the leash by abolishing the Australian Building and Construction Commission has been put in charge of policing the nation’s borders.

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    Kamala Harris: multiculturalism or shrill identity politics?

    Harris v Trump presents starkly different Americas

    The exit of Joe Biden and the entry of Kamala Harris means real campaigns and robustly articulated choices.

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    These Games are an integrated part of rebuilding Paris to better connect the wealthy centre the tourists see with its poorer suburbs.

    War-torn world pauses in gratitude for Olympic Games

    In 2024 with geopolitical tension everywhere, the Olympics are once again showing their power to get on with important matters like playing games.

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Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority chairman John Lonsdale told the Roundtable that the prudential regulator is undertaking cross-industry stress tests.

    Big super leans into private capital

    It makes sense for regulators to peek under the hood on non-bank lending while seeking to remove obstacles to the free and efficient allocation of risk capital.

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    Anthony Albanese can’t afford to offend the union bosses who rolled his predecessor Kevin Rudd.

    CFMEU lawlessness demands three responses

    But instead, Labor and the unions are seeking to dodge reinstating the ABCC, overhauling the governance of industry super, and scaling back Victoria’s Big Build.

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    Vice President Kamala Harris has the backing of Bill and Hillary Clinton, but may still face a challenge at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.

    Biden exits the Democrat dog’s breakfast

    The question for Democrat hardheads will be whether Kamala Harris is a sufficiently compelling candidate to stop Donald Trump returning to the White House.

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