The second of Australia’s largest banks has reacted to the interest rate rise and has joined NBA in unsurprisingly opting to pass on the full hike to its customers. On Tuesday, the RBA lifted interest rates by 25 basis points. That brought the cash rate from 2.6 per cent to 2.85 per cent. It marked the seventh consecutive month where ...

Desperate homeowners slammed by seven consecutive rate rises are being forced to sell up with the number of distressed listings nationwide jumping by more than 15 per cent since May, new research has shown. Interest rates have risen from a record low of 0.1 per cent to 2.85 per cent in November and some homeowners are struggling to meet mortgage ...

A Greens MP has blasted Labor’s “bold” budget plan to build one million affordable homes over five years as “bulls**t”. In his first budget on Tuesday night, Treasurer Jim Chalmers unveiled a new “housing accord” which aims to address the housing affordability crisis by dramatically accelerating the construction of new homes across the country. he accord, which was one of ...

Calls for a national energy summit to address soaring energy costs are increasing after the budget predicted consumer prices would soar by 56 per cent. Joel Gibson from the consumer network OneBigSwitch said the energy price crisis should now be the government’s top priority if Australia was to avoid similar scenes to the UK, where 40 retailers had gone bust ...

Payouts for Covid-19 vaccine injuries are set to explode more than 80-fold to nearly $77 million by July next year, Tuesday’s budget papers reveal. The figure was quietly buried in the Services Australia portfolio budget statement, in a table detailing third-party payments from the agency “on behal of other entities”. Services Australia administers the scheme for the Health Department. The ...

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is set to hand down his first budget on Tuesday, October 25, in the face of soaring inflation and a dark outlook for the global economy. Treasurer Jim Chalmers has warned Australians to brace for spending cuts and limited cost-of-living relief, even as grocery prices are tipped to skyrocket following devastating floods. But Labor has refused ...

Australians could face rising grocery bills, as floods and surging rains hamper some of the nation’s key areas for food production. Dairy farmers, and growers across prime agricultural areas in Victoria, NSW and Tasmania have been severely impacted by the devastating rains. Known as Australia’s Food Bowl, the Murray-Darling Basin produces $22 billion of food a year, and is home ...

UK Prime Minister Liz Truss has been dealt another cruel blow as one of her ministers threatened to quit her Cabinet live on air. Armed Forces Minister James Heappey vowed to resign if Ms Truss fails to meet her commitment to raise defence spending to three per cent of GDP by 2030. And in what could be an even bigger ...

Elon Musk’s suggestion that Taiwan should become a “special administrative zone” of China has been met with furious backlash, with the billionaire accused of throwing Taiwan “under the bus”. Mr Musk has come under fire from US politicians and commentators for his proposal, which would upset the status quo in the region. In a wide-ranging interview with the Financial Times, ...

Anthony Albanese has indicated he won’t back down on the contentious “stage 3” tax cuts by the May 2023 budget. Asked on Monday if he was conceding his position on the policy could change next year, the Prime Minister said: “Well, no”. “There’s been no change in our position,” Mr Albanese told ABC Radio. The Prime Minister has repeatedly said ...