Scott Morrison and the former Coalition government badly misjudged how strong the economy was travelling, according to new Treasurer Jim Chalmers, with Labor now facing a massive task to keep the nation ticking over. Within an hour of being sworn in on Wednesday, Mr Chalmers was already staring down a set of figures showing an economy battered by war, Omicron ...

A historic change is coming for the company that runs the $2.5 trillion Australian sharemarket. ASX Ltd on Thursday announced it would promote Helen Lofthouse to the top job – the company’s first female chief executive officer and managing director. Ms Lofthouse will replace Dominic Stevens at the end of July. Her appointment comes after a four-month international search and ...

A former head of ASIO says Australians should sacrifice their standard of living to enable more spending on defence amid building global tensions. Former spy boss turned ANU professor Duncan Lewis said the 2-3 per cent of GDP set aside for defence would not come close to getting Australia where it needed to be. Mr Lewis acknowledged the bump in ...

ANZ has moved to secure its place in a hyper-competitive borrowing market by slashing its variable interest rate – though only for new customers. The move comes as Australia’s biggest lenders jostle for an increasingly precarious piece of the mortgage market, with the Reserve Bank kicking off a steep hiking cycle just three weeks ago with a 25 basis point ...

Households across the country are set for a power shock after the energy regulator gave providers permission to pass on soaring generation costs. Those in Queensland, however, have been handed a welcome salve by their state government. The Australian Energy Regulator on Thursday released its so-called default market offer price, which outlines the maximum that electricity retailers can charge residential ...

The PM called it the single biggest challenge facing Australia’s economy and it’s an issue that has many business owners across Australia sweating. Businesses are screaming out to fill gaping holes in Australia’s workforce following a major dip in migration during the pandemic. Online jobs ads reached their highest level since 2006 this month, climbing by eight per cent to ...

Aussie women trump men when it comes to setting a budget, according to new data from a major bank. Thirty-nine per cent of women and 33 per cent of men set a budget, based on a NAB survey in February and March of adults asking how they managed their money. Younger women, aged 18 to 29, were by far the ...

Australians have been urged to shop around on energy deals with consumers set to face a $100 increase in electricity bills. The latest report from Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), which runs the electricity grid, shows residents are likely to see a $100 increase in electricity bills with wholesale prices doubling in the past 12 months. Financial comparison website Finder ...

Wednesday’s reprieve appears to have been fleeting for ASX investors with the local sharemarket resuming a worrying three-week spiral at Thursday’s open. The benchmark ASX 200 fell by as much as 82.8 points, or 1.2 per cent, in the first hour to dip back below the key 7000 level and continue what has been a poor run of form. Cryptocurrencies ...

If you thought prices were rising, you were absolutely right. Australian consumer price inflation came out and it was a whopper. The highest headline inflation number we’ve seen since 2000-01. And back then inflation was high because of the GST. If you ignore that anomaly, it is the highest inflation since 1990. This hurts in many ways, including in the ...