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Speaker 1: It's Monday, the tenth of March twenty twenty five. Welcome

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Speaker 1: to the Fast five Business News by Fear and Greed,

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Speaker 1: where we give you the top five business stories you

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Speaker 1: need to know in just five minutes. I'm Michael Thompson

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Speaker 1: and good morning Adam Lane.

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Speaker 2: Good morning Michael, Adam.

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Speaker 1: Five stories in five minutes. Let's go a story. Number one.

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Speaker 1: Ex Tropical cyclone Alfred has left a trail of destruction

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Speaker 1: across southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales, causing widespread flooding,

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Speaker 1: power outages and damage to infrastructure. It has been downgraded,

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Speaker 1: of course over the weekend to a tropical low, but

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Speaker 1: it made landfall between Brisbane and Maruccidor on Saturday night

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Speaker 1: and unleashed wind gusts of around one hundred kilometers an

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Speaker 1: hour and just an extraordinary amount of rain.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Michael, there's a lot in this, as you say,

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Speaker 2: and the crisis is not over yet. More than three

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Speaker 2: hundred and twenty thousand Queensland properties were without power after

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Speaker 2: the storm hit. Rainfall in some areas was tipped to

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Speaker 2: be as high as four hundred millimeters. Harvey Bay, on

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Speaker 2: Queensland's Fraser Coast for instance, had two hundred and thirty

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Speaker 2: millimeters in just six hours, causing flash flooding. Thankfully, Lizmore

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Speaker 2: in northern New South Wales appears to have avoided a

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Speaker 2: repeat of the devastating floods the city experienced in twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty two, but there are flood warnings still in place

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Speaker 2: for a number of rivers throughout both Queensland and New

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Speaker 2: South Wales. The New South Wales sees has already received

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Speaker 2: around five thousand incident reports since the beginning of the storm,

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Speaker 2: with dozens of flood rescues across the northern rivers. One

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Speaker 2: man died in floodwaters on Friday evening.

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Speaker 1: And Adam two Australian Defense Force trucks were involved in

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Speaker 1: a serious accident while helping to clear roads in flood

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Speaker 1: affected areas near Lizmore. Thirty two soldiers were on board

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Speaker 1: the trucks. One truck veered off the road, another overturned

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Speaker 1: trying to avoid it. Thirteen soldiers injured, six were in

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Speaker 1: a serious condition.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Michael, another element of this tragedy, and clearly the

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Speaker 2: emergency is not over, but attention is already turning to

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Speaker 2: the clean up. The damage bill for the Gold Coast

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Speaker 2: alone is expected to be in the billions of dollars,

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Speaker 2: with trees uprooted, power poles snapped and roofs missing. After

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Speaker 2: the storm, Gold Coast beaches have been severely eroded, with

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Speaker 2: sand cliffs of up to six meters high and extensive

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Speaker 2: damage to beachside infrastructure.

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Speaker 1: All Right, adam on to story number two now and

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Speaker 1: Labour has won the state election in Western Australia, with

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Speaker 1: Premier Roger Cook and his government re elected with the

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Speaker 1: second biggest majority in state history. It is less than

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Speaker 1: the remarkable fifty three seats one out of a possible

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Speaker 1: fifty nine in twenty twenty one, which is the COVID

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Speaker 1: era election, but still more than the forty one claimed

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Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen when Mark McGowan first came to power.

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Speaker 1: And that is good news for the prime minister.

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Speaker 2: It is Michael Anthony Albanezi had planned to call an

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Speaker 2: election yesterday four April twelve. According to media reports. The

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Speaker 2: plan was to glow in the WA Labor victory, but

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Speaker 2: cyclone Alfred has delayed that because it's a bad look

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Speaker 2: to appear political in the middle of a crisis.

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Speaker 1: Indeed, all right, story number three, it was a very

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Speaker 1: mixed weekend for the housing market. Sydney recorded a preliminary

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Speaker 1: clearance rate auction clearance rate of seventy point seven percent,

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Speaker 1: which is just a touched lower than last week. Melbourne

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Speaker 1: was seventy point five percent, but the volume of properties

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Speaker 1: going to auction was almost half that of Sydney because

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Speaker 1: of the long weekend with the Labor Day public holiday today.

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Speaker 2: Michael. In Brisbane, the preliminary clearance rate was around fifty

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Speaker 2: seven percent, but the number of auctions was well down,

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Speaker 2: with many either postponed or canceled due to ex tropical

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Speaker 2: cyclone Alfred.

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Speaker 1: Story number four. Banking stocks are having a very hard

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Speaker 1: time of it, Adam. On Friday, Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and

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Speaker 1: A and Z led the market lower, and some are

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Speaker 1: now in correction territory, which is defined as having fallen

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Speaker 1: more than ten percent from their peaks.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Michael, investors seem to have fallen a bit out

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Speaker 2: of love with the banks for now. On Friday, Commonwealth

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Speaker 2: Bank fell three point three percent, taking the decline from

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Speaker 2: its peak to eleven percent. Westpac and A and Z

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Speaker 2: were both off two point four percent on Friday and

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Speaker 2: respectively are down twelve and eight percent below their peaks.

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Speaker 2: National Australian Bank was the outperformer on Friday, was only

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Speaker 2: down one point two percent, but it has fallen seventeen

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Speaker 2: percent from its peak. The key reason is that the

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Speaker 2: February earning season showed bank margins are under pressure, and

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Speaker 2: given they were already highly valued, it's not a surprise

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Speaker 2: they've lost some ground. Also, the size of banks works

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Speaker 2: against them. Passive investing, whereby people try and mirror the

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Speaker 2: market means fund managers need to sell the banks when

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Speaker 2: they start falling to ensure the right waiting for a

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Speaker 2: passive investor. It becomes something of an unvirtuous circle for

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Speaker 2: the banks.

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Speaker 1: Last one story number five, Adam, and we've all heard

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Speaker 1: of the butterfly effect. Of course, well, butterfly populations in

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Speaker 1: the United States shrank by more than a fifth within

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Speaker 1: the space of two decades, according to a new study. However,

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Speaker 1: the good news is that researchers say butterflies may be

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Speaker 1: able to recover if urgent conservation measures are taken.

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Speaker 2: Yere Michael numbers fell by twenty two percent between the

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Speaker 2: year twenty twenty twenty, and this is according to research

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Speaker 2: by Binghamton University in New York. A third of species

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Speaker 2: saw serious decline, with some like Julius skipper, losing more

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Speaker 2: than ninety percent of their populations. Butterflies, as you say, Michael,

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Speaker 2: are crucial pollinators supporting plants and crops. Experts say their

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Speaker 2: decline could disrupt food production and entire ecosystems. They also

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Speaker 2: serve as indicators of environmental health. When butterfly numbers four,

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Speaker 2: it can signal trouble for other species.

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Speaker 1: All right, there we go the top five business stories

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Speaker 1: in five minutes. Thank you very much, Adam, Thank you Michael.

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Speaker 1: It is Monday, the tenth of March twenty twenty five.

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Speaker 1: Remember to hit follow on the podcast Andy. Five minutes

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Speaker 1: Fear and Greed where hev you listen to. Podcasts are

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Speaker 1: Michael Thompson. And that was the fast five business news

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Speaker 1: by Fear and Greed. Have a great day.