Speaker 1: This is Business Now with Edward Boyd, Hi and welcome
Speaker 1: to Business Now. Thanks to your company today. I'm Edward Boyd.
Speaker 1: Coming up on the program. Tesla Shar's tank. After CEO
Speaker 1: Elon Musk has a public falling out with the US
Speaker 1: President Donald Trump. Their relationship appears to have totally imploded.
Speaker 1: More on that in just a second. Leading financial services
Speaker 1: policy group has released new data showing the full impact
Speaker 1: of the proposed superranuation tax on different cohorts of Australians.
Speaker 1: Blake Briggs, the CEO of the Financial Services Council, is
Speaker 1: up shortly.
Speaker 2: Plus we'll preview the top property.
Speaker 1: Is going to auction this weekend with Angus Moore from
Speaker 1: Aria Group. All that and more coming up on today's show.
Speaker 1: Other stories today you should know about. Let's go to
Speaker 1: the top story here. Tesla shares have plunged after CEO
Speaker 1: Elon Musk's public falling out with the US President Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Now the shares dropped more than fourteen percent today, shedding
Speaker 1: about one hundred fifty two billion US dollars in value.
Speaker 1: Less than a week ago, Trump hosted a farewell press
Speaker 1: conference in the White House for Musk, thanking him for
Speaker 1: his work as the leader of the cost cutting group
Speaker 1: called DOGE. Since then, Musk has criticized Trump's cornerstone economic
Speaker 1: policy called the Big Beautiful Bill. Trump has hit back,
Speaker 1: and the bromance has quickly deteriorated into mud slinging between
Speaker 1: the two men on their own social media channels. Trump
Speaker 1: is threatening to remove the lucrative government subsidies and contracts
Speaker 1: that Musk receives in his businesses like Tesla and SpaceX.
Speaker 1: At the same time, Musk says he won the election
Speaker 1: for Trump and made some claims about Trump's supposed association
Speaker 1: with sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein. Those are unfounded. Here's President
Speaker 1: Trump speaking earlier.
Speaker 3: He knew every aspect of this bill. He knew it
Speaker 3: better than almost anybody, and he never had a problem
Speaker 3: until right after he left. And if you saw these
Speaker 3: statements he made about me, which I'm sure you can
Speaker 3: get very easily, it's very fresh on tape. He said
Speaker 3: the most beautiful things about me, and he hasn't said
Speaker 3: bad about me personally, but I'm sure that'll be next.
Speaker 3: But I'm very disappointed, Innil, and I've helped you learn
Speaker 3: a lot.
Speaker 1: Moving on Australia's employment market, shared jobs outside of the
Speaker 1: pandemic for the first time since twenty sixteen, the AI
Speaker 1: Group said today following some detail quarterly employment data that
Speaker 1: was released by the Bureau of Stats, the Employer Group
Speaker 1: said the private sector, which accounts for two thirds of employment,
Speaker 1: has seen negligible job creation in the past two years.
Speaker 1: It says government supported employment in the public and non
Speaker 1: market sectors is.
Speaker 2: Responsible for almost all jobs growth.
Speaker 1: AI Group Chief executive in As Willick says this is
Speaker 1: the evidence the private sector is not firing. The research
Speaker 1: shows the non market private sector, which includes jobs in healthcare, sure, childcare,
Speaker 1: age care, and the NDIS, have boomed since the pandemic
Speaker 1: started in twenty twenty, while private sector jobs have flat lined.
Speaker 1: Willicks says the government can no longer hope a private
Speaker 1: sector recovery will materialize on its own.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The top news story this week, with thirty five thousand
Speaker 1: mentions across print, radio, TV and online, was Elon Musk's
Speaker 1: departure from the White House that we're just speaking about.
Speaker 1: In second place was Australia's bid for an exemption on
Speaker 1: the US tariffs. Next up was a piece on the
Speaker 1: killing of the Hummas chief Muhammad Sinwa In fourth place
Speaker 1: was Kiev's retaliation against Russia, followed by a story on
Speaker 1: Australia's defense spending. Now, the top news story in the
Speaker 1: finance sector was on rest Supers staff survey suggesting poor
Speaker 1: staff morale. His second place was a piece on oz
Speaker 1: Super's alleged fees for no service failure. Next up was
Speaker 1: the PM leaving the door Ajar on a super tax promise.
Speaker 1: In fourth place was a hit piece on the Treasury
Speaker 1: and rounding out the list was a story on the
Speaker 1: Treasurer declaring he will not negotiate with the Coalition on.
Speaker 2: The superannuation tax reforms.
Speaker 1: Well, let's see how the stock market finished up this
Speaker 1: Friday local market. It opened flat this morning before slipping
Speaker 1: away in the afternoon. Energy stocks and industrials lifted. Tech
Speaker 1: companies and the banks were sold off today. The market
Speaker 1: finished the day down point three percent. Top performers included
Speaker 1: the fiber cement maker James Hardy, the airline Quantus up
Speaker 1: three and a half percent, white Haven Coal big coal producer,
Speaker 1: up strongly as well. The pesticides manufacturer New Farm was
Speaker 1: one of the best industrials, and the fund managed Perpetual
Speaker 1: up just one point three odd percent now losing value.
Speaker 1: Tech stock and data intelligence company Ewick's was the worst
Speaker 1: of the bunch, down six point one two percent.
Speaker 2: A lot of mining stocks were sold off.
Speaker 1: Today as well after prices since share prices lifted earlier
Speaker 1: in the week. The lithium companies Pilgrim Minerals and Igo dropped,
Speaker 1: the gold miner Regis Long, the gold sector was down,
Speaker 1: and the mineral sands minor Iluca Resources off about three
Speaker 1: point eight percent.
Speaker 2: It's been revealed more than four hundred.
Speaker 1: And thirty thousand Australians could avoid being affected by Labour's
Speaker 1: superranuation tax changes if the three million dollars threshold is
Speaker 1: indexed in line with inflation. Figures show half a million
Speaker 1: people could end up paying a higher concessional tax rate
Speaker 1: by the time they reach retirement. Now, the Financial Services
Speaker 1: Council projects around sixty four thousand people will be affected
Speaker 1: by the tax increase if the threshold is indexed at
Speaker 1: two and a half percent. Join me now is Blake Briggs,
Speaker 1: the CEO of the Financial Services Council. Blake, thanks for
Speaker 1: your time. Just explain to me the modeling you've done
Speaker 1: and why it's so important to index these proposed tax changes.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 4: What the Financial Services Counselor has looked at is the
Speaker 4: different impact under different scenarios on a whole range of
Speaker 4: age cohorts of Australians and what it makes really clear
Speaker 4: is the tax design as it currently stands is very
Speaker 4: unfair for future generations of Australian younger people in the workforce. Today.
Speaker 4: As you outlined at the start, half a million people
Speaker 4: would be captured under Labour's current proposal, far more than
Speaker 4: the eighty thousand and the Treasurer Jim Chalmers talks about
Speaker 4: when he sprooks his tax but if they move to
Speaker 4: other options, such as through negotiations with the Greens, far
Speaker 4: more people could be caught over the course of the
Speaker 4: next twenty or thirty years. And this is underpinning the
Speaker 4: argument that the indexation really needs to be applied to
Speaker 4: the tax design and the government needs to be having
Speaker 4: a conversation with industry about how to do this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Green's proposal is to tax super accounts from
Speaker 1: two million dollars, not three, So just talk us through
Speaker 1: that one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's actually there's a clear difference here between what
Speaker 4: the Greens are proposing and what Labour currently stands at
Speaker 4: You're right, the Greens are proposing moving it down to
Speaker 4: the two million dollar mark, but they also propose indexient
Speaker 4: for all the right reasons, and so if you look
Speaker 4: at that over time, it's very very much more a
Speaker 4: transparent measure targeting the cohort people that they believe have
Speaker 4: enough wealth to be captured by this, but then by
Speaker 4: indexient you remain targeted at that cohort over the next
Speaker 4: ten twenty years. However, Labor's saying, well, we'll bring it
Speaker 4: at three million, because who's really going to complain about
Speaker 4: people with me with more than three million getting taxed.
Speaker 4: But by not indexing it, they're going to capture more
Speaker 4: and more people over the future, and so it's actually
Speaker 4: much sneaky a way of trying to expand the tax net.
Speaker 4: Whilst you know, quite strangely, perhaps some of your viewers,
Speaker 4: the Greens are being a lot more transparent about who
Speaker 4: they think should be captured and why.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a funny one.
Speaker 1: We've heard treasure chem charmers defending this a lot recently,
Speaker 1: particularly this week when the GDP numbers came out. There
Speaker 1: was a forty five minute long press conference about it.
Speaker 1: But basically how he basically said, this policy was announced
Speaker 1: more than two years ago. What has consultation been like
Speaker 1: with the industry over this policy over the past two years.
Speaker 4: Well, look, I think this measure got announced after the
Speaker 4: Treasurer flew some kites a couple of years ago and
Speaker 4: the debate got away from him, and so the three
Speaker 4: million dollar number really got grabbed out of thin air
Speaker 4: in order to bring an end to that debate, and
Speaker 4: Labor said, Okay, our policy is this three million dollar policy,
Speaker 4: and then Treasury was sent away to design how is
Speaker 4: that actually going to work? Look, there was a consultation process,
Speaker 4: but the proof that the most of the industry feedback
Speaker 4: was just ignored or disregarded is the fact that the
Speaker 4: final design of the tax is very much the one
Speaker 4: the Treasurer announced several years ago. And so you know,
Speaker 4: if they're genuine that they actually listen to feedback and
Speaker 4: are taking a consultative approach to this second term of government,
Speaker 4: I don't think pushing ahead with the current design is
Speaker 4: the way to show that that's how they intend to
Speaker 4: govern in this term of parliament.
Speaker 1: All right, And one of the modeling things you did
Speaker 1: look at was the negotiated outcome, So three million dollars
Speaker 1: tax but index So just talk us through why that
Speaker 1: is a better result.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 4: If three million is the right number the treasure wants
Speaker 4: to hold on to, and then indexation is part of it.
Speaker 4: What it ensures is the Australians with around that wealth
Speaker 4: in perpetuity will continue to be caught by the tax. Now,
Speaker 4: the net result of that is we end up with
Speaker 4: a number much closer to the actual original eighty thousand
Speaker 4: the treasurer talking about, rather than the five hundred thousand
Speaker 4: who would be caught without indexation. However, if you look
Speaker 4: at some of the other options, for example, the Greens
Speaker 4: are talking about the two million, but if Labour insisted
Speaker 4: on not index yet, but gave the Greens the two
Speaker 4: million dollar threshold that they're asking for, you end up
Speaker 4: with one point eight million Australians being caught by this.
Speaker 4: One point million Australians who are currently in the workforce
Speaker 4: would be caught at some point during their life. It
Speaker 4: really shows how important the indexation part is to this
Speaker 4: overall debate, and we're glad it's getting this attention.
Speaker 1: And Blake, what are your members telling you about this policy?
Speaker 4: What we're hearing really clearly at the moment is the
Speaker 4: amount of concern from the general community about the impact
Speaker 4: this is either going to have on them straight up
Speaker 4: way or will I have on them over the coming years.
Speaker 4: I don't think it surprises you that most financial advice
Speaker 4: businesses who have customers and clients are getting a lot
Speaker 4: of phone calls at the moment, not just trying to
Speaker 4: understand what can I do about it? And obviously there's
Speaker 4: all going to be all sorts of changes in people's arrangements,
Speaker 4: but also the uncertainty am I impacted? Will I be unpacted?
Speaker 4: What should I be doing about my superannuation? Should I
Speaker 4: be avoiding contributing more to my super to make sure
Speaker 4: that I'm not going to be impacted? And so all
Speaker 4: of those questions are running pretty hot from consumers. Our
Speaker 4: big concern is a policy and advocacy organization for the industry,
Speaker 4: is the corrosive impact that has on confidence in the
Speaker 4: superannuation system if people think the goalposts are going to
Speaker 4: be moved on them again and again and again over
Speaker 4: the course of the government's lifetime. Of course, the Treasurer
Speaker 4: made the promise of no changes to superannuation taxes prior
Speaker 4: to two elections ago, and this is the result. We
Speaker 4: have changes now on the table. I think people are
Speaker 4: concerned that should they be continue to attribute to Super
Speaker 4: in the same way they always have, or should they
Speaker 4: be thinking differently about it that delav I'm sorry consumer
Speaker 4: confidence in our retirement system.
Speaker 2: Thank you, we've run out of time. Thanks for coming
Speaker 2: on the show.
Speaker 1: Coming up after the break, we'll show you all the
Speaker 1: top properties set to go under the hammer this weekend
Speaker 1: and break down all the big property news with Aria Group.
Speaker 2: Welcome back.
Speaker 1: There are about sixteen hundred properties scheduled to be auctioned
Speaker 1: this week. Sydney will hold about six hundred, Melbourne about
Speaker 1: four point fifty, Brisbane one hundred and twenty seven, Adelaide
Speaker 1: ninety three, Camber will hold fifty six. Take a look
Speaker 1: at the most few properties going to auction this weekend
Speaker 1: and in New South Wales. The top property is eleven
Speaker 1: Maidenhair Avenue, Denham Court. In Victoria, the top property is
Speaker 1: ten Krenya Road, Greensborough. This home in Melbourne's northeast has
Speaker 1: three beds, two barts and a driveway with lock up.
Speaker 2: Garage out the back.
Speaker 1: The top property in Queensland is seventeen Bethel Street, Carena.
Speaker 1: This large four better has a massive pool in the backyard,
Speaker 1: perfect for those hot days. The top property in South
Speaker 1: Australia is one hundred and two Bow Road, Semi four Park.
Speaker 1: This home was built in nineteen hundred looks like it's
Speaker 1: been extended quite a few times since then. The top
Speaker 1: property in Canberra is seven Moquare Street, none a wall
Speaker 1: this five better. It's perched on the top of the
Speaker 1: hill overlooking Canberra. It's got three beds and two parking
Speaker 1: spots and the most viewed property on the ARIA Group
Speaker 1: website this week is a giant acreage in Queensland, inland
Speaker 1: from the Gold Coast near Tambourine Mountain. The address is
Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty four four mile Lane Boyland. It's
Speaker 1: a dirt biker's delight with its own custom motocross track.
Speaker 1: The land is almost forty three acres in size. It
Speaker 1: borders the freshwater Canungar Creek with unlimited water rights. The
Speaker 1: home includes four beds, two barts, a giant shed that
Speaker 1: can fit twenty vehicles. Property includes a forty kilowatt solar system,
Speaker 1: two giant water tanks, various dams and fenced paddocks. Agents
Speaker 1: are taking offers on this one right now and for
Speaker 1: more on property, I caught up with Angus more from
Speaker 1: Aria Group.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me on ed.
Speaker 5: Obviously, you know, with the long weekend in most states
Speaker 5: this weekend, it is going to be a little bit
Speaker 5: quieter in terms of housing market activity. That's not a surprise.
Speaker 5: It's what we tend to see when there is a
Speaker 5: long weekend. But if we're kind of looking a bit
Speaker 5: more broadly across what we're seeing in housing market activity science,
Speaker 5: you know, obviously we're heading into winter, things are starting
Speaker 5: to cool down, but it is still relatively busy. The
Speaker 5: last week of autumn was actually relatively solid and busier
Speaker 5: than what we saw at the end of autumn last year.
Speaker 5: Clearance rates, particularly in Melbourne, have been pretty solid. Melbourne's
Speaker 5: been seeing clearance rates sitting around the mid sixties through
Speaker 5: much of the back end of autumn, which is.
Speaker 2: Is pretty solid.
Speaker 5: You know, It's not the sort of levels we've been
Speaker 5: seeing in really really hot housing markets, but it's better
Speaker 5: than Melbourne's been seeing for some time, where it has
Speaker 5: been quite a soft market. It seems like Melbourne has
Speaker 5: really picked things up over the past few months compared
Speaker 5: to some other parts of Australia.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 5: Melbourne's a bit of a standout over recent months, and
Speaker 5: perhaps a standout for different reasons than it has been
Speaker 5: for the past few years. We had our home price
Speaker 5: index out for May and what we saw was that
Speaker 5: home prices across Melbourne zero point eight percent, which is
Speaker 5: pretty solid growth, and notably for Melbourne, that's its fastest
Speaker 5: month of growth since twenty twenty one, really quite a
Speaker 5: long time, and it's kind of important to put it
Speaker 5: in the context that Melbourne prices are actually still lower
Speaker 5: than they were in early twenty twenty two before the
Speaker 5: RBA started raising rates.
Speaker 2: It's seen a.
Speaker 5: Really slow period of prices for Melbourne and for housing
Speaker 5: markets conditions in Melbourne more broadly, and so the fact
Speaker 5: that we're starting to see some growth is in some
Speaker 5: sense a bit overdue. And obviously it's Australia's second largest
Speaker 5: city by population, could overtake Sydney soon, but it's also
Speaker 5: one of the most affordable capital cities in the country
Speaker 5: when you look at the likes of Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. Yeah,
Speaker 5: exactly right, ed, it's kind of remarkable the fact that
Speaker 5: we've seen such sluggish growth for Melbourne over the past
Speaker 5: few years and even really during COVID relative to other
Speaker 5: parts of the country means home prices median home prices
Speaker 5: in Melbourne are now lower than basically all other capital
Speaker 5: cities except for the really small ones like Hobart and Dawen,
Speaker 5: which is a pretty remarkable statement when you consider that
Speaker 5: Melbourne is close to our largest city is a very
Speaker 5: high income city.
Speaker 2: It's not just home prices either.
Speaker 5: Rents in Melbourne haven't been as strong as we've seen
Speaker 5: in other parts of the country, so rental affordability, while
Speaker 5: still challenging in Melbourne is a lot better there than
Speaker 5: it is in other parts of the country.
Speaker 1: Look, this week, the GDP numbers came out. The economy
Speaker 1: is pretty soft in the first quarter. Could have encourage
Speaker 1: the RBA to cut rates again and give a bit
Speaker 1: more I guess positivity to the property market and potentially
Speaker 1: boost sales over the next few months.
Speaker 5: You'd have to think there's a pretty strong case for
Speaker 5: another rate cut coming up. You know, the GDP numbers
Speaker 5: were pretty soft. Notably, consumption was really soft. Household spending.
Speaker 5: You know, we saw there was some growth that was
Speaker 5: zero point four percent in the quarter. That's still pretty soft,
Speaker 5: and it's in an environment in which we've seen pretty
Speaker 5: sluggish growth in household spending broadly, despite the fact that
Speaker 5: population has been growing quite strongly. I think, particularly notably,
Speaker 5: spending on discretionary items, you know, things like takeaway, going out,
Speaker 5: going to the movies, that sort of thing has actually
Speaker 5: basically tracked sideways over the past two years, despite population
Speaker 5: growing over that time, which really points to a pretty
Speaker 5: challenging environment for households. Maybe not a surprise given what
Speaker 5: mortgage rates have done, but given that softness, I think
Speaker 5: that probably makes the case for a further rate cut.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and just on those numbers, the household savings ratio increased,
Speaker 1: so people saved a bit of extra money potentially from
Speaker 1: the first rate cut of this year, but they didn't
Speaker 1: spend it. They kept that money.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we have been seeing a little bit of an
Speaker 5: increase in the savings rate. Part of the story there
Speaker 5: is is incomes growing a little bit faster than they
Speaker 5: had been. We had been seeing disposable incomes falling pretty signate,
Speaker 5: or real disposable incomes falling pretty significantly for two reasons.
Speaker 5: One mortgage costs were going up a lot, which was
Speaker 5: obviously detracting from disposable income, but also the fact that
Speaker 5: prices and inflation were going up so quickly was also
Speaker 5: detracting from that. That's starting to turn around now. Inflation
Speaker 5: is starting to come under control or even is potentially
Speaker 5: under control now back inside the band and expected to
Speaker 5: remain there. And mortgat rates in our fall ing, which
Speaker 5: is going to start improving household budgets. Angus Moore, thanks
Speaker 5: for coming on the show, pleasure, Thanks for having me Ed.
Speaker 5: The Vinnie Ceo Sleepout is celebrating its twentieth anniversary on
Speaker 5: the nineteenth of June. The initiative, which we support here
Speaker 5: on Sky News, aims to raise awareness of homelessness via
Speaker 5: fundraising to support the services of the Saint Vincent de
Speaker 5: Paul Society in New South Wales and one of the
Speaker 5: longest serving executives who participates in the Sleepout is Paul Nikolau,
Speaker 5: the executive director of Business Cydney. Paul, thanks for your time,
Speaker 5: great looking jacket. Just explain your association with this great event.
Speaker 6: Well, firstly, can I thank you ED and Skotte News
Speaker 6: for supporting venis. They do a great job and The
Speaker 6: CEO sleep out's been going for twenty years. I am
Speaker 6: one of the participants. They're over three hundred CEOs who'll
Speaker 6: be sleeping out on the nineteenth of June, both in
Speaker 6: Sydney and Newcastle and Woollongong, and we're hoping to raise
Speaker 6: over three million dollars to help those that are sleeping
Speaker 6: rough in the streets of our wonderful cities.
Speaker 1: Yeah, obviously it's great to shine a light on just
Speaker 1: how devastating homelessness can be for so many people. Events
Speaker 1: like this are just so important, aren't they.
Speaker 2: Oh, they're vital.
Speaker 6: And the great thing about it is we're raising awareness
Speaker 6: of the need that we need to do something to
Speaker 6: help our homeless. The City City Council has counted just
Speaker 6: in Sydney alone around three hundred and forty six people
Speaker 6: who sleep every night in our city. And a city
Speaker 6: like ours and a country like ours, we should be
Speaker 6: able to do more to help our homeless people. And
Speaker 6: that's why we're getting together all the CEOs as many
Speaker 6: as we can to go out there and raise money
Speaker 6: and raise hopefully over three million dollars just in New
Speaker 6: South Wales alone.
Speaker 1: Well, that would be great. I mean, how many times.
Speaker 1: Have you personally done it, Paul.
Speaker 6: Well, I've done it five times and thankfully all my
Speaker 6: friends and supporters and family have supported me, and I've
Speaker 6: been able to raise over half a million dollars, which
Speaker 6: is great and you know, if we can get as
Speaker 6: many people, and I think over the twenty years, over
Speaker 6: one hundred million dollars has been raised nationally and this
Speaker 6: is all going to you know, providing crisis accommodation, mental
Speaker 6: and health services, and it's also helping with food, blankets,
Speaker 6: clothing and so on. And it's great to see everyone
Speaker 6: getting together to collaborate, to work together to raise money
Speaker 6: for this important cause.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we just saw some footage of what it sort
Speaker 1: of looks like on the screen, But just talk us
Speaker 1: through on the night.
Speaker 2: What are you given? What keeps you warm? What are
Speaker 2: you sleeping on?
Speaker 6: Well, I'm just a piece of cardboard. We're not allowed
Speaker 6: to bring anything like mattresses or anybody that. We can
Speaker 6: bring our sleeping bags. We can bring some clothing, but
Speaker 6: I can tell you if I find it and Allly
Speaker 6: other CEOs find it tough. Can you imagine what the
Speaker 6: people who are actually sleeping rough on the streets feel?
Speaker 6: And this is why we're doing it. It's not because
Speaker 6: you know, we want to put ourselves on television or
Speaker 6: in the papers or doing social media. We really want
Speaker 6: to do it because we think and we're passionate about
Speaker 6: trying to solve this issue of homelessness. I mean, I've
Speaker 6: always said if we could do it during COVID where
Speaker 6: no one slept on the streets, we can do it
Speaker 6: when COVID is not on. And this is why it's
Speaker 6: important that we work with government, with business community and
Speaker 6: the general community who raise awareness, raise money, but also
Speaker 6: advocate to ensure that people who are sleeping rough are
Speaker 6: being looked after.
Speaker 2: Paul Nicolaut, thanks so much for coming on the show.