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Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, the fourth of November twenty twenty five.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to the.

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Speaker 1: Fast five Business News by Fear and Greed, where we

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Speaker 1: give you the top five business stories you need to

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Speaker 1: know in just five minutes. Are Michael Thompson and Good Morning,

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Speaker 1: Sean Aylmer.

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Speaker 2: Good morning Michael, Sean.

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Speaker 1: Five big stories to race through in just five minutes.

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Speaker 1: Let's get cracking with story number one. The Australian economy

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Speaker 1: is showing signs of slowing, with household spending and the

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Speaker 1: labor market weakening just as inflation picks up. That makes

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Speaker 1: the Reserve Bank's job of running the economy very, very difficult.

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Speaker 2: Sure does the Reserve Bank Board we'll meet today with

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Speaker 2: a bunch of very mixed data points to consider. No

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Speaker 2: one expects a rate cut, but the releases yesterday showed

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Speaker 2: that the pace of growth in the economy is slowing.

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Speaker 2: The household spending indicator rose to zero point two percent

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Speaker 2: in September for the whole quarter. Looks like on a

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Speaker 2: per capita basis, household spending went backwards. Spending, no doubt

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Speaker 2: it's been helped interest rate cuts and tax cuts. No

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Speaker 2: more of those in the foreseeable future. Clearly it's lost momentum.

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Speaker 2: Retailers will be sweating on Black Friday sales to pick

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Speaker 2: things up. There were some good news in the construction sector,

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Speaker 2: with dwelling approvals better than forecasts. But in the labor market,

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Speaker 2: Aane said, job ads posted another monthly decline, this time

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Speaker 2: of two point two percent. All the leading indicators the

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Speaker 2: labor market are at best mixed. We've also got inflation

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Speaker 2: that was hot. We found it out last week. No

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Speaker 2: matter how you spin that inflation is rising at a

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Speaker 2: time when the economy seems to be slowing.

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Speaker 1: So when the Reserve Bank Board announces it's no rate

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Speaker 1: cut decision today sawn, after its board meeting and just

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Speaker 1: before the gates open for the Melbourne Cup, what are

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Speaker 1: they going to be focusing on? Then?

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Speaker 2: Inflation? Inflation, And then they'll have looked inflation, always the

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Speaker 2: number one public enemy. That'll be the big issue for

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Speaker 2: the central bank. They'll also have to give a nod

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Speaker 2: to the fragility of the recovery in the consumer sector

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Speaker 2: and the weakening of the labor market. But definitely no

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Speaker 2: rate cut.

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Speaker 1: Okay, moving on to story number two. Strong competition for

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Speaker 1: loans and deposits have pushed West Pack's annual earning slightly lower,

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Speaker 1: although the country's second largest bank announced an improvement in

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Speaker 1: profit margins.

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Speaker 2: For the year to the end of September, west Pac

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Speaker 2: posted a six point nine two billion dollar profit, down

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Speaker 2: one percent from a year earlier, bit better than expected.

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Speaker 2: Westpac share price outperformed the market yesterday, rising almost three percent.

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Speaker 2: Good news came from the business banklanes were up fifteen percent.

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Speaker 2: Institutional business, which is the really big organizations loans were

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Speaker 2: up seventeen percent, but home loan growth of five percent

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Speaker 2: was below market. According to APRA, that's the regulator. Westpac

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Speaker 2: has lost the most mortgage market share among the big

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Speaker 2: four lenders over the past year. Chief executive Anthony Miller

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Speaker 2: said while there was a modest recovery in private demand,

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Speaker 2: still plenty of challenges for small business. Westpac will also

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Speaker 2: sell its RAMS mortgage portfolio that's been causing it all

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Speaker 2: sorts of headaches. Big challenge for Westpac at the moment

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Speaker 2: under Anthony Miller, it's trying to unite a number of

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Speaker 2: different banking systems legacy products, you know, sort of Bank

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Speaker 2: of Melbourne's and George Bank, all those sorts of things.

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Speaker 2: That's going to take a lot of time in the

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Speaker 2: next three, four or five years, okay.

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Speaker 1: Story number three. The Liberal Party is split on the

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Speaker 1: issue of climate change once again, putting Opposition leader Susan

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Speaker 1: Lee's position in jeopardy, with several senior Conservatives in favor

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Speaker 1: of dumping that.

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Speaker 2: Zero following the National Party acting net zero in favor

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Speaker 2: of a more more flexible emission reduction target. The Leabs

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Speaker 2: have splintered. On one side of the Conservatives, including Angus Taylor,

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Speaker 2: who earlier in the year lost the leadership battle to

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Speaker 2: Susan Lee, are floating the idea of dumping the Liberal

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Speaker 2: zero policy. On the outside are the moderates, including Lee

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Speaker 2: some in that faction of Canvassing, splitting from the Nats

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Speaker 2: over the issue. According to media reports, both sides of

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Speaker 2: the coalition are now talking about a potential split. All

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Speaker 2: this happening while it's approval rating in coalition's approval rating

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Speaker 2: reaching new lows. Bit of a mess, Michael.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you can say that again. Story number four. The

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Speaker 1: Senate inquiry into the triple zero outage adoptus was held

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Speaker 1: yesterday and it was a pretty fisty affair. Some senators

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Speaker 1: said they had been astounded by the revelations about Optus's

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Speaker 1: failures in the hours after the outage.

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Speaker 2: And included five calls to Optus's overseas call center, which

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Speaker 2: had not been escalated at the hearing of The Australian

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Speaker 2: Communications and Media Authority said the regulator had received a

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Speaker 2: phone call and emails in the afternoon of September eighteen

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Speaker 2: informing it that ten Triple zero calls had been impacted

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Speaker 2: by an outage, but that it had been resolved. The

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Speaker 2: regulator said Optis won't be let off the hook on

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Speaker 2: this one. Optis chief executive Stephen Rue partially blamed it

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Speaker 2: Nokia for the handling of the outage, saying that some

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Speaker 2: personnel failings were within the finished telco company. He also

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Speaker 2: said Optus will bring back in house the network monitoring

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Speaker 2: activities it previously outsourced to Nokia in India and Australia.

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Speaker 2: Rue said he was deeply sorry for the tragic depths

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Speaker 2: that occurred as a result of the outage, though he

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Speaker 2: rejected calls for him to resign.

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Speaker 1: Finally, story number five, what do you make of this one? Sean?

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Speaker 1: The hardest working people in the country apparently are miners, farmers,

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Speaker 1: surgeons and politicians.

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Speaker 2: Yes, and podcasters. I'm sure that's according to the Sydney

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Speaker 2: Morning Herald. They didn't mention podcasters the Herald in the age,

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Speaker 2: they analyzed census data to find the hardest working Australian's

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Speaker 2: assistant drillers, a common job on mind Sights, had the

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Speaker 2: nation's longest average full time hours at seventy points three

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Speaker 2: hours a week. Next with the drillers, they supported sixty

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Speaker 2: eight hours away from mining, beef cattle farmers fifty four hours,

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Speaker 2: general surgeons fifty two to fifty three ceas just under

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Speaker 2: fifty hours GP, primary school teachers and airline pilots all

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Speaker 2: around the forty four to forty five hour mark standard week.

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Speaker 2: Of course it's thirty eight hours. Only two occupations out

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Speaker 2: of an nine hundred and seventeen reported full time hours

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Speaker 2: lower than that benchmark, library technicians and library assistants.

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Speaker 1: There we go, all right, the top five business stories

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Speaker 1: in five minutes. Thank you Sean, Thank you Michael. It

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Speaker 1: is Tuesday, the fourth of November twenty twenty five. Remember

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Speaker 1: to hit follow on the podcast and five minutes isn't enough.

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Speaker 1: You can find our longer daily show called Fear and

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Speaker 1: Greed wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Michael Thompson and

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Speaker 1: that was the past five Business news by fear and greed.

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Speaker 1: Have a great day, m