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Speaker 1: It's Monday, the fourth of November twenty twenty four. Welcome

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

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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 when us five minutes. I'm Michael Thompson

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Speaker 1: and good morning Adam Lang.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Michael, Adam.

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Speaker 1: We have five big stories to get through in just

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Speaker 1: five minutes, so we better get going a story number one.

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Speaker 1: The election campaign feels like it's already started and it

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Speaker 1: hasn't even been officially announced because over the weekend Labor

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Speaker 1: went all in on education. Every student will have their

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Speaker 1: debt cut by twenty percent at a cost to the

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Speaker 1: budget of sixteen billion dollars, and there'll be one hundred

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Speaker 1: thousand fee free take places every year under an Albanza

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Speaker 1: government plan that will go now to the next election.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Michael, Australian electioneering seems to have started. Prime Minister

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Speaker 2: Anthony Albanezi announced the proposal yesterday and every Australian with

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Speaker 2: a student debt and that includes help Vet student loan,

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Speaker 2: Australian Ownership Support loan and other income contingent student loans

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Speaker 2: will be cut by twenty percent from June one next year.

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Speaker 2: This would wipe five five hundred and twenty dollars from

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Speaker 2: an average help debt of twenty seven thy six hundred

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Speaker 2: for a university graduate. Now already the Australian government has

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Speaker 2: capped the rate at which a student loan can be indexed,

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Speaker 2: and that's been at a cost of three billion. The

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Speaker 2: government also announced other smaller initiatives over the weekend to

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Speaker 2: help former students with loans, as well as those one

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Speaker 2: hundred thousand free take places every year. Now, this is

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Speaker 2: a major play for younger Australians, many of whom will

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Speaker 2: be sympathetic to the Greens. And this of course is

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Speaker 2: ahead of the next election due by May twenty twenty five.

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Speaker 1: All right, moving on to story number two now, Adam,

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Speaker 1: the housing market continues to slow, with auction clearance rates

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Speaker 1: hitting their lowest level for the year over the past

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Speaker 1: week on the back of the data that came through

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Speaker 1: late last week showing house prices going backwards in both

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Speaker 1: Sydney and Melbourne.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Michael, there were just under two thousand other auctions

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Speaker 2: over the week and that is a sharp production from

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Speaker 2: the previous week, primarily due to reduced numbers in Melbourne

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Speaker 2: amid the spring Racing Carnival. The combined capital's preliminary clearance

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Speaker 2: rate fell to sixty three point four percent, down from

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Speaker 2: sixty six point eight the week prior. The final clearance

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Speaker 2: rate for the previous week was fifty nine and a

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Speaker 2: half percent. The finalized auction clearance rate has held below

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Speaker 2: sixty percent for three of the past four weeks, and

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Speaker 2: is likely to do so again when the most recent

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Speaker 2: information is finalized. Sydney hosted the most auctions this week,

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Speaker 2: with one thousand and forty six homes under the Hammer.

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Speaker 1: Story number three. What do you make of this one, Adam.

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Speaker 1: A trial of Microsoft's co Pilot by almost five eight

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Speaker 1: hundred federal employees shows that public servants can save an

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Speaker 1: hour a day on average by using AI. Is this

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Speaker 1: telling us that public servants can be more efficient?

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Speaker 2: Maybe we all can, Michael, And this experiment includes the

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Speaker 2: time that it took to check the output of AI

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Speaker 2: for its accuracy. It is the largest trial by any

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Speaker 2: government in the world and was based on chat GPT.

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Speaker 2: Those who took parts set it boosted productivity for simple

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Speaker 2: tasks such as searching and summarizing information, analyzing preliminary data,

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Speaker 2: or writing and reviewing programming code, and this is according

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Speaker 2: to a report in the Australian Financial Review. It wasn't

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Speaker 2: all good news though, Michael. In some cases, co pilot

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Speaker 2: allows people to access documents that staff had not classified

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Speaker 2: or stored properly. The Digital Transformation Agency that ran the

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Speaker 2: trial said that overall, the significant proportion of participants were

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Speaker 2: optimistic about their use of copilot. About three quarters of

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Speaker 2: participants who received three or more forms of training became

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Speaker 2: confident in using AI.

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Speaker 1: I feel like I might have been unkind to public servants,

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Speaker 1: but no regrets, Adam. I moved forward, never backwards. Story

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Speaker 1: number four. Kemy Badenoch became the British Conservative's new leader

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Speaker 1: over the weekend, the first black woman to head a

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Speaker 1: major British political party.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Michael, this is significant. She promised to return the

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Speaker 2: party to its founding principles. Beadenock, who is forty four,

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Speaker 2: replaces former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and has pledged to

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Speaker 2: lead the party through a period of renewal after its

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Speaker 2: resounding defeat of Britain's July election, saying it had veered

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Speaker 2: towards the political center by quote governing from the left now.

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Speaker 2: This was according to report on Reuter's Bedanok becomes the

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Speaker 2: Conservative's fifth leader since mid twenty sixteen, after winning fifty

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Speaker 2: seven percent of party members votes in the final stage

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Speaker 2: of a month's long contest that saw a field of

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Speaker 2: six whittled down to just two. She beat a former

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Speaker 2: immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, who won forty three percent of

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Speaker 2: the votes.

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Speaker 1: Last one story number five, Adam Warren Buffett, legendary investor,

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Speaker 1: has further cut his steak in Apple as part of

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Speaker 1: a selling spree that as sends Berkshire Hathaway Company dump

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Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty six billion US dollars worth of

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Speaker 1: stocks over the past two years. This is an incredible number.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Michael, the numbers are enormous. Now. The so called

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Speaker 2: Oracle of Omaha that's Warren Buffett's nickname, is also struggling

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Speaker 2: to find opportunities on Wall Street. And this is according

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Speaker 2: to report in The Financial Times, Buffett has now ditched

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Speaker 2: almost two thirds of his steak in Apple, which at

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Speaker 2: its peak in twenty twenty three accounted for one hundred

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Speaker 2: and seventy eight billion of the company's stock portfolio. The

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Speaker 2: stock sales are a dramatic shift by Buffett, given that

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Speaker 2: in twenty twenty two. He described Apple as one of

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Speaker 2: Berkshire's four giants, accounting for the bulk of the company's value. Now.

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Speaker 2: Berkshire reported on Saturday that it had generated gains of

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Speaker 2: ninety seven billion dollars on the one hundred and thirty

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Speaker 2: three billion of stock as that sold it has sold

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Speaker 2: this year, which after taxes, amounts to a seventy six

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Speaker 2: and a half billion dollar payoff for the group. Berkshire

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Speaker 2: has about three hundred and twenty five US billion in cash.

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Speaker 2: I will leave the last word on the Apple trade

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Speaker 2: to Berkshire shareholder Jay Stern and Cooe's Ross Bark, who said, quote,

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Speaker 2: it's still the greatest trade of all time by the

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Speaker 2: greatest investor of all time. End of quote.

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Speaker 1: What a beauty, Yeah, well said, all right, there we

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Speaker 1: go the top five business stories in five minutes.

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Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Adam, Thank you, Michael.

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Speaker 1: It is Monday, the fourth of November twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 1: Remember to hit follow on the podcast and if five

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Speaker 1: minutes isn't enough, you can find our longer daily show

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Speaker 1: called Fear and Greed wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm

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Speaker 1: Michael Thompson and that was the past five Business news

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Speaker 1: by fear and greed. Have a great day.