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Speaker 1: Welcome to the weekend edition of The Fast five Business

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Speaker 1: News by Fear and Greed. I'm Michael Thompson and hello

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Speaker 1: Sean Aylmer.

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Speaker 2: Hello Michael, Sean.

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Speaker 1: On weekdays, it's all about the Fast five, the top

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Speaker 1: five business stories in five minutes. On the weekend, we

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Speaker 1: are still going to keep it to five minutes, of course,

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Speaker 1: but we are going to pick out the biggest business

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Speaker 1: story of the week, the most remarkable story, a sleeper

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Speaker 1: story and that's flying under the radar a bit, and

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Speaker 1: then our favorite story. I think we are united. Sean,

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Speaker 1: there is one big story of the week, and that

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Speaker 1: was the inauguration of Donald Trump. And it happened on

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Speaker 1: Tuesday morning, Australian time. It was a spectacle. There were

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Speaker 1: all the billionaires, like the tech billionaires, all these kind

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Speaker 1: of leaders, everyone there kind of to witness him being

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Speaker 1: sworn in for a second time. And then and then

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Speaker 1: didn't the new president just it wasted no time whatsoever.

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Speaker 1: A flurry of executive orders being issued, a crack down

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Speaker 1: on illegal immigration, freeze on new regulations. I was a

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Speaker 1: freeze on hiring in the federal bureaucracy, workers returning to

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Speaker 1: the office full time. Federal diversity, equity and inclusion staff

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Speaker 1: being put on paid leave with a view to laying

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Speaker 1: them off. He withdrew from the Paris Climate Treaty, changed

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Speaker 1: the rules around new vehicles being sold by twenty thirty

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Speaker 1: to all be half of them to be evs, more

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Speaker 1: oil drilling. He pulled out of the World Health Organization,

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Speaker 1: issued a whole bunch of pardons fifteen hundred for people

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Speaker 1: that were involved in the January sixth riots, a bunch

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Speaker 1: of others as well. So much stuff, And that was

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Speaker 1: pretty much all in the first twenty four to forty

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Speaker 1: eight hours.

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Speaker 2: Sean, you're just throwing a few tariffs and Canada, Mexico, China,

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Speaker 2: maybe the European Union telling OPEC and Saudi Arabia to

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Speaker 2: cut the price of oil. Wow, cracking first five days

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Speaker 2: from Donald Trump.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, really quite extraordinary. It could also be the most

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Speaker 1: remarkable story if we wanted as well. But we're going

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Speaker 1: to nominate a couple of other ones here as well. Sean,

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Speaker 1: what did you pick out?

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Speaker 2: The pointy end of the retail story happened this week.

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Speaker 2: The shakeup in the retail sector has been going on

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Speaker 2: for a while. This week, though, we had my shareholders

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Speaker 2: agreeing to taking over Premier's apparel brands. That means the

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Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty four year old department store ends

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Speaker 2: up owning just Jens, Dottie, Portman's, JJ's and JACKIEE. The

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Speaker 2: new retailer will have seven hundred and eighty three large

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Speaker 2: format stores and specialty stores employee seventeen thousand people, five

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Speaker 2: billion in sale. Sorry, I'll say that again, four billion

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Speaker 2: dollars in sales and two fifty million in earnings. Then

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Speaker 2: we had the decision to close all one thirty six

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Speaker 2: Rivers stores across the country. The receivers for a crowd

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Speaker 2: called Mosaic Brands decided that Rivers needed to go. That

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Speaker 2: means that Mosaic Brands, the companies under them Rivers, Rockman's, Autograph, Crossroads,

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Speaker 2: w Lane, b Me, and Katies have now all closed.

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Speaker 2: They're still trying to find a buyer for Miller's and

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Speaker 2: non Eb.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and there was another story this week, Sean that

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Speaker 1: ties neatly into that. The fact that we can expect

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Speaker 1: this year sixteen thousand business failures. We had eleven thousand

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Speaker 1: or so last financial year, So fifty percent increase just

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Speaker 1: demonstrates just how much pressure is on Australian Business right now,

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Speaker 1: sleeper story of the week if you found one for

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Speaker 1: US Sean.

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Speaker 2: Look, there's some interesting stats out this week. The Bureau

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Speaker 2: of Statistics said that forty three thousand year dwellings were

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Speaker 2: built in the first three months of the National Housing Accord.

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Speaker 2: That's still the end of September last year, forty three thousand.

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Speaker 2: The government's target is sixty thousand, still a long way

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Speaker 2: from that. In fact, canber has provided three and a

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Speaker 2: half billion dollars in payments to state's territories and local

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Speaker 2: governments to make sure we get to that sixty thousand.

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Speaker 2: But the run rate's just forty three thousand. What has

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Speaker 2: the government done well? Yesterday it came out and announced

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Speaker 2: a ten thousand dollars bonus to apprentices who work in

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Speaker 2: the residential housing sector, part of a bigger package that

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Speaker 2: the government is trying to push to achieve its ambitious

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Speaker 2: housing goal. Ten thousand bucks is a lot of money

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Speaker 2: for an apprentice who earns around fifty thousand dollars a year.

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Speaker 2: A big challenge in building houses is finding fundies. The

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Speaker 2: government's out there trying to boost housing and I reckon

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Speaker 2: this is a pretty smart way of doing it. What

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Speaker 2: about you, what's your sleeper story? Oh?

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Speaker 1: Look, Min was just it's really mentioned kind of in

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Speaker 1: passing this week, Sean. The RBA is looking at the

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Speaker 1: surcharge and the payment system. Commonwealth Bank is called on

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Speaker 1: surcharges on credit cards and debit cards to be dropped.

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Speaker 1: The government already plans to dump debit card surcharges next year.

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Speaker 1: They need the RBA approval for it, but Commonwealth Bank

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Speaker 1: wants them to go even further and drop the search

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Speaker 1: charges on credit cards. The thing is, you have other

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Speaker 1: organizations like the airlines coming out and say, hey, if

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Speaker 1: you drop the credit card surcharge, we're going to have

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Speaker 1: to bump up prices overall because we won't be able

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Speaker 1: to kind of add on those fees specifically to the

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Speaker 1: people that are paying with credit cards. Everyone's going to

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Speaker 1: have to carry that. So there's two sides to this.

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Speaker 1: But watch this space because it's likely we will have

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Speaker 1: some change in the in the surcharge arena if that

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Speaker 1: is such a thing, Sean.

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Speaker 2: Second, can I tell you about my favorite story? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Please?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? It was the auction last weekend of a nineteen

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Speaker 2: sixty nine Porsche used in the see Steve McQueen film

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Speaker 2: Lemons in nineteen seventy five. It got to forty million

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Speaker 2: dollars at the auction, and then it was withdrawn from

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Speaker 2: the auction somewhat surprisingly. Now the current owner, according to

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Speaker 2: media report, is Jerry Seinfeld. He bought it for six

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Speaker 2: million bucks in two thousand and two. It was taken

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Speaker 2: off the market. A bunch of other cars sold on

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Speaker 2: the day. The one I liked most of all was

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Speaker 2: he nineteen sixty seven Jaguar ed type roads to use

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Speaker 2: in the Austin Powers movies, otherwise known as the Shaguar.

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Speaker 2: It went for one point four million. You know the

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Speaker 2: all time record for the sale of a car, It

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Speaker 2: was a Mercedes Benz nineteen to fifty five coupe sold

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Speaker 2: for one hundred and forty two million dollars a couple

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Speaker 2: of years ago.

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Speaker 1: That is extraordinary, very very quickly. My favorite story was

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Speaker 1: just how much stuff happened in airlines this week, Sean.

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Speaker 1: We had Quantus overhauling its frequent flyer program. Quantus share

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Speaker 1: price here to record high, had the federal government stepping

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Speaker 1: in with another fifty million dollars to help keep Rex,

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Speaker 1: the failed airline operating. So the towns and regional centers

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Speaker 1: in Australia remained connected. We've got stats on airline on

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Speaker 1: time performance. It's getting better, still not great and ticket

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Speaker 1: prices were six percent lower in December than the previous year.

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Speaker 1: A bit of a mix of good and bad news.

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Speaker 1: But any story about airlines to me is good news. Sean. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you love the airlines, indeed I do. There we go

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Speaker 1: five minutes and pretty much everything you need to know

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Speaker 1: in the world of business. Thank you very much, Sean.

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Speaker 2: Thanks Michael.

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Speaker 1: We'll be back on Monday morning with the top five

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Speaker 1: business stories in five minutes. Don't forget to hit follow

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Speaker 1: and join us online on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook and X.

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Speaker 1: I'm Michael Thompson and this is the fast five business

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Speaker 1: news by Fear and Greed.