Latest updates on Key Economic Indicators

Australian Dollar: $0.7747 USD (up $0.0027 USD)

Iron Ore Mar Spot Price (SGX): $161.95 USD (up $0.95 USD)

Oil Price (WTI): $57.95 USD (down $0.66 USD)

Gold Price: $1,823.72 (down $18.48 USD)

Bitcoin: $47,785.70 USD (up 5.98% in last 24 hours)

Dow Jones: 31,359.66 at 3.05 pm NY time (down 78.14 points on yesterday's close)

All changes compared to 7am yesterday.

Snap lockdown talks as Vic Holiday Inn cluster grows

Herald Sun - Page Online : 12 February 2021 - Original article by James Campbell, Josh Fagan - PortMac.News Summary

Victoria has recorded five new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours; all of them are linked to the Holiday Inn quarantine hotel.

They include the partners of two Holiday Inn workers, marking the first cases of transmission outside the quarantine system.

There are now 13 cases linked to the hotel, and genomic testing has confirmed that at least six are the highly-contagious UK strain; health authorities are working on the assumption that the other cases are also this variant.

Victoria will enter a "short, sharp circuit-breaker" lockdown for five days to respond to fears the highly infectious UK strain of coronavirus has spread throughout the community, Premier Daniel Andrews has confirmed.

Jabs won't inject life into air travel just yet

The Australian - Page 6 : 12 February 2021 - Original article by Robyn Ironside = PortMac.News Summary

Australia's acting chief medical officer Michael Kidd says the federal government's COVID-19 vaccine rollout does not mean that international travel will resume in the near-term.

He says much is still unknown about the vaccines, including how long immunity from COVID-19 will last.

Kidd adds that international travel is unlikely to resume before 2022 and it will be on a country by country basis, while precautions such as mandatory hotel quarantine will still be necessary.

Law closes in on bad judges

The Australian - Page 1 & 4 : 12 February 2021 - Original article by Nicola Berkovic - PortMac.News Summary

The federal government is planning to establish a body that would investigate allegations of corruption and other complaints made against federal judges.

Attorney-General Christian Porter has sought legal advice on such a body, and is likely to proceed with its establishment once legislation to enact a commonwealth integrity commission to investigate corruption in the rest of the public service is in place.

Porter notes that judges are a "special part" of the public service, and that any body set up to oversee them should not put their independence at risk.

He believes that a body similar in structure to the New South Wales Judicial Commission would be appropriate.

Demise of JobKeeper to put 100k jobs at risk, says Treasury

The Australian - Page 4 : 12 February 2021 - Original article by Patrick Commins - PortMac.News Summary

Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy has told a Senate committee that he does not expect the downward trajectory of the unemployment rate to be affected by the imminent end of the JobKeeper scheme.

However, he concedes that nearly 100,000 recipients of the wage subsidy who are working zero or minimal hours are most at risk of losing their jobs when the scheme ends.

Jeremy Hirschhorn from the Australian Taxation Office has told the committee that companies have offered to return some $50m in JobKeeper payments, and about $10m of this has been repaid to date.

Beijing's Australia coal ban backfires

The Australian - Page 21 : 12 February 2021 - Original article by Chuin-Wei Yap - PortMac.News Summary

China imposed an unofficial ban on Australian coal in September, before making it official in December at a meeting with major Chinese electricity producers.

The meeting had been called to try to address a supply problem that the producers were having, with the ban on Australian coal only making that problem worse.

Producers were told to import more coal, provided it was not from Australia, forcing them to pay high prices by having to venture as far as North America.

The ban on Australian coal has only worsened a crisis in China's coal market, which is having to deal with issues such as a very cold winter and conflicting policy goals.

$44bn interest rate debt threat

The Australian - Page 1 & 4 : 12 February 2021 - Original article by Geoff Chambers, Patrick Commins - PortMac.News Summary

Finance Minister Simon Birmingham will use his first major speech since taking on the portfolio to advise that the federal government's priorities ahead of the Budget in May will include creating jobs, encouraging investment and moving people from welfare to work.

COVID-19 stimulus measures such as JobKeeper are slated to end in March, and Birmingham will emphasise the need for governments to only spend what is necessary.

He will also state that interest rates cannot be assumed to remain at historic low indefinitely, warning that interest payment would increase Australia's gross debt by about $44.5bn over the next decade if rates rise more quickly than was forecast in the mid-year budget update.

Climate : Frontbencher warns Nationals not to sideline themselves

The Guardian Australia - Page Online : 12 February 2021 - Original article by Katherine Murphy, Daniel Hurst - PortMac.News Summary

Nationals MP Darren Chester says the party needs to be "part of the solution" when it comes to practical environmentalism and carbon emissions reduction, and not to sideline itself from "big debates".

With Nationals leader Michael McCormack having recently suggested that agriculture should be exempted from emission reduction efforts,

Chester says it is important that the Nationals remember that regional Australia "is not just about farmers"; he notes that there are more nurses than farmers in his Gippsland electorate.

Meanwhile, deputy Nationals leader and agriculture minister David Littleproud has expressed concern about the growing push for carbon border tariffs.

ScoMo's 2050 U-turn is a job killer

The Australian Financial Review - Page 38 : 12 February 2021 - Original article by John Roskam - PortMac.News Summary

Arguably a big factor in Scott Morrisons' election success in 2019 was his attack on Labor's climate change policies and its commitment to net zero emissions by 2050.

Now he has come out and said he wants Australia to achieve net zero emissions "as soon as possible", and preferably by 2050.

It has been estimated that a goal of net zero by 2050 will put 653,000 jobs at risk, with sectors such as coal mining and electricity supply most likely to be impacted.

Of the 10 federal electorates with the highest share of jobs at risk because of a net zero policy, six are held by the Nationals and four are held by the Liberals.

It is no therefore no surprise that the Nationals are unhappy about Morrison's about face on net zero emissions.

'Hopeless' housing program spends just 0.037% of $1 billion

The New Daily - Page Online : 12 February 2021 - Original article by Josh Butler - PortMac.News Summary

Introduced in the 2018 federal budget, the $1 billion National Housing Infrastructure Facility (NHIF) offers concessional loans, grants and equity finance for infrastructure that underpins the building of affordable housing.

However, according to figures released in 2020, the program has paid out just $370,000, despite increased homelessness fears.

Labor's shadow minister for housing, Jason Clare, claims that vulnerable Australians are worse off because of what he says is the government's failure to distribute funds from the NHIF.

Sweet Deal ! Nauru contract costs $10,000 a day per detainee

The Australian Financial Review - Page 10 : 12 February 2021 - Original article by Angus Grigg - PortMac.News Summary

The federal government has extended its contract with Canstruct for the management of the Nauru asylum-seeker detention centre until 30 June, with the extension worth $221 million.

With only around 120 asylum-seekers on Nauru, it works out to $10,000 per day for each one; Graham Thom from Amnesty International says the latest contract extension makes no sense when there are so few refugees on Nauru.

The extension takes to $1.4 billion that Canstruct will have received since it took over the contract to manage the detention centre from Broadspectrum in September 2017.

Fear unis are next in China trade war

The Australian - Page 3 : 12 February 2021 - Original article by Tim Dodd - PortMac.News Summary

China's Ministry of Education has claimed on its website that Australian universities that jointly deliver courses with universities in China have invested poorly in their programs in the last five years.

It is now expected that the Ministry will put together a taskforce to inspect the quality of Australian university courses delivered in China.

Griffith University has indicated that it is not aware of any concerns regarding its joint programs in China, and that it intends to seek more information on the matter through the Australian embassy in Beijing.

Trillions on table in Biden plan to kick-start building

The Australian Financial Review - Page 5 : 12 February 2021 - Original article by Ronald Mizen - PortMac.News Summary

US President Joe Biden has committed to a $US1.9 trillion economic stimulus package and a $US2 trillion clean energy infrastructure program.

He will hoping to get them passed by Congress while the Democrats still have control of the House of Representatives and the Senate, with mid-term elections due in 2022.

Australia's ambassador to Washington Arthur Sinodinos has told a superannuation conference he believes there will be good opportunities for Australian companies if Biden can get his programs through congress.

Australian infrastructure companies such as IFM Investors and LendLease could particularly benefit from Biden's spending program.

Share investors 'Treading water'

The Australian - Page 23 : 12 February 2021 - Original article by Rebecca Le May - PortMac.News Summary

The Australian sharemarket drifted lower on 11 February, with the S&P/ASX 200 easing 0.09% to close at 6,850.1 points.

Carl Capolingua of ThinkMarkets says the recent rise in risk appetite on global markets has not yet flowed through to the local bourse, and investors are awaiting the next catalyst.

AMP was down 11.04% at $1.37, but Telstra rose 2.52% to $3.25 and Crown Resorts added 2.45% to end the session at $10.05.

AMP shares savaged after Ares abandons takeover

The Australian - Page 15 & 19 : 12 February 2021 - Original article by Joyce Moullakis - PortMac.News Summary

AMP has posted a 2020 underlying profit of $295m, which is 32.8% lower than previously.

It has booked a statutory profit of $177m, following a $2.5bn loss in 2019.

Shares in the embattled wealth manager closed 11% lower at $1.37 on 11 February, after Ares Management abandoned an indicative takeover offer for the entire company.

However, AMP has indicated that it is still in talks with Ares regarding the AMP Capital division, and CEO Francesco De Ferrari says he hopes a deal to sell or demerge the business can be finalised by mid-year. AMP will not pay a final dividend.

Biden's stimulus plans set off danger signals

The Australian - Page 23 : 12 February 2021 - Original article by Robert Gottliebsen - PortMac.News Summary

The proposed stimulus package of US President Joe Biden is likely to have significant ramifications for the economy and investors.

US economic activity can be expected to increase significantly, which is likely to prompt a rise in the inflation rate.

This in turn will result in a further rise in US bond market interest rates as bond prices retreat.

Meanwhile, higher bond interest rates usually result in share price falls.

There may well be an orderly correction later in 2021, but wildcards such as the vast number of inexperienced and highly leveraged investors could make the eventual correction much more severe.

AGL stokes break-up talk after huge loss

The Australian Financial Review - Page 17 & 20 : 12 February 2021 - Original article by Angela Macdonald-Smith - PortMac.News Summary

AGL Energy has posted a statutory loss of $2.28bn for the first half of 2020-21, while its underlying profit was down 27% to $317m.

CEO Brett Redman has indicated that AGL is assessing its business model and capital structure in order to maximise shareholder value.

This has prompted speculation that the electricity and gas group could opt to separate its retail and generation businesses, given that some European utilities have abandoned the integrated 'gentailer' business model.

Shareholders will receive an interim dividend of $0.41 per share, which includes a special dividend of $0.10.

News media laws on fast track

The Australian - Page 4 : 12 February 2021 -Original article by James Madden - PortMac.News Summary

The report of a Senate inquiry into the proposed news media bargaining code will be tabled in federal parliament on 12 February.

The report is expected to recommend that the bill be presented to the Senate in its current form, and the upper house is likely to vote on the bill on 16 February.

Independent senator Rex Patrick has advised that he will support the bill in its current form if his proposed amendments are rejected.

The Greens will also seek a number of concessions, although the party is in favour of requiring digital platforms to pay for news content.

Big Tech defamation law push

The Australian - Page 4 : 12 February 2021 - Original article by Nicola Berkovic - PortMac.News Summary

Attorney-General Christian Porter argues that the business models of digital platforms are very similar to that of traditional news companies, so they should be subject to similar defamation laws.

However, he notes that this is not the case at present, contending that the laws governing traditional media are more prescriptive and safer.

Porter adds that there is growing support for extending uniform defamation laws to social media companies.