Latest updates on Key Economic Indicators

Australian Dollar: $0.7757 USD (up $0.0010 USD)

Iron Ore Mar Spot Price (SGX): $161.00 USD (down $0.95 USD)

Oil Price (WTI): $59.47 USD (up $1.52 USD)

Gold Price (12 Feb): $1,824.60 (up $0.88 USD)

Gold Price (15 Feb): $1,824.77 (up $0.17 USD

Bitcoin: $48,898.33 USD (up 4.41 % in last 24 hours)

Dow Jones: 31,458.40 (up 27.70 points on Thursday's close)

All changes compared to 7am Friday, except gold.

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Tight security for first shipment of vaccines

The Australian - Page 6 : 15 February 2021 - Original article by Natasha Robinson - PortMac.News Summary

Federal government sources have confirmed that the first shipment of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine will arrive in Australia within days.

Experts from the Therapeutic Goods Administration will undertake final quality-control batch testing before the vaccine is distributed to hospital hubs and other designated vaccination centres.

The first shipment is expected to comprise about 80,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, and a similar number is slated to arrive in Australia each week from early March.

The vaccine rollout is expected to begin in the last week of February, with border and quarantine workers, frontline healthcare workers and aged-care staff and residents to be among the first to be vaccinated.

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Harry and Meghan expecting Baby #2

Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, are expecting their second child, a spokesperson for the couple says.

"We can confirm that Archie is going to be a big brother," the spokesperson said.

"The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are overjoyed to be expecting their second child."

The baby will be eighth in line to the throne.

For complete story see feature article on PortMac.News today.

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80% of Australians willing to be vaccinated

Market Research Update - Page Online : 15 February 2021 - Original article by Roy Morgan - PortMac.News Summary

A special Roy Morgan SMS survey shows that 80% of Australians say they would be willing to be vaccinated if a new Coronavirus vaccine became publicly available, up 1% point since late January.

This sentiment is high across a broad range of demographics, including among both men (83%) and women (77%), across all age groups and in all six States.

In addition, 61% of Australians say mask wearing should be compulsory.

This has declined by 11% points since mid-January, but it has increased in Victoria, now at 78% (up 1% point), as the State entered its third lockdown on Friday evening.

Meanwhile, 57% of Australians (down 11% points since mid-January) do not want State borders to be completely open, but there is a wide divergence of views depending upon where someone lives.

A large majority of 80% of people in Western Australia don't want State borders completely open, down 5% points since mid-January, compared to only 42% of people in NSW (down 13% points).

The survey was conducted with an Australia-wide cross-section of 1,685 Australians aged 18+ on Friday February 12 and Saturday February 13, 2021.

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Australia stops quarantine-free travel for New Zealand

abc.net.au - Page Online : 15 February 2021 - Original article by Stephanie Borys - PortMac.News Summary

The federal government has temporarily suspended the trans-Tasman travel bubble after three new locally-acquired cases of COVID-19 were reported in Auckland.

People flying to Australia from New Zealand over the next three days will be required to spend 14 days in a quarantine hotel, and the new rules could be extended beyond the current three-day time-frame.

A three-day lockdown has been imposed in Auckland in response to the new cases of COVID-19, with the city moving to level 3 restrictions.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says health authorities have yet to determine how the family of three contracted the virus.

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US, WHO demand Wuhan virus data

The Australian - Page 8 : 15 February 2021 - Original article by Brian Knowlton, Nina Larson - PortMac.News Summary

A four-week mission to China by World Health Organisation experts aimed at uncovering the origins of the pandemic finished in the week ending 12 February with no conclusive findings.

Mission leader Peter Ben Embarek said it would have liked access to raw data on earlier cases of illnesses prior to the virus first being discovered in Wuhan in December to see if any may have been COVID-19.

Meanwhile US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has called on China to "make available its data from the earliest days of the outbreak."

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New dole: one payment for all

The Australian - Page 1 & 6 : 15 February 2021 - Original article by Simon Benson, Geoff Chambers - PortMac.News Summary

The federal government's expenditure review committee is believed to have considered a proposal to provide a single welfare payment for all unemployed Australians.

This would most likely result in a number of low-value supplements and subsidies being scrapped, while the base rate of the JobSeeker allowance would be increased. It is believed that higher-value payments such as rent assistance and family tax benefits would be retained.

Meanwhile, data from the Australia Taxation Office shows that more than 2.13 million people had ceased receiving JobKeeper by the end of December, and fewer than 1.54 million were still on the wage subsidy at the end of 2020.

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Attack on contracting: how Albanese would transform business

The Weekend Australian - Page 34 : 13 February 2021 - Original article by Robert Gottliebsen - PortMac.News Summary

Labor leader Anthony Albanese and new US President Joe Biden have very similar policies when it comes to independent contractors.

Both their policies would slash the use of independent contractors in areas such as health services, mining and home repairs.

Biden indicated in the late stages of his campaign that he would support the Democrats' proposed legislation ProAct, which is very similar to California's AB5 legislation, which bans independent contracting.

The latter has been described as a disaster, and a recent referendum saw Uber and similar enterprises made exempt from it.

Albanese is proposing a range of measures that he will enact if he wins the next election that will take away the flexibility that comes with independent contracting, while a recent survey indicates that just 0.19% of the Australian workforce use the 'gig' economy for their full time income.

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Steps to help farmers play a part

The Australian Financial Review - Page 8 : 15 February 2021 - Original article by Tom McIlroy - PortMac.News Summary

A report from the Liberal Party-aligned Menzies Research Centre has called for the overhaul of the measurement and certification of soil organic carbon levels.

The report claims that increasing carbon content of soils by 0.5% would have the same impact as closing Australia's coal-fired power stations for three years in terms of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.

It has proposed the introduction of HECS-type loans to assist farmers to better measure the carbon levels in soil, along with recommending that soil carbon content be adopted as a principal biodiversity metric.

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'Hidden money': $50m flows in secret political donations

The Australian Financial Review - Page 8 : 15 February 2021 - Original article by Tom McIlroy - PortMac.News Summary

Watchdog group the Centre for Public Integrity contends Australia's major political parties have received $1.2 billion in gifts and donations from unknown sources since 1998-99, based on the analysis of Australian Electoral Commission data,.

The amount including $50 million in the 2019-20 financial year.

Centre Chairman Anthony Whealy, QC, has called for a series of reforms to federal donation laws, including a $1,000 disclosure threshold and real-time disclosures, while he says the AEC needs increased resources and expertise to make the disclosure system work properly.

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SMS and addresses to stop e-petition hacks

The Australian - Page 2 : 15 February 2021 - Original article by Richard Ferguson - PortMac.News Summary

The Department of Parliamentary Services is looking at how e-petitions can be made more secure and less vulnerable to being infiltrated with false names and online bots.

Currently, e-petitions signatories only need to give an email address and a declaration that they are an Australian citizen.

However, the Department has told a committee ­investigating the security of the e-petition system that it is looking at SMS verification and the provision of residential addresses for e-petitions in the future.

An e-petition launched by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd that called for a royal commission into the media was found to have at least 1,000 fake signatories.

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Naval Group admits it had to trim subs budget

The Australian Financial Review - Page 10 : 15 February 2021 - Original article by Andrew Tillett - PortMac.News Summary

Naval Group has admitted it has gone over the Defence Department's budget expectations for the next stage of the $90 billion submarine project.

Naval Group is the French company in charge of building the submarines, and Prime Minister Scott Morrison is said to become increasingly frustrated about the project, speaking to French President Emmanuel Macron about it during a phone call in January.

Naval Group is understood to be blaming Australian suppliers being more expensive and new demands by the Australian government as being the reasons for it exceeding Defence's budget expectations.

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ANZ closures about 'profits over people'

The Australian - Page 17 : 15 February 2021 - Original article by Sophie Elsworth - PortMac.News Summary

Australian banks are under scrutiny over the closure of branch banks.

The Finance Sector Union's national secretary Julia Angrisano says the banks claim that customers do not value branches and prefer to complete their financial transactions online.

She contends that banks are driving the shift to online banking, as they can reduce staff numbers, increase profits and save on wages and rents.

The ANZ Bank recently announced plans to close 18 branches in 2021, after it closed 91 branches during 2020. The three other major banks also closed a number of branches during 2020.

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Small businesses slam payments merger plan

The Australian Financial Review - Page 18 : 15 February 2021 - Original article by James Eyers - PortMac.News Summary

There is growing opposition to a proposal to merge the nation's three domestic payments systems.

The Australian Retailers Association and the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia are among those to have expressed concern about the proposal to merge eftpos, Bpay and the New Payments Platform.

COSBOA contends that the proposed merger is about protecting profits and claims that the structure for the merged entity is a "smokescreen for a monopoly". The Australian Chamber of Commerce & Industry has emphasised the need for competition in payments infrastructure.

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Major overhaul urged for insider trading rules

The Australian Financial Review - Page 18 : 15 February 2021 - Original article by Jemima Whyte - PortMac.News Summary

Changes to insider trading rules governing the sale of shares by company founders have been discussed at a hearing of the Senate committee for financial technology and regulatory technology.

The changes are aimed at making such sales easier, and have the support of technology company founders such as Richard White and Mike Cannon-Brookes.

Jones Day partner Shannon Finch says the proposals represent the most significant change to insider trading rules in decades, while ASX executive general manager Max Cunningham says they would encourage more companies to list in Australia and would boost general market liquidity.

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First Aussie SPAC hunts the next Atlassian

The Australian Financial Review - Page 17 : 15 February 2021 - Original article by Paul Smith - PortMac.News Summary

Catcha Group co-founders Patrick Grove and Luke Elliott have launched a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) on the New York Stock Exchange after a capital raising that Grove says was 10 times oversubscribed.

SPACs are publicly listed entities that acquire privately owned companies to "list in the shell".

Goldman Sachs has reported that SPACs raised $US70 billion from investors in 2020, up fivefold on 2018.

Grove says Catcha Investment Corp will seeking to acquire companies valued "north" of $US1 billion, and that it is looking to find the "next Atlassian".

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Young viewers prefer to pay for quality content

The Australian - Page 19 : 15 February 2021 - Original article by James Madden - PortMac.News Summary

A survey has found that younger Australians are the most likely to use a subscription video-on-demand service.

The findings, to be released by the Bureau of Communications, Arts & Regional Research on 15 February, also show that 96% of Australians are now aware of SVOD services.

Meanwhile, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher says the federal government wants to ensure that SVODs invest a proportion of their Australian revenue in local content; free-to-air broadcasters still commission the bulk of local content.

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$20bn iron ore dividend boom

The Australian - Page 16 : 15 February 2021 - Original article by Nick Evans - PortMac.News Summary

Data from Vuma shows that the consensus of analysts is that Fortescue Metals Group will announce a 2020-21 interim dividend of $1.329 per share.

BHP in turn is tipped to pay a half-year dividend of $US0.84 per share, while Rio Tinto's full-year payout is forecast to be $US4.80 per share.

Some analysts have suggested that the strong price of iron ore could see Australia's three major producers of the steel input announce a combined payout of more than $20bn when their latest financial results are released in coming days.

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Rinehart in milestone as Forrest, Ellison row

The Australian Financial Review - Page 21 : 15 February 2021 - Original article by Brad Thompson - PortMac.News Summary

Atlas Iron has announced that the first ore from its Sanjiv Ridge mine in Western Australia was crushed ahead of schedule on 3 February.

The new mine is expected to extend the life of Atlas Iron's operations by five to six years, with Atlas being acquired by Gina Rinehart's Hancock Prospecting in 2018 for $390 million after a three-way battle with Chris Ellison's Mineral Resources and Andrew Forrest's Fortescue Metals.

Meanwhile, Forrest and Ellison are involved in a legal stoush over Mineral Resources' proposed Wonmunna iron ore project.

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'Occupancy has hit the cliff': Thousands of student apartments mothballed

The Age - Page Online : 14 February 2021 - Original article by Rachel Eddie, Chloe Booker - PortMac.News Summary

Dr Peter Hurley from the Mitchell Institute estimates the number of international students in Melbourne's CBD has fallen by 8,900 because of the pandemic.

With thousands of student apartments already sitting empty, Hurley says that 2021 will probably be worse for the student accommodation sector than 2020, with student accommodation provider Scape co-founder and chairman Cliff Craig Carracher noting its occupancy levels have "hit the cliff".

Melbourne deputy lord mayor Nicholas Reece says higher education has delivered a "modern-day gold rush" to the city, while he says the pandemic could provide an opportunity to bring in improved regulation for new student accommodation developments.