Victoria’s unprecedented lockdown restrictions will shut down most of Melbourne’s retail shops, close almost every professional service office, and greatly curtail manufacturing and construction for the next six weeks. More than 250,000 additional workers could lose their jobs. Australian Retailers Association CEO Paul Zahra says today’s decision will have a devastating impact on Victorian businesses. […]

Fortescue Metals has broken its own production record, shipping 178.2 million tonnes of iron ore and taking advantage of surging demand from Chinese steel producers amid sky-high prices. The record result was lapped up by investors and saw the share price of the company climb by about 4%, and up by more than 100% since […]

Sting, Madonna, Cher, Bono… and Jim. As in, Jim’s Mowing, Australia’s mononymous gardening and services pioneer, with teams of tradies in green shirts mowing lawns, fixing roofs, plugging leaks and straightening antennas in suburbs across Australia for more than 30 years. Since founding the eponymous gardening empire in the 1980s, Jim Penman now runs Jim’s […]

From October, workers on the government’s JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme will be eligible to double-dip and claim JobSeeker payments as well. JobSeeker is available to those earning less than $1256 a fortnight, which means a full-time worker earning $1200 a fortnight on the upper-tier rate of JobKeeper 2.0 could be able to claim $284 worth […]

JobKeeper, the most expensive fiscal measure in Australian history, will be extended by another six months at a cost to the budget of roughly $16.6 billion. The scheme will be scaled back and include tighter eligibility requirements where businesses must meet the 30% turnover decline in both the June and September quarters. The wage subsidy […]

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says pursuing a strategy to eliminate COVID-19 would be economically disastrous and would cause the unemployment rate to double. The Prime Ministers’ comments are in line with those made by New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian, who all but ruled out lockdowns in Sydney. James Pearson, CEO of the Australian Chamber […]