Author: roymorgansocial

Australian workers had 151 million days of annual leave when the country entered COVID-19 shutdown

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Original article by Roy Morgan
Market Research Update – Page: Online : 17-Jun-20

The latest figures from Roy Morgan show that Australians in paid employment had over 151 million days’ worth of annual leave, up 8.7 million days (+6.1%) on a year ago, as Australia entered shut-down in March in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This was the highest total of accrued annual leave since March 2012 and equates to an average of over 16 days for each paid worker in Australia. Only 10% of Australia’s paid workers had no annual leave owed to them, while a further 14% had up to 2 weeks accrued. Nearly a quarter of paid workers (23%) had between two and four weeks of annual leave accrued and another one-in-ten had around a month owed to them. More than one-in-five paid workers (21%) had at least five weeks’ worth as yet unused. These results are from the Roy Morgan Single Source survey, derived from in-depth interviews with over 1,000 Australians each week and around 50,000 Australians per year in their homes.

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ROY MORGAN LIMITED

12.7 million Australians use streaming music services

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Original article by Roy Morgan
Market Research Update – Page: Online : 17-Jun-20

Over 12.7 million Australians (61%) now use music streaming services in an average four weeks, an increase of over 3.7 million from three years ago. Spotify is the clear market leader, used by 8 million Australians; it has more than doubled its Australian user-base since 2017, up by 4.4 million (+122%). The most prominent rival to Spotify is clearly YouTube Music (including Google Play Music), now used by 5.5 million Australians (26%). Apple Music and SoundCloud are each used by substantial numbers of Australians as the third and fourth most popular services in the music streaming market. It is important to understand that these figures do not include all live radio streams and podcasts that Australians are able to listen to via these services. Early in 2019 over 1.6 million Australians downloaded podcasts in an average four weeks, and there are many others who livestream radio broadcasts of sporting events and talkback radio as well. In contrast to these growing services a declining minority of 8.1 million Australians (39%) do not currently use any music streaming services, a drop of 2.7 million from three years ago.

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ROY MORGAN LIMITED, SPOTIFY LIMITED, YOUTUBE MUSIC, APPLE MUSIC, SOUNDCLOUD

JobKeeper cash needed for schools and hospitals

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Original article by Rosie Lewis
The Australian – Page: 2 : 16-Jun-20

Restaurant & Catering Australia CEO Wes Lambert has urged the federal government to retain the JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme until at least the end of 2020. However, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has argued that retaining coronavirus stimulus measures beyond the scheduled expiration date of late September would result in less funding for essential services such as health and education. The government may introduce stimulus measures that target sectors which have been hardest hit by the economic downturn.

CORPORATES
RESTAURANT AND CATERING INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA INCORPORATED, AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER AND CABINET

Growing Virgin bondholders group emerges as kingmaker

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Original article by Lucas Baird
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 13 & 27 : 16-Jun-20

Final, binding offers for failed airline Virgin Australia are due on 22 June, with a decision on whether Bain Capital or Cyrus Capital Partners gets chosen as the successful bidder due at the second creditors’ meeting in mid-August. Unsecured bond and note holders in Virgin are owed around $2 billion, and a group of them has increased to almost 6,000 members in recent weeks; the group is getting advice from law firms Faraday and Corrs Chambers Westgarth on the sales process. Jason Harris from the University of Sydney Law School says any sales agreement that results in the bondholders getting little in the way of their money back is likely to be challenged in court.

CORPORATES
VIRGIN AUSTRALIA HOLDINGS LIMITED – ASX VAH, BAIN CAPITAL LLC, CYRUS CAPITAL PARTNERS LP, FARADAY AND KENT, CORRS CHAMBERS WESTGARTH, QANTAS AIRWAYS LIMITED – ASX QAN

NAB latest company to investigate underpayments to staff

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Original article by
The New Daily – Page: Online : 16-Jun-20

National Australia Bank has admitted that about 1,500 employees have been underpaid, although Wendy Streets of the Finance Sector Union believes that the figure may be much higher. She says the issue of underpayments at NAB has been a concern for the union for some time. Affected staff will collectively receive about $1.3m in backpay, superannuation and interest, while the bank has commissioned King & Wood Mallesons and PwC to undertake a review of its payroll system.

CORPORATES
NATIONAL AUSTRALIA BANK LIMITED – ASX NAB, FINANCE SECTOR UNION, KING AND WOOD MALLESONS, PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS AUSTRALIA (INTERNATIONAL) PTY LTD

Rio set indigenous precedent at Argyle

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Original article by Victoria Laurie
The Australian – Page: 5 : 16-Jun-20

Professor Ciaran O’Faircheallaigh of Griffith University says a clause in Rio Tinto’s agreement with traditional owners regarding the Argyle diamond mine could be used to protect heritage sites in the Pilbara. The agreement signed in 2005 ensures that Rio Tinto cannot use section 18 of the Aboriginal Heritage Act to destroy sites that are of cultural significance to indigenous people. Rio Tinto’s recent blasting that destroyed ancient rock caves at its Brockman mine had been approved under section 18 in 2013.

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RIO TINTO LIMITED – ASX RIO, GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY

Early access super requests near $15bn

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Original article by Gerard Cockburn
The Australian – Page: 15 : 16-Jun-20

Data from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority shows that 2.12 million people have applied to withdraw money from their superannuation fund via the federal government’s early access scheme. Some $14.8bn has been paid out to 1.98 million fund members; AustralianSuper heads the list, having paid out $1.98bn to 264,404 members. The early access scheme has been criticised by the ACTU in a submission to a Senate committee hearing into the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

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AUSTRALIAN PRUDENTIAL REGULATION AUTHORITY, AUSTRALIANSUPER PTY LTD, ACTU

Bad loans hit small banks hard: Citi

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Original article by Cliona O’Dowd
The Australian – Page: 16 : 16-Jun-20

Citigroup analysts note that Australia’s smaller mortgage lenders have actively pursued increased market share in recent years. However, Citi warns that they are set to be hardest hit by a coronavirus-induced rise in loan losses later in 2020, as such losses tend to be highest during the first 3-4 years of a loan. Citi contends that small lenders will need to focus on capital demands rather than further growing their market share, which in turn is likely to prompt a swing back to large lenders.

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CITIGROUP PTY LTD

Facebook says it doesn’t need news stories for its business and won’t pay to share them in Australia

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Original article by Naaman Zhou, Amanda Meade
The Guardian Australia – Page: Online : 16-Jun-20

Social media company Facebook has rejected a proposal to share its advertising revenue with news publishers. The mandatory code of conduct being developed by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission would govern the relationship between media companies and digital platforms such as Facebook and Google. Facebook claims that there would be no significant impact to its income if it stopped sharing news content, while it says the revenue-sharing proposal means it would be subsidising a competitor.

CORPORATES
FACEBOOK INCORPORATED, AUSTRALIAN COMPETITION AND CONSUMER COMMISSION, GOOGLE INCORPORATED

State delays hold up HomeBuilder grants

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Original article by Nila Sweeney
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 33 : 16-Jun-20

Housing Minister and Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar says there is a lot of interest in the federal government’s HomeBuilder scheme. He says there have been more than 296,000 visits to the HomeBuilder website and over 23,000 people have registered their interest in the scheme. However, mortgage brokers claim that they have not yet been able to get any borrower processed under the scheme, as the states have not yet signed up to it. Homeloanexperts.com.au MD Otto Dargan says it is still waiting to hear from the appropriate state government bodies on advice as to how the scheme will work.

CORPORATES
AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE TREASURY, HOMELOANEXPERTS.COM.AU