Author: roymorgansocial

ABC raid could scare off sources

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Original article by Hannah Wootton
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 4 : 30-Oct-19

The Federal Court has adjourned its hearing into the ABC’s legal challenge to the validity of a police raid on its Sydney headquarters in June. Matt Collins, SC, who is representing the public broadcaster, has told the court that whistleblowers will be reluctant to contact journalists if the Australian Federal Police’s search warrant is not overturned. Amongst other things, the ABC’s case is based on the implied freedom of political communication in the Constitution.

CORPORATES
AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION, AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE, FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA

PM’s $1bn clean energy bet

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Original article by Geoff Chambers
The Australian – Page: 1 & 4 : 30-Oct-19

The federal government will establish a Grid Reliability Fund, which will be administered by the Clean Energy Finance ­Corporation. The new fund will invest in projects that increase the reliability of energy supplies and transmission infrastructure, and help to reduce electricity prices. Such projects include the ones that are on the short-list for the Underwriting New Generation Investments scheme. The government will also inject an additional $1bn into the CEFC.

CORPORATES
AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER AND CABINET, AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY, AUSTRALIA. CLEAN ENERGY FINANCE CORPORATION, AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF FINANCE, AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY, TRANSGRID, AUSTRALIAN ENERGY REGULATOR, AUSTRALIAN ENERGY MARKET COMMISSION

Google faces court case over misled users

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Original article by David Swan, Elias Visontay
The Australian – Page: 1 & 6 : 30-Oct-19

The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission has launched legal action against digital giant Google for misleading users of Android smartphones with regard to the amount of data it collects and how the data would be used. Amongst other things, the ACCC contends that Google failed to inform consumers that it would continue to receive location data from their smartphones if they switched off the ‘location history’ option. Google faces potential fines of up to $10m or 10 per cent of its annual turnover if the alleged breaches of Australian consumer law are proven in the Federal Court.

CORPORATES
GOOGLE INCORPORATED, AUSTRALIAN COMPETITION AND CONSUMER COMMISSION, FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA

New Roy Morgan Report Fills the Information Gap on Australians’ Net Wealth

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Original article by Roy Morgan
Market Research Update – Page: Online : 30-Oct-19

There has been no shortage of attempts to measure the true state of wealth in Australia. Some have focused on income, others have tracked debt and yet others have tried to quantify assets. They have supplied pieces of the puzzle. But no-one has been able to provide the full picture on the Net Wealth held by individual Australians – until now. The Roy Morgan Wealth Report 2019 fills the gaps, providing evidence-based answers to the lingering questions about wealth in our nation. By calculating total personal assets and subtracting total personal debt, the report offers the first fully detailed data on Australians’ Net Wealth. This information matters because wealth, and the way it is distributed, is intrinsically linked to Australia’s economic resilience and future. Roy Morgan is able to deliver this information thanks to Australia’s most extensive and longest-running study of consumer financial behaviour. The study, which has been running continuously for more than 20 years, involves over 50,000 in-depth, face-to-face interviews conducted in respondents’ homes each year. This provides privileged access to every aspect of Australians’ lives, including fully detailed financial positions, providing data of unmatched depth and breadth. It enables analysis of genuine Net Wealth by age, gender, location, employment type and more, showing precisely what form that wealth takes, how evenly or otherwise it is distributed, how it has grown, and what further shifts are likely in coming years.

CORPORATES
ROY MORGAN LIMITED

‘We’re not doing it’: PM quickly nixes call to raise GST

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Original article by Phillip Coorey
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 5 : 29-Oct-19

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has ruled out any changes to the goods and services tax regime without seeking a mandate from voters. Morrison has indicated that the federal government looked at broadening the GST when he was Treasurer, but such a move was deemed to have little economic benefit. Liberal senator Dean Smith recently broke ranks with his Coalition colleagues by advocating an increase in the rate and scope of the GST, arguing that the additional revenue would allow the states to abolish payroll taxes.

CORPORATES
AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER AND CABINET, AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER AND CABINET, LIBERAL PARTY OF AUSTRALIA, AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF FINANCE, AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY, NEW SOUTH WALES. THE TREASURY

Google backs industry code, not a revenue-sharing model

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Original article by Max Mason
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 2 : 29-Oct-19

The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission has called for a code of conduct to govern business relationships between media companies and digital platforms. With both Google and Facebook having come under global scrutiny over their impact on journalism and its underlying business models, Google’s vice-president of news Richard Gingras says he believes the code is a "sensible" idea. However, he does not believe it should include revenue sharing.

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

Unions push for jail terms for wage theft

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Original article by David Marin-Guzman
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 4 : 29-Oct-19

The ACTU has urged the federal government to introduce harsher penalties for employers who underpay their staff. Its submission to the government’s compliance discussion paper advocates a maximum jail term of five years or a fine of up to $2m for individuals and $10m for a company. The Australian Chamber of Commerce & Industry has in turn expressed concern about imposing criminal penalties for breaches of workplace laws. It has argued that such penalties should also apply to the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining & Energy Union.

CORPORATES
ACTU, AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY, CONSTRUCTION, FORESTRY, MARITIME, MINING AND ENERGY UNION OF AUSTRALIA

You’re at dangerous crossroads, warns legendary news anchor

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Original article by Steve Jackson
The Australian – Page: 1 : 29-Oct-19

US broadcaster Larry King believes that Australia needs to adopt similar laws to the first amendment to the US Constitution, which protects freedom of speech and freedom of the press. King says he was shocked to learn of Australian Federal Police raids on a journalist’s home and on the ABC’s Sydney headquarters in June, saying he would have reacted with violence if his home had been raided in such a fashion.

CORPORATES
AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE, AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION

Australian-made significantly preferred to Chinese-made

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Original article by Roy Morgan
Market Research Update – Page: Online : 29-Oct-19

New research by Roy Morgan shows that Australians are more likely to buy products across a wide range of industries if they know the product is made in Australia. Only a minority say the same about products they know are made in China. The largest differences are for food, wine, skin care and cosmetics. A huge majority, 88%, say they’d be more likely to buy food if they knew it was made in Australia, while only 6% say the same for Chinese-made food. The gap in favour of Australian-made wine is almost as large (72% vs. 4%). The next largest gaps in favour of Australian-made products are for skin care products (56% vs. 6%) and cosmetics (51% vs. 4%). Chinese-made products with the best performance include clothes, electrical goods, mobile phones and footwear. At least 20% of Australians indicated they would be more likely to buy these products if they knew they were made in China, although all trailed well behind Australian-made counterparts. These are the key findings from the Roy Morgan Single Source survey, derived from in-depth face-to-face interviews with 1,000 Australians each week and around 50,000 each year.

CORPORATES
ROY MORGAN LIMITED

Slow restart at Samarco will be small beer for Australian miners

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Original article by Peter Ker
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 19 : 29-Oct-19

Lachlan Shaw of National Australia Bank says the resumption of production at the Samarco joint venture in Brazil is unlikely to have much impact on Australia’s iron ore exporters. BHP and Vale has been granted environmental approval to resume production in late 2020. Shaw notes that based on the initial production rate that has been flagged, it would take about 10 years for production at Samarco to return to the levels prior to the tailings dam disaster in November 2015.

CORPORATES
BHP GROUP LIMITED – ASX BHP, VALE SA, SAMARCO MINERACAO SA, NATIONAL AUSTRALIA BANK LIMITED – ASX NAB, FORTESCUE METALS GROUP LIMITED – ASX FMG, RIO TINTO LIMITED – ASX RIO