Latest
AI minister: Cut company tax to boost robotics, automation
A call by Ed Husic to cut taxes on corporate profits to encourage investment in advanced manufacturing has been applauded by business but exposed a split in the cabinet.
- Phillip Coorey
Reform GST to abolish stamp duty: Liberal MP
Newly elected Cook MP Simon Kennedy says states and territories should compete for housing and infrastructure funding.
- Tom McIlroy
EU critical minerals deal a boost for ‘green premium’ nickel
A new MoU between Australia and the European Union will smooth the way for investment in resources projects.
- Andrew Tillett
David Rowe cartoons for May 2024
David Rowe is a multiple Walkley award-winning cartoonist. He draws a daily political cartoon and one for the Chanticleer column.
- Updated
- David Rowe
Giles orders urgent review into criminal ‘migrants’
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles says he is looking at freshly cancelling the visas of non-citizens who a tribunal has stopped from being deported.
- Andrew Tillett
Young royals face National Service under Sunak’s election plans
There’s nothing new in royalty doing military service, as Britain’s European neighbours can attest.
- Amy Gibbons
Opinion & Analysis
Husic, inadvertently perhaps, has rained on the budget centrepiece
Industry Minister Ed Husic articulated a long-held view that the government needed to consider lowering the company tax burden to spur investment.
Political editor
Someone will have to bite the bullet and raise taxes
It’s delusional to think that we can find large new areas to spend money on without the overall cost of government going up. But whoever raises taxes first will have an advantage.
Columnist
The republican crown needs a new head: who will step up?
The Australian Republican Movement throne need not be empty for long considering this shining array of talent.
Satirist
There’s a super-sized hole in the budget. Here’s why
The forecast bounce in the tax take on superannuation will not happen because we’ve massively overdone the concessions that take from poorer and give to richer Australians.
Economist
Yesterday
- Opinion
- Company tax
Husic, inadvertently perhaps, has rained on the budget centrepiece
Industry Minister Ed Husic articulated a long-held view that the government needed to consider lowering the company tax burden to spur investment.
- Phillip Coorey
Human Rights Commission’s ‘silence deafening’ on antisemitism
Former regulator Graeme Samuel has taken aim at the Human Rights Commission for it’s ‘deafening silence’ on the rise of antisemitism.
- Patrick Durkin and Andrew Tillett
AI brain drain likely, but Australia has a natural advantage
AI talent and funds will inevitably head to the US but Australia’s advantage in renewable energy could help power the data centres needed to run them. How the day unfolded.
- Updated
- Campbell Kwan
Husic’s tax call | Lendlease’s UK handbrake | ‘River to the Sea’ explained
Read everything that’s happened in the news so far today.
Husic calls for lower corporate taxes
Industry Minister Ed Husic has called for a lowering of corporate tax, either via direct reduction in the rate or through an economy-wide investment allowance.
- Phillip Coorey and Kylar Loussikian
This Month
Health spending outstrips tax cuts in budget beauty contest
Defence spending and paying superannuation on public paid parental leave, were the two least popular measures in the federal budget, a new survey reveals.
- Phillip Coorey
Qld’s 50¢ bus fares are a desperate political gimmick
Cutting public transport fares to 50¢ is another ratcheting up of a fiscally irresponsible political culture that expects governments to endlessly buy votes.
- The AFR View
School graffiti attack builds heat on government over antisemitism
The government could not say whether a graffiti attack on a Jewish school would be covered by proposed new hate laws.
- Phillip Coorey
Young, ready to go regional: the migrants business wants most
Australia should prioritise full-time workers who have settled in locations with the biggest skills shortages, big four firm KPMG says.
- Tom McIlroy
Foreign ‘power couples’ could head the queue under migration revamp
Amid business fears migration cuts will worsen labour shortages, the Coalition wants foreign workers’ partners to have skills that contribute to the economy.
- Andrew Tillett
Wilkinson seeks $1.8 million in costs for Lehrmann trial
Ten has ‘limited’ chance of recouping costs; PNG landslide death toll estimated to be at least 670; Israeli airstrikes kill at least 35 in Rafah; Marles denies go-slow on Ukraine aid request. Here’s how the day unfolded.
- Updated
- Maxim Shanahan
Readers back production tax credits, wary of immigration cuts
Most readers of The Australian Financial Review support the Albanese government’s production tax credits, but less than a third back his immigration cuts designed to tackle the housing crisis.
- Updated
- Gus McCubbing
- Exclusive
- Defence
Questions surface over fast-tracked $10b warships
Shipbuilders have been given just three weeks to outline their opening pitch to build new frigates for the navy.
- Andrew Tillett
- Exclusive
- China relations
Foreign student crackdown looms over Li Qiang visit
Chinese Premier Li Qiang will head to Australia next month amid uncertainty over new curbs on universities enrolling thousands of Chinese students.
- Andrew Tillett
- Exclusive
- Federal election
Labor faces minority government threat, poll shows
A year out from the next federal election, a huge new poll on Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton’s prospects shows that at least 10 seats are too close to call.
- Tom McIlroy
Migrants are ‘driving Ubers’, not working skilled jobs
More than half of skilled migrants are working in occupations they are overqualified for, suggesting that Australia is failing to capitalise on foreign workers to fill skills shortages.
- John Kehoe
New hate speech laws in focus as social cohesion frays
Anti-Semitic graffiti scrawled on the fence of a Melbourne Jewish school has been condemned by the prime minister as the government considers tougher penalties for hate speech.
- Poppy Johnston
Crisis-focused Home Affairs fails to prepare for security threats
A review of the $6.3 billion Home Affairs department has found it is too focused on crisis management, and lacks the trust of other key intelligence agencies.
- Tom Burton
Albanese’s diary reveals the CEOs who scored access in 2023
Absent from the diary was a black-tie gala to celebrate Qantas’ centenary, at which the PM gave a speech and was photographed on the red carpet with Alan Joyce.
- Ronald Mizen
Bandt lashed for failing to back two-state solution to end Gaza war
Jewish leaders say the Greens are the “friends of terrorists, foe of democracy” over pro-Palestinian Middle East stance.
- Andrew Tillett
