Michael Read

4 days ago | afr.com | John Kehoe |Michael Read

Jun 3, 2025 – 5.04pm or Subscribe to save articleSubscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe. Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? Government spending on social benefits surged by a record 16 per cent last financial year, due to higher payments for the $50 billion National Disability Insurance Scheme, childcare subsidies and energy bill discounts.

4 days ago | afr.com | Michael Read |John Kehoe

The OECD has urged the federal and state governments to repair their budgets, as new data shows record growth in welfare spending while business investment languishes near a four-decade low, highlighting Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ challenge to spur a private sector-led economic recovery. In its latest economic outlook, the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation found that business investment was 30 per cent weaker than what it should be in Australia, based on economic conditions.

1 week ago | afr.com | Michael Read

May 28, 2025 – 7.00pm or Subscribe to save articleSubscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe. Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? Working from home is likely to be beneficial for productivity as long as employees still come into the office a few days a week to generate ideas and learn from each other, the Productivity Commission has concluded in an extensive review of the pandemic economy.

1 week ago | afr.com | Michael Smith |Michaël Smith |Michael Read

May 28, 2025 – 12.05pm or Subscribe to save articleSubscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe. Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? Major international hedge funds which now control large parts of Healthscope’s $1.6 billion debt are not ruling out running the failed private health hospital as longer-term shareholders if they cannot find a buyer for the business, but are facing resistance from a big landlord.

1 week ago | afr.com | Michael Read

May 28, 2025 – 11.59am or Subscribe to save articleSubscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe. Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? Inflation is not a barrier to another cash rate cut at the next Reserve Bank board meeting in July, as new figures showed price pressures remained within the central bank’s target band last month. Headline inflation was unchanged at 2.4 per cent in April, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday.