Rex Patrick

1 week ago | michaelwest.com.au | Rex Patrick |Michael West

The location of Australia’s nuclear submarine bases on the East Coast is so sensitive that the Defence Department withheld an FOI response until 24 hours after the polls closed. Rex Patrick reports. Documents released to me last Sunday, based on an FOI request, were due on March 15, just before the election campaign was about to start in earnest. Was the delay coincidental? I think not.

2 weeks ago | michaelwest.com.au | Rex Patrick |Michael West

The AUKUS submarine project faces huge risks, and Cabinet knows. But as the Government ships $2B of taxpayers’ money to the US this year, with much more to follow, the taxpayer is not being told. Rex Patrick reports. On 26 February this year, Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead, the man in charge of AUKUS, advised the Senate that the AUKUS submarine program was “very high risk”. He said, “We’ve made that clear to government, and the government has made that clear to the public.”However, it has not.

3 weeks ago | michaelwest.com.au | Michael West |Duncan Graham |Rex Patrick |Michael Pascoe

Hostilities in the battle for the prime ministership have been briefly paused as leaders struck a more subdued tone on the campaign trail on Good Friday. With most of the country putting thoughts of an election on the backburner during the Easter break, Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton also adopted a more laidback approach. The prime minister joined Bennelong MP Jerome Laxale for a casual stroll with their dogs Toto and Toby at a park in the marginal seat.

4 weeks ago | michaelwest.com.au | Michael West |Duncan Graham |Rex Patrick |Michael Pascoe

Alphabet’s Google illegally dominated two markets for online advertising technology, a judge has ruled, dealing another blow to the tech giant and paving the way for US antitrust prosecutors to seek a breakup of its advertising products. US District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, found Google liable for “willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power” in markets for publisher ad servers and the market for ad exchanges which sit between buyers and sellers.

4 weeks ago | michaelwest.com.au | Michael West |Duncan Graham |Rex Patrick |Michael Pascoe

European shares have fallen, while the dollar rose as traders took some heart from trade talks between the US and Japan, and gold hit a record as Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell added a note of caution about the growth outlook. With a long weekend ahead, investors were reluctant to double down too heavily on the broad-based decline in risk assets this week.