Fast Five by Fear and GreedSean Aylmer and Michael Thompson go head to head to decide on the top business stories of the week.
Welcome to the weekend edition of The Fast five Business News by Fear and Greed, I, Michael Thompson and Hello Sean Aylmer.
Hello Michael Sean.
On weekdays, it is all about the Fast five, the top five business stories in five minutes. On the weekend, we still keep it to five minutes, but we are going to pick out the bigger story of the week, the most remarkable business story, a sleeper story, one that's flying under the radar, and then our favorite story.
What was the biggest story for you this week?
The fact that Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers came out and directed the Future Fund, the two hundred and thirty billion dollars sovereign fund, to prioritize investments in housing, renewable energy, and infrastructure. First time in its history that the government's mandated how the Future Fund that should invest, he said. Jim Chalmers said that the mandate wouldn't come at the expensive performance. He is committed to the funds independence and commercial focus. Hello, that's not how it works. Former chairs Peter Castello Dave Murray came out against a big time. Anytime you put restrictions on investing can hurt. Maybe there's a reason for it, but I don't think that's actually jin Chum is not being totally honest with us about why he's doing it.
Michael sean biggest story for me this week. That was a very big story.
There was also a big story around culture, and culture's obviously been such a big issue of late within Australian business and Rio Tinto this week released part two of its report into workplace culture at the Minor. Elizabeth Broderick, the former Sex Discrimination Commissioner, did a huge survey eleven and a half thousand staff, more than thirteen hundred interviews, a bunch of written submissions, and basically it found that bullying is still systemic, racism and sexual harassment are common, some indication zo of positive change. A bit of a surprise was a backlash against the company's efforts to actually promote gender diversity and inclusion, with some men feeling like they are now in fact being discriminated against. Overall, you kind of look at this and go Rio does deserve to be applauded for this, because they are two years into a long term program to try and transform their culture, but the fact is that they are doing it so publicly they are making the reports of publicly.
Rio is a massive company.
It's had a lot of problems in the past, and this is a really good example I think of kind of cultural accountability and hopefully leading the way for other businesses to do something similar. When we've had nine and Wistech Global and Mineral Resources in recent weeks.
All with cultural problems of their own. Sean, Yeah, big story, that one, most remarkable. What did you think? Oh?
Well, I mean it's a little patriotic, I suppose, but I love the fact that Mcore, the packaging group, is about to buy another packaging group called Berry for about thirteen billion dollars. If successful, will be four hundred packaging plants around the world. Seventy five thousand staff, thousands of customers. Began on the banks of the Yarra River in Melbourne in the eighteen sixties. Is a paper miller now one of the world's great packaging companies. Kind of fellows the lead of a bunch of others companies that have done well overseas, CSL Y set Global, James Hardy, Aristocrat, Leisure, Cocklear Lassie in Canva.
The list goes on. Good on you.
Mcre My most remarkable story. Sean, I'll keep this one very brief. It is summit season, you know, like where they have the G twenty and Apex and all of these ones in the world. Leaders all gather and they just talk and talk and talk and talk, and it was both remarkable and it was kind of almost unremarkable as well. He had Prime Minister Anthony Albanezi at APEX in Peru than the G twenty in Brazil, and there's a big push towards free trade deals at APEC. Everyone was talking about it, despite the fact that in kind of six or seven weeks Donald Trump becomes president, He's pledged tariff's for law, which is pretty much the exact opposite of free trade. There was good news on kind of global security, good kind of chats on those fronts, people shaking hands, like the US president and the Chinese president. Then at the G twenty we had Elbow sitting down with President g who said that all Chinese tariffs and other restrictions on twenty two billion dollars worth of Ozzie goods would be removed. Great result, but there is a trade off, and it becomes a bit of a diplomatic pickle to try and work through. But the thing that I found unremarkable and probably be disappointing about all of these kind of conferences and that they are a big opportunity to do something in terms of global change and having global impact. But the communicate that came out at the end of the G twenty in particular was kind of weak on on climate action, allowing kind of big polluters to keep polluting, kind of week on kind of global peace, didn't even mention Russia and Ukraine. Just disappointing that it feels like a missed opportunity.
I think you're right.
What's your sleeper story for the week, Michael, Look, it's about superinnuation. The government has flag changes to how retirees will be able to use their super with hopes that the funds are going to now kind of start offering more innovative products. They want reforms so that super funds can make payments in installments rather than upfront lump sums also provide money back guarantees. These are all reforms for the decumulation stage and it's important. It really matters because two and a half million Australians are going to retire in the next decade. That is a lot of people affected by this within a four trillion dollar sector, and it's just kind of these kind of reforms don't kind of get the attention that they deserve when they are actually critically important.
They sure. I just quick mention for my sleeper story, the fact that all these economists, including those at Westpac and National Australia Bank, have pushed back their forecast for the timing of the rate next rate rise possibly till the middle of next year.
Ouch yeah ouch. Indeed, look, my favorite story. It's all about markets. Really, So it sounds a bit duble to be talking about markets for my favorite story, but it is. It is important, don't know, at me it is important. It's important because there were records being broken everywhere. I would say, it's a record bonanza.
This week.
You have the ASX hitting a new record high. This week, our biggest company, Commonwealth Bank, hit a new record high. We had a bunch of companies either at or near record highs, big companies like kind of Goodman Group and JB Hi Fi and Quantas and a bunch of others. Wall Street kind of confidence that this idea of lower taxes potentially under Donald Trump, hope of interest rate cuts. It's really kind of giving investors a little bit of hope. Bitcoin hitting a new record high, just records falling all over the place. It's like it's like a drug fuelled Olympics, Sean.
Because of the records you reckon, it's like a nineteen eighties Olympics.
Maybe it is. Can I have a quick mention?
A bloke Chinese entrepreneur play ned almost ten million dollars for a piece of art in New York. It was banana duck tape, tool wall, funny thing. He bought it, spent the ten million bucks. They said, what are you going to do with it? He said, I'm going to eat it. There you go.
There was hope for struggling artists everywhere in that story. Sean.
There we go five minutes and pretty much everything you need to know in the world of business. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Michael.
We'll be back on.
Monday morning with the top five business stories in five minutes. Don't forget to hit follow and join us online on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and x. I'm Michael Thompson and this is the Fast five Business news by Fear and Greece
