Another round of negotiations for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) will kick off next Monday in Brunei, but what does this mean in light of the TPP? Trade Minister Andrew Robb tabled the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal for ratification in parliament this Tuesday, which once implemented, will include the US, Brunei, Canada, [...]
You will have no doubt seen a flurry of articles in the last week about the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire Primary in the lead-up to the November’s US presidential election, but for those of us not born in the United States, the process is confusing, to say the least. The US process for [...]
Trade Ministers reaching agreement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has dominated news this week, and for good reason. It’s a big deal. The New York Times reported this week that the 12 Pacific Rim countries negotiating the pact account for around 40 per cent of annual GDP and one-third of world trade. The TPP is [...]
Recent case proves Australia still committed to leading the world in consumer financial protection Last week the Federal Court found that payday lenders, Fast Access Finance Pty Ltd breached Australia’s consumer credit laws with its diamond purchase contract business arrangements in a case brought shortly after Australia’s world-leading payday loan protections came into force in [...]
For advertisers, elections are big business. Some experts are predicting 2016 will see roughly $1 billion spent on online political advertising in the US, and Facebook is positioning itself to capture as much of that spend as possible and hopefully capture some campaign dollars traditionally spent on television ads. The Canadian 78-day election campaign that [...]
Cities are unquestionably the flavour of the month. And it may prove to be a very long month at that. Only this week have we received the latest in a long line of warnings, this time from the Australian Council of Learned Academics, about the unsustainability of the growth in our cities without better transport [...]
Premier Daniel Andrews today announced the appointment of Philip Dalidakis as minister to replace Adem Somyurek. The Labor caucus met briefly this afternoon and confirmed the appointment of the former Victorian Association of Forestry Industries chief executive officer and first-time MP to the same portfolio as outgoing Minister Somyurek: Small Business, Innovation and Trade. The Agenda Group has [...]
Jobs, jobs, jobs. Whilst this budget may have been pitched as ‘for families’, meeting Victoria’s employment needs is a paramount focus for the Victorian Government. The Victorian Government faces the reality of the closure of the car manufacturing sector on its watch. Toyota is anticipated to end production in 2016 and Ford will cease manufacturing [...]
How do market-led proposals make it into a budget? On the eve of the 2015-16 Victorian Budget, the Andrews Government announced it was considering a proposal from Transurban for a major new road project, the $5.5 billion Western Distributor. Effectively an alternative to the western-end component of the previous Coalition Government’s East West Link project, [...]
The same macroeconomic factors that constrained the state's growth relative to other states in recent years are now tipped in Victoria's favour. Limited exposure to commodity price drops and the falling Aussie dollar spells good news for Victorian exporters, but bad news for foreign manufacturers with falling demand for imports driven by relative price increases. Overall outlook and [...]
