The Reserve Bank of Australia today made no change to the cash rate, leaving it at 4.35%. The 4.35% rate has been in force since November 2023. The bank’s decision is its first in a restructured process. As part of the new processes, the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Michele Bullock, held a press conference an hour after the bank’s decision was announced.
The coalition will support the Albanese government’s tax cuts, the Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton, confirmed today. Flanked by the Shadow Treasurer, Angus Taylor, and the Shadow Finance Minister, Senator Jane Hume, Dutton said “the coalition is not going to stand in the way of people who are doing it tough”. With repeated references to “the liar in The Lodge” and the government’s “egregious lie”, Dutton said the coalition would take “a significant tax policy” to the next election.
The Chinese Australian writer Yang Hengjun has been sentenced to death by a court in China.
Greg Combet, a former minister in the Rudd-Gillard governments, has been appointed Chairman of the Future Fund. Greg Combet, new Chairman of the Future Fund The Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, made the announcement at a press conference today. Combet replaces Peter Costello, the Future Fund’s founder and current Chairman. Combet was the Labor member for the NSW electorate of Charlton from 2007 until 2013.
This is the video of Governor-General David Hurley’s 2024 Australia Day Address. The Address was shown on ABC television at 6.55pm on Australia Day.
Australia Day 1973 passed almost unnoticed, according to one radio news report, but Gough Whitlam used his 53rd day as prime minister to announce a search for a new national anthem. Listen to a news report from radio 3DB in Melbourne on January 26, 1973, including a clip from Whitlam’s speech (1m) Whitlam’s announcement of a replacement for God Save the Queen came in his Australia Day address.
The Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton, has responded to the Prime Minister’s Press Club appearance today.
The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, has defended the changes the government has made to the Stage 3 tax cuts. In an address to the National Press Club, Albanese confirmed that the tax system will remain progressive with the reintroduction of the 37% tax scale. Whereas the Stage 3 cuts excluded people on lower incomes, all taxpayers will now receive a tax cut from July 1, but those on higher incomes have had their cut reduced.
The former prime minister, Scott Morrison, has announced that he will retire from parliament at the end of February. Morrison made the announcement in a statement posted on Facebook.
The libertarian economist and newly-elected President of Argentina, Javier Milei, has delivered a strident defence of capitalism at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Reflecting a growing view being expressed by emerging right-wing leaders around the world, Milei said: “Unfortunately, in recent decades, the main leaders of the Western world have abandoned the model of freedom for different versions of what we call collectivism.