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    Opinion

    The AFR View

    Yesterday

    Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers.

    Australia wants more than the Lucky Country can deliver

    Successive terms of trade booms – the envy of other nations – have allowed Australian governments to splurge. But now it seems that even that is not enough.

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    This Month

    Kerry Stokes’ Seven West Media has demanded a 100 per cent price increase to continue printing The Australian Financial Review in Perth.

    Sad halting of the press in WA

    The Australian Financial Review has built a publishing model based on premium digital subscriptions. But it is still sad that from May 22, no one in Western Australia will be able to read a hard copy version.

    • The AFR View
    Gas for power generation is far from cooked.

    Labor locks gas firmly into energy transition

    The Future Gas Strategy reaffirms a strong role for gas, but despite the title it is light on ideas to get there.

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    Called My Health Record, the system aims to centralise health records, allowing patient information to be readily available to various medical professionals across the country.

    The digital health black hole must be fixed

    The Productivity Commission’s report on the failure of My Health Record should concern all Australians not only as taxpayers, but as consumers in an ageing society.

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    Sydney University students are camping out at the institution in support of pro-Palestinian protests at US colleges.

    No place for antisemitic incitement on campus

    The protests that reduce the complex history of the Middle East to simplistic anti-Zionist slogans hardly align with universities’ founding institutional mission.

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    Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas delivers the state budget yesterday.

    Victoria must get a grip

    The heavily indebted state has at least stopped whacking its private sector. But there is little sign of resolve on its debts.

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    An RBA tightening bias is called for

    It’s hard not to interpret the governor’s press conference and the board’s statement as at least a mild tightening bias that will keep the cash rate where it is at least until near the end of 2024.

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    An opaque and sprawling multidisciplinary partnership structure is common to the Big Four consulting firms.

    Big four’s reformation moment

    Engaging with the Treasury process is an opportunity for the consulting giants to help modernise the partnership-based model founded in the 19th century and unfit for today.

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    Chairwoman Gina Cass-Gottlieb initially said the consumer watchdog would seek a record penalty of over $250 million.

    Why didn’t ACCC litigate Qantas?

    Is what might be seen as regulatory brand ransom to force companies to admit to lesser charges and avoid the need to litigate, the way the watchdog should seek to uphold Australia’s consumer protection and competition law?

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    RBA governor Michele Bullock needs to reinforce the central bank’s resolve in tackling stubbornly high inflation.

    Moment of truth on inflation for Reserve Bank’s credibility

    At stake here is whether the supposedly politically independent central bank can re-establish the low inflation foundations that supported three decades of unbroken economic growth until the interruption of the pandemic.

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    Anthony Albanese extended a Morrison government scheme to help women.

    Make this the tipping point on domestic violence

    A tighter judicial system, support for families forced to leave violent homes, long-term culture change, and more sophisticated use of data and prediction. Nothing can be left off the table in tackling terror at home.

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    One of Bonza’s 737 Max 8s blocked off at the end of Melbourne Airport.

    Bonza’s grounding strands airline competition too

    Had the government dealt with some of the highly public problems of aviation with more alacrity than it has, the failure of one small player would not have seemed such a blow.

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    Treasurer Jim Chalmers.

    Chalmers’ ‘new growth model’ lacking on the supply side

    Jim Chalmers is right to say that Australia cannot draw an “artificial distinction between our prosperity and our security”. It has been a theme of The Australian Financial Review’s since our 2022 Business Summit.

    • The AFR View

    April

    PsiQuantum has received a grant of almost $1 billion.

    Quantum a better bet than burning a billion on solar panels

    But even if this is the right place to deploy such a huge sum, we know too little about whether this was the best way to spend it.

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    The Fair Work Ombudsman that Labor supposedly tasked with policing bad behaviour in the building industry has dropped 30 per cent of the 41 cases of alleged construction union lawbreaking it inherited.

    Labor green lights toxic bully-boys of the CFMEU

    The political protection racket the modern ALP is running for the toxic behaviour of the CFMEU, which would be condemned in any other setting, is disgraceful.

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    Nobody has tabled a superior strategy to transform Woodside into a green energy producer than that drawn up by chief executive Meg O’Neill and chairman Richard Goyder.

    Woodside Energy’s part in BHP’s low-carbon transition

    The irony is that “The Big Australian” has the financial resources to bid for Anglo American partly because its legacy fossil fuel assets are now on Woodside Energy’s books.

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    Jim Chalmers may find his budget script is dating quickly.

    Chalmers’ narrow budget path is now in peril

    The sudden change in the interest rate outlook this week could be political dynamite for the Albanese government and the budget.

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    Woodside chairman Richard Goyder.

    Tactical Woodside vote a metaphor for Australia’s low-carbon transition

    Can chairman Richard Goyder and CEO Meg O’Neill crack the problem of shifting from a carbon-intensive resources company to a green one without destroying shareholder value?

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    Anthony Albanese received a rapturous traditional welcome from remote highland villagers on Wednesday.

    ‘Decolonising’ Anzac Day’s revival

    The day offers a welcome counterpoint in an age of fragmenting identity politics in which it is becoming more difficult to find agreement about Australia’s national identity.

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    Elon Musk has done something very few have been able to achieve - he’s united Australia’s politicians against him and his social media platform X.

    Musk sets test for social media without boundaries

    The sudden row between Australia and Elon Musk is a test of sovereign writ against the biggest companies – but also where government control of media should begin and end.

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