The election campaigns kicked off. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promised to allow all first-time home buyers to purchase their residence with as little as a 5% deposit and to provide A$10 billion to build 100,000 homes reserved for those entering the property market. Opposition leader Peter Dutton said he would allow a limited number of first-time home buyers to deduct their mortgage interest payments from their taxes for five years, in addition to offering voters a one-time cost-of-living tax cut in the financial year ending June 2026. Albanese’s net approval rating has reached its highest point in 11 months ahead of an election on May 3, as the fallout from US President Donald Trump’s trade war looms over the vote. Albanese’s center-left Labor government also maintained its narrow lead over the Liberal-National Coalition opposition at the campaign mid-point, by 52% to 48% on a two-party preferred basis, in the latest Newspoll survey published in The Australian newspaper yesterday. Anthony Albanese, Australia's prime minister. Photographer: Matt Jelonek/Bloomberg Monash IVF plunged a record 36% on Friday after the reproductive health-care company said that an embryo belonging to one patient was mistakenly implanted into another, resulting in the birth of a child. News of the incident, which occurred at the company’s Brisbane clinic, wiped A$150 million from Monash IVF’s market value. China is done retaliating against Trump’s exorbitant tariffs, writes Shuli Ren for Bloomberg Opinion. One dangerous card that China’s got is its $760 billion holdings in Treasury securities. Last week, the 10-year yield jumped by 50 basis points to 4.49%, the biggest weekly surge since 2001. Some of the sharpest moves were occurring during Asian hours, prompting speculation that Beijing was in the market. Will China weaponize and dump its holdings? |