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Good morning!
Spare a thought for any Year 12 students in NSW this morning, with final examinations officially starting today.
And if you want to test yourself, here’s an example of a question from an HSC Standard Maths exam…
A real estate agent’s commission for selling houses is 2% for the first $800 000 of the sale price and 1.5% for any amount over $800,000.
Calculate the commission earned in selling a house for $1,500,000 .
The answer is in the tidbit!
I’ve got 10 seconds
Quote of the day
“I’ve got two black belts ... I don’t go out much, I’ve had to change my routine, I live between different places, that’s life unfortunately at the moment.”
ACTU Secretary Sally McManus speaking to ABC radio about her life after the Government forced the construction union, the CFMEU, into administration following allegations of corruption.
Stat of the day
30.1 million
How many tickets were sold to concerts in Australia in 2023, a 26% increase on the previous year, according to analysis by Ernst & Young for Live Performance Australia.
Today in history
1581
The first performance of Ballet occurred at the Ballet Comique de la Reine in Paris.
I’ve got 30 seconds
Some headlines from this morning:
The Federal Government will spend $95 million aimed at protecting Australia from bird flu, or ‘avian influenza’. It comes amid a global outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain, which is yet to reach Australia, but could threaten poultry and wild animal populations. The funding announcement includes $37 million to protect the agriculture industry, and environmental measures to protect Australian biodiversity and threatened species. Senior Government Ministers said while the current risk “remains low… there is no room for complacency,” and that the latest bird flu strain “presents a real and significant threat to Australia’s agriculture sector,” as well as species already at risk of extinction.
The world’s 26 poorest economies are in their worst financial shape since 2006, new global analysis has found. Findings from the latest World Bank report show debt levels have surged in low-income countries including Afghanistan, The Gambia, and Syria. The World Bank also found these countries are increasingly vulnerable to natural disasters. While most countries have recovered from the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, Government debt in these countries is at its highest in nearly two decades. The World Bank found that government spending is focused towards immediate needs, like wages, instead of long-term priorities like health or education.
Recommendation of the day
"If it bleeds, it leads" - That's what generations of newsmakers have always been told and known to be true. Well, we here at The Daily Aus don't accept that. We want to do news differently.
In partnership with our friends at Intrepid Travel, The Good Newsletter newsletter is a new addition to TDA’s content offering, and we think you’re going to love it.
I’ve got 1 minute
Sending presents in the mail this Christmas? Here’s when you need to post them by.
Australia Post has announced the latest dates cards and gifts can be sent to guarantee they arrive by Christmas.
Most gifts being sent to an address in Australia will need to be posted by 20 December.
Depending on where you live, parcels to the NT and WA need to be mailed a few days earlier — between 13 to 18 December.
Last year, AusPost delivered nearly 100 million parcels during November and December.
Express post
Cut-off dates are later for parcels sent via Express Post, a more expensive service with guaranteed faster delivery.
This year, the latest date you can send an Express Post Christmas parcel is 23 December.
For WA, the NT, and Tas, the express cut-off date is 20 December.
Cards need to be mailed by 13-16 December, depending on where they’re going.
International parcel deadlines
Reporting by Nandini Dhir.
I’ve got 2 minutes
Business groups want the definition of ‘small business’ to be expanded. Why?
Peak business body The Australian Chamber of Commerce (ACCI) wants the definition of ‘small business’ to be expanded from 15 to 25 employees.
It comes after recent workplace reforms such as the new ‘right to disconnect’ laws, which businesses with more than 15 staff must comply with.
The Government and unions are against the change. However, the Coalition said it’s considering the idea.
It means workplace rights could become a key political issue going into an election year.
Changes to work
The Labor Government has introduced several recent reforms to improve workers’ rights, for example criminalising wage theft and increasing protections from unfair dismissal.
Small businesses (with 15 or fewer employees) may be exempt from some requirements, or be required to follow different regulations than larger businesses.
For example, the Government introduced a pathway to allow some casual workers to transition to full-time contracts after six months. The time frame for small businesses is 12 months.
ACCI proposal
ACCI chief executive Andrew McKellar said some recent workplace reforms have placed a “significant” burden on small businesses.
“The level of regulation has gone up significantly in the past 12 months.”
He’s pushed the Coalition to change the legal definition of small businesses to extend to 25 employees.
If this happened, more businesses would be exempt from the Labor Government’s workplace laws.
Coalition
In a statement to TDA, Shadow Employment Minister Michaelia Cash said she wanted to “free up” small businesses from “red tape and regulation”.
“Labor’s new laws make an [industrial relations] system already steeped in bureaucratic complexity even more complex for small business and their employees,” Cash said.
The Opposition has already promised to remove the new “right to disconnect” – a legal right to ignore “unreasonable contact” outside work hours – if it wins the next election.
Reaction
Employment Minister Murray Watt said “workers’ pay and conditions are on the chopping block”.
Watt said that if the Coalition won the election and reversed the reforms, it would mean “a return to the lower wages and insecure work [they] delivered last time they held office”.
He said Labor “will not be making it easier for small and medium sized businesses to unfairly sack workers.”
Reporting by Harry Sekulich.
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Give me some good news
Australian researchers have made significant progress on a new drug for treatment-resistant breast cancer.
HER-2 positive breast cancer impacts around one in five breast cancer patients, or around 5,000 Australians annually. It can be resistant to treatment and is known to metastasise into the brain, lungs, and other organs.
However, the Hunter Medical Research Institute in NSW says its had success in stopping the cancer from spreading, by using a repurposed cancer drug. The trial shows the medication can cross the blood-brain barrier to treat brain cancer cells caused by HER-2.
Researchers said early results were “promising, and the drug is expected to move rapidly” to the next phase of clinical trials.
Want more good news? Sign up to our weekly Good Newsletter here - we promise it’ll make your week better!
Reporting by Nandini Dhir.
TDA tidbit
A woman has pleaded guilty to smuggling turtles… or at least trying to.
A couple of months ago, U.S. authorities caught Wan Yee Ng in an inflatable kayak with a duffle bag full of turtles.
Ng was attempting to travel across a lake that straddles the U.S.-Canada border when police spotted her.
The zipper to her bag was partially open, and according to court reports, an official saw socks inside which appeared to be moving. Inside those socks were eastern box turtles.
Ng faces up to 10 years in prison.
Reporting by Nandini Dhir.
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Answer: $26,500
Want more from The Daily Aus? Listen to our podcast!
You might not know this, but we are months away from a federal election in Australia.
And yesterday a new poll showed the Coalition is ahead of the Labor Party on a two-party preferred basis for the first time since the last election.
Now we’ll explain exactly what that means in today’s deep dive. But essentially - at a really basic level - it is good news for Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, and not-so-great news for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
TDA asks
