{"id":10380,"date":"2023-10-24T10:06:11","date_gmt":"2023-10-23T23:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/countax.com.au\/?post_type=weekly-digest&p=10380"},"modified":"2023-10-24T10:15:43","modified_gmt":"2023-10-23T23:15:43","slug":"weekly-digest-25-october-2023","status":"publish","type":"weekly-digest","link":"https:\/\/countax.com.au\/weekly-digest\/weekly-digest-25-october-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekly Digest \u2013 25 October 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"
Welcome to our Weekly Digest – stay in the know with some recent news updates relevant to business and the economy.<\/p>\n
A Sydney-headquartered fintech that allows users to apply for loans in under eight minutes is expanding its services with a market entry into New Zealand<\/a>, following a year of major growth for its Australian operations where the LoanOptions.ai platform has a panel of more than 70 lenders including Macquarie Group, CBA, Westpac, ANZ, NAB, Latitude, Plenti and Prospa.<\/p>\n Across Australia, 3.7m households have experienced food insecurity over the past 12 months<\/a>, a jump of almost 350,000 on the previous year, Foodbank\u2019s annual hunger report has revealed.<\/p>\n The Business Council of Australia welcomes the Government\u2019s five-year National Skills Agreement<\/a> that will see an additional $3.7 billion invested into Australia\u2019s vocational education and training sector, Business Council chief executive Bran Black said.<\/p>\n Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will seek progress on the AUKUS defence technology partnership and critical mineral supply chains<\/a> during a visit to Washington, as Canberra tries to reduce its long-term trade exposure to China.<\/p>\n Four years after Chinese property giant Country Garden\u00a0(2007.HK) launched a A$2 billion ($1.27 billion) development of 3,600 homes an hour’s drive southwest of Sydney, the outer suburban site remains a sparse field with fewer than 50 houses under construction. The cash-strapped Chinese property giant is now seeking mostly to offload<\/a> as it scrambles to pay creditors.<\/p>\n Parents will soon be able to share in up to six months of paid parental leave, but the government has knocked back calls from its own taskforce to pay superannuation on the support<\/a> measure.<\/p>\n In September 2023 Roy Morgan Business Confidence was 87.1 (down 7.6pts since August)<\/a>. This is the lowest Business Confidence for three years since September 2020 when Victoria was in an extended lockdown and New South Wales was enduring significant COVID-19 outbreaks.<\/p>\n Australia said a security review of a 99-year lease held by Chinese company Landbridge on the northern port of Darwin, a key focus of its defence strategy, found it was “not necessary to vary or cancel the lease”<\/a>.<\/p>\nAustralia in \u2018the midst of a food security crisis\u2019 as 3.7m households struggle to buy enough to eat<\/h2>\n
Business welcomes national skills agreement<\/h2>\n
AUKUS, critical minerals in focus for Australian PM on US trip<\/h2>\n
Country Garden sells down a barely started Australia project<\/h2>\n
Government knocks back calls for superannuation on paid parental leave<\/h2>\n
Roy Morgan Business Confidence down 7.6pts to 87.1 in September \u2013 lowest for three years since September 2020<\/h2>\n
Australia says ‘not necessary’ to cancel Chinese firm’s lease on Darwin port<\/h2>\n
Stay on top of this, and you won\u2019t run out of retirement savings<\/h2>\n