This Month
- Opinion
- Big four
Why can’t Macquarie make up its mind on what CBA is worth?
When CBA reports strong quarterly profits this week, leading banking analysts will say sell. But their colleagues in wealth management will tell clients to buy.
October
- Opinion
- Mining
BHP outsmarts the Brazilians – but at what price?
BHP has won its battle to minimise the costs of the Samarco dam failure, but it is yet to convince locals of its commitment to fairness and justice.
- Opinion
- Scams
Scam reform lacks teeth
Australia has been a happy hunting ground for criminals running high-tech scams. New laws may not help consumers seeking compensation.
September
- Opinion
- Renewables
No end to Australia’s love affair with solar
Rapidly declining solar feed-in tariffs could change the way Australian households manage their renewable energy. That is bound to be good for the grid.
- Opinion
- Tax reform
Gina Rinehart continues her father’s tax crusade
After years railing against the burden of government regulations, the iron ore billionaire is winning support for another key policy passion – lower taxes for northern Australians.
- Opinion
- Class action
Class action skewers Rio Tinto’s Bougainville redemption
A secretive company is disrupting efforts to finally make amends for the environmental devastation caused by its copper mine in Bougainville some 30 years ago.
August
- Opinion
- Governance
The ASX’s legal mess reveals deep-rooted problems in boardrooms
Court action against the ASX over its bungled CHESS replacement project reflects a worrying escalation in the box-ticking, compliance culture inside Australian boardrooms.
- Updated
- Opinion
- Superannuation
Why I’m glad I dumped my industry super fund
After his SMSF regularly beat the performance of his former industry super fund for over a decade, Tony Boyd urges more Australians to take control of their super.
July
- Exclusive
- Australian economy
Rod Carnegie’s seminal lunch with Paul Keating
Paul Keating reveals, for the first time, the pivotal conversation about the Australian economy with Rod Carnegie at lunch in Melbourne almost 50 years ago.
- Opinion
- Insider trading
How ASIC’s new insider-trader busting system works
The securities industry regulator is getting better at catching insider traders. But the cohort of offenders is so dumb it may not make a difference.
- Opinion
- Healthcare
Vested interests at play in the chronic disease explosion
A search for good nutrition opened a Pandora’s box of snake oil salesmen and crackpot solutions. It also provided clues to the surging levels of chronic disease.
June
- Opinion
- Governance
In the end, complexity felled the Lendlease empire
Lendlease was globally recognised for engineering excellence, its ability to build thriving community spaces, and its nurturing of many leading CEOs. Its diminution is instructive as well.
May
- Opinion
- Infrastructure
There’s value in big government spending done right
The private-public partnership championed by Anthony Albanese that is transforming the supply chains is a role model for underwriting critical minerals expansion.
- Opinion
- BNPL
Payments innovation under threat from RBA
Buy now, pay later, which revolutionised Australia’s highly concentrated payments system, is under potential threat from increased regulation.
April
- Opinion
- Sharemarket
How Australia is losing the equity market war
Australia’s equity capital markets are slipping behind global competitors on market value, shares traded and foreign listings. That trend is unlikely to change while the ASX is fixing its monopoly clearing and settlement system.
- Opinion
- Regulation
Regional banks dying a slow death
The country’s smaller banks have a bleak future due to higher cost of funds, excessive capital requirements, costly technology upgrades and lack of scale. But will regulators do anything about it?
March
- Opinion
- Carbon challenge
CBA wants to corner the $2trn market for household electrification
There is potentially billions of dollars of loans to customers electrifying their homes switching from coal-fired power and gas to solar and battery power.
- Opinion
- Software
Metcash and Seek: Lessons from two contrasting IT projects
The learnings should be of interest to the broader economy, because badly handled IT projects – and there are too many to name – are a heavy drag on productivity.
- Analysis
- Software
How Ian Narev copied CBA’s tech success at Seek
Seek’s recent tech upgrade is being talked about as an exemplar case study. Involving 1000 people including 350 engineers, the project came in on time and under budget.
- Analysis
- Enterprise IT
How Metcash’s $80m tech upgrade blew out by $200m
A plan to replace nine IT systems with one Microsoft platform is a case study in how not to manage a large-scale tech project.