Your morning Briefing

Welcome to your morning roundup of what’s making news and the must-reads for today.

Good morning readers. Here is your two-minute digest of what’s making news today.

Trade Minister Andrew Robb with NT Minister for Business Peter Styles during press conference in Parliament House to discuss future investment in the Northern Territory.

Robb rebukes PM on China

Malcolm Turnbull and top cabinet ministers have been slapped with a stinging rebuke from a former senior colleague over their plan to target “covert” agents who work for foreign ­powers, amid a political storm over Chinese influence in national affairs. Former trade minister Andrew Robb, who masterminded John Howard’s 1996 election victory, warned the Prime Minister and other members of the national ­security committee of federal cabinet against fuelling a “smear” against his name that suggests “treasonous” activity because he advises a Chinese company.

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Homes under construction in Adelaide's west, Wednesday, July 12, 2017. (AAP Image/David Mariuz) NO ARCHIVING

Tradie cash rips billions

Tax commissioner Chris Jordan has issued a passionate call to arms to Australians to stop paying tradespeople in cash as he confronts a host of black-economy rorts that include the fraudulent misuse of the Bunnings ABN by service providers. Mr Jordan said cash discounts were ripping “billions of dollars” out of the economy that would otherwise be going to services such as schools and hospitals.

“Stop paying cash for a discount. Because you are effectively cheating the system or helping someone else to.”

Chris Jordan

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Brendan Berne Paris

An Australian in Paris

Love is in the air in Paris, as Australia’s ambassador to France used Australia’s long awaited same-sex marriage bill to propose marriage to his partner. And ambassador Brendan Berne didn’t have long to wait, with his very surprised partner of 11 years Thomas Marti, standing to give Mr Berne a hug with a simple and quiet answer: yes. The happy couple celebrated their news with Facebook and Twitter posts saying ‘’He said Yes!’’.

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Thomas Oobah in his 'Shed' restaurant.

The Shed ends

For a brief time the No 1 restaurant in London according to the Trip­Advisor rankings was a small, obscure establishment south of the river that served homegrown food in an al fresco setting. It had no Michelin stars and was run by a chef of whom no one had heard. But its admirers said the quality was “fantastic” and declared: “We will be back.” It had one other outstanding feature: it did not actually exist.

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07/12/2017: Blythe Masters in an English woman who lives in New York who is leading the new technology called blockchain which the ASX has just announced it is adopting. She is the chief executive of a company called Digital Asset which is based in New York. Hollie Adams/The Australian

Masters of the blockchain universe

It was only a few years ago that Oxford-born Blythe Masters was described as one of the most powerful women on Wall Street, as head of global commodities for New York investment bank JPMorgan.Yesterday, her brilliant career took another big leap forward when the distributed ledger technology developed by her latest venture, Digital Asset Holdings, was chosen by the ASX to replace its CHESS sharemarket clearing and settlement system.

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This handout photo released on December 7, 2017 by L'Equipe shows Portugese player Cristiano Ronaldo posing with the Ballon d'Or France Football trophy in Paris. Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo won a record-equalling fifth Ballon d'Or (2008, 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017) award for the year's best player on December 7. The Real Madrid forward's second successive win draws him level alongside Barcelona rival Lionel Messi on five Ballon d'Ors, after beating the Argentinian and Brazilian Neymar. / AFP PHOTO / L'EQUIPE / Franck FAUGERE / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO / L’EQUIPE / FRANCK FAUGERE" - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS

Real’s Ronaldo reigns

Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo has beaten out Lionel Messi and Neymar to claim a record-equalling fifth Ballon d’Or award for football world player of the year. The win is Ronaldo’s fourth in the past five years, with Messi last clinching the coveted title in 2015.