Latest updates on Key Economic Indicators

Australian Dollar: $0.7223 USD (down $0.0064 USD)

Iron Ore Oct Spot Price (SGX): $115.75 USD (down $5.65 USD)

Oil Price (WTI): $39.59 USD (down $1.52 USD)

Gold Price: $1,912.47 (down $37.92 USD)

Dow Jones: 27,147.70 (down 509.72 points)

All changes compared to 7am yesterday.

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'We are seeing justice': Accused paedophile Malka Leifer should be extradited to Australia, court rules

Malka Leifer should be extradited to Australia to face 74 child sex abuse charges, a Jerusalem court has ruled. The former Melbourne school principal's alleged victims say the decision is a "victory" they've been awaiting for nine years.

An Israeli court has ruled that a former principal of an Australian school accused of sexually assaulting students could be extradited to Australia for trial, but implementation could be held up by an appeal.

Malka Leifer has fought her return to Australia since 2014, including with a submission of mental illness.

Leifer, who was the principal of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish school in Melbourne, has denied the allegations against her.

Jerusalem District Court, having ruled in May that Ms Leifer was fit to face trial on the basis of a series of psychiatric examinations, decided at Monday's session that she could be extradited.

It gave her 30 days to lodge an appeal with Israel's Supreme Court, and Ms Leifer's lawyers said a challenge against extradition would be mounted there.

"Those who think that this process is now a closed chapter - I'm afraid will be disappointed," Nick Kaufman, one of Ms Leifer's attorneys, told reporters. "There is a long way to go until Mrs Leifer will be surrendered to Australia, if at all."

Leifer is wanted by Australian police on 74 sexual assault charges, including rape, involving girls at her former school. She left Australia in 2008 after accusations against her surfaced.

Australia has pressed Israel to expedite Ms Leifer’s case and her alleged victims have criticised the long Israeli judicial proceedings.

Elly Sapper, one of Ms Leifer's alleged victims along with her sisters Dassi Erlich and Nicole Meyer, told SBS News they were relieved following the decision on Monday.

"For so long we doubted whether we would see this day, but today we are seeing justice happen," she said. The sisters said they were hoping Ms Leifer would be in Australia by early 2021.

"We actually gave our police statements in 2011, so it's been nine years we have been waiting for this day," Ms Erlich added. "It's a victory for everyone today."

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Patience plea as Victorian infections fall

The Australian - Page 5 : 22 September 2020 - Original article by Rachel Baxendal - PortMac.News Summary

Victoria recorded just 11 new coronavirus cases on 21 September, the lowest daily total since 16 June.

Five of the new cases are linked to known clusters. Melbourne's 14-day daily average of new cases has fallen to 34.4, but Premier Daniel Andrews has downplayed the prospect that lockdown restrictions will be eased ahead of schedule.

He has reiterated the need to "stay the course" and ensure that the economy is re-opened only when it is safe to do so. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 cluster in Melbourne's City of Casey now comprises seven households.

Victoria's death toll from COVID-19 has risen by two to 763, while the national toll is now 851.

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Australians warned against COVID complacency as testing numbers plummet

The New Daily - Page Online : 22 September 2020 - PortMac.News Summary

The number of Australians who have been tested for COVID-19 has fallen by 30 per cent over the last three weeks.

Just 7,164 people in Victoria were tested for coronavirus on 21 September, compared with about 20,000 a day at the peak of the state's second wave of infections.

The number of coronavirus tests per day has also fallen below 8,000 in New South Wales, and Premier Gladys Berejiklian has warned against complacency. NSW recorded four new coronavirus cases on 21 September, while one new case has been confirmed in Queensland.

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Make Melbourne CBD Covid Stage 2 now - Council & State Govt. working together

Herald Sun - Page Online : 22 September 2020 - PortMac.News Summary

Melbourne Lord Mayor candidate and leading Melbourne business person Gary Morgan says residents and businesses in inner Melbourne should be treated as a bubble to enable coronavirus lockdown restrictions to be eased before the rest of metropolitan Melbourne.

Morgan says he is the only candidate that can stand up to Premier Daniel Andrews, and he warns that businesses in the City of Melbourne will be bankrupt if lockdown restrictions remain in place until Christmas.

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Andrews' man 'No idea' on guards

The Australian - Page 1 & 5 : 22 September 2020 - Original article by Remy Varga - PortMac.News Summary

Department of Premier & Cabinet secretary Chris Eccles has appeared before the inquiry into Victoria's botched hotel quarantine program.

He was asked by counsel assisting the inquiry Rachel Ellyard how private security guards came to be the "frontier of enforcement" for the program, to which Eccles replied: "I'm not aware". His apparent lack of awareness is in spite of the fact that his department was responsible for overseeing the establishment of the program.

Eccles was shown an email in which his federal counterpart offered Australian Defence Force help with the program; Eccles said he was not aware as to whether he made this offer known to those who were running the program.

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Premier's emergency bill an attack on democracy

The Australian - Page Online : 22 September 2020 - Original article by Robert Gottliebsen - PortMac.News Summary

Proposed legislation by the Victorian government is of great concern to those who believe in democratic freedoms.

The 'COVID-19 Omnibus (Emergency Measures) and Other Acts Amendment Bill 2020' gives 'designated authorised officers' powers of arrest normally only given to police or those with specialist police training.

These 'designated authorised officers' will be given the power to detain someone designated as a 'high risk person', as well as giving them the power to detain someone who is 'likely' to "refuse or fail to refuse a direction".

For someone who is not a police officer to be able to detain people who have not done anything wrong but are 'likely' to do something wrong is frightening in a democratic country, as is a section of the legislation that gives the courts the power to remove children from their parents and put them into 'out of home care' for potentially as long as 30 months.

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We shut up shop for a coronavirus that was unlikely to kill us

The Australian - Page 10 : 22 September 2020 - Original article by Adam Creighton - PortMac.News Summary

The mortality rate of COVID-19 does not justify the often excessive lockdown measures that have been imposed in Australia and worldwide.

The death toll from the coronavirus now exceeds 960,000 globally, but it should be noted that more than 60 million people die worldwide each year.

Meanwhile, there is no evidence to support the view that lockdowns have reduced the number of deaths from COVID-19. Sweden has successfully contained the virus's spread without hard lockdowns, while analysis by Bell Potters shows that coronavirus cases in Victoria peaked just three days after the stae's stage-four lockdown began.

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'Landmark moment': 156 countries agree to Covid vaccine allocation deal

The Guardian - Page Online : 22 September 2020 - Original article by Peter Beaumont - PortMac.News Summary

The global Covax initiative is is co-led by the World Health Organization, the GAVI vaccines alliance, and the CEPI Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.

It aims to ultimately deliver two billion COVID-19 vaccines around the world by the end of 2021, with 156 countries agreeing to a deal that would see three per cent of the population of nations participating in Covax receive the initial allocation of vaccines.

The initial focus would be on the protection of healthcare systems and frontline healthcare workers.

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Scientists warn UK faces 50,000 new coronavirus cases a day by October if virus is not slowed

abc.net.au - Page Online : 22 September 2020 - Original article by Jack Hawke - PortMac.News Summary

The British government is expected to announce new COVID-19 restrictions following a sharp spike in infections.

Some 3,899 new cases and 18 deaths were reported on 20 September, and Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance has warned that the number of cases is doubling roughly every seven days.

He adds that if this trend continues, the number of new cases could rise to around 50,000 a day by mid-October.

Sir Patrick adds that the challenge of containing the virus will increase as the UK enters the coldest months of the year. The COVID-19 death toll in the UK now exceeds 41,000.

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Priority for hydrogen, CCS and batteries

The Australian Financial Review - Page 6 : 22 September 2020 - Original article by Phillip Coorey, Elouise Fowler - PortMac.News Summary

Energy Minister Angus Taylor will unveil the federal government's low-emissions technology road map in a National Press Club speech on 22 September.

He will reveal that batteries, hydrogen, 'green' steel, carbon capture and storage, and soil carbon are the five top-priority low-emission technologies that the government will seek to develop over the next decade.

It intends to invest $18 billion in these technologies over this period. Taylor will state that parliament will be provided with an annual update on the progress in developing these technologies, while technologies such as coal, wind and solar are now the government's lowest priorities.

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Labor demands reforms over payday lending, lease protections

The Australian Financial Review - Page 17 : 22 September 2020 - Original article by James Eyers - PortMac.News Summary

Consumer groups have urged federal parliament to pass a private members' bill that would impose greater regulation on payday loans and consumer leases.

The Senate economics committee has recommended against the bill being passed, although it urged the government to look at sensible reform and regulation of the products.

However, in a dissenting report, Labor and Centre Alliance called for the legislation to be adopted, noting data showing that over 300,000 young people had taken out a payday loan or consumer lease in July demonstrates the need for greater protection against such risky products.

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Small business pushes 'Game changing' all-in pay rates

The Australian Financial Review - Page 2 : 22 September 2020 - Original article by David Marin-Guzman - PortMac.News Summary

Council of Small Business Organisations Australia chairman Mark McKenzie has called for the introduction of an industry award specifically for small and medium enterprises.

He says it could be a potential "game changer" in restoring jobs that have been lost due to the coronavirus pandemic.

COSBOA has proposed the introduction of separate loaded hourly pay rates for employees of small to medium businesses who work on weekdays and weekends.

The loaded rates would be restricted to businesses that have fewer than 40 full-time equivalent employees.

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They can talk all they want, but complex awards are costing jobs

The Australian - Page 10 : 22 September 2020 - Original article by Judith Sloan - PortMac.News Summary

Enterprise bargaining and award simplification were among the issues that were examined by the federal government's industrial relations 'reform committees'.

These committees are unlikely to achieve much, given that they included representatives of the increasingly irrelevant union movement and employers' groups that have vested interests.

There is no compelling reason to save the enterprise bargaining system, while the modern awards system is urgently in need of change.

This is particularly so in the case of small businesses; in the absence of an award specifically for this sector, an option may be to exclude small firms from the awards system entirely and allow them to be covered solely by the National Employment Standards.

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Research at 'Extreme' risk as loss of foreign students strips funds

The Australian - Page 4 : 22 September 2020 - Original article by Richard Ferguson - PortMac.News Summary

Up to 6,100 full-time research jobs could be lost at Australian universities due to the loss of revenue from international students, while some universities could lose their research capacity.

This is according to a report by the Centre for the Study for Higher Education at Melbourne University.

Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan has spent some months in talks with the university sector about a research 'rescue package', and he says that more information will be revealed in the Budget on 6 October.

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Audit office queries department's 'Ethical standards' after 'Inflating' land price 10 times

The New Daily - Page Online : 22 September 2020 - Original article by Josh Butler - PortMac.News Summary

The Australian National Audit Office has criticised a deal which saw the federal government pay $29.8m for a 12-hectare parcel of land in western Sydney that was subsequently valued at just $3.065m.

The land was sold by the Leppington Pastoral Company to the Department of Infrastructure in mid-2018, and it was to be used for the future development of a second runway at the proposed Western Sydney Airport.

The ANAO has noted that the land is unlikely to be needed until at least 2050. The Leppington Pastoral Company donated nearly $59,000 to the Liberal Party of Australia in 2018 and 2019.

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FinCEN Files: The accidental money launderer

abc.net au - Page Online : 22 September 2020 - Original article by Mario Christodoulou, Geoff Thompson - PortMac.News Summary

Details of thousands of confidential 'suspicious activity reports' have been recently leaked, with around $2.7 trillion worth of dubious transactions being revealed.

Australian money remitter SuperForex has been named in the leaked files, with money remitters being popular with international students and migrants as being an inexpensive way of sending money home.

However, they are also popular with money launderers, as they can be used to quickly move funds out of a country.

Detective Acting Superintendent Daniel Burnicle from the Australian Federal Police says money remitters can move cash out of Australia in a matter of hours, compared to a couple of days in the case of banks.

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NSW Liberals welcome National who defected over 'Koalagate' stoush

The Australian Financial Review - Page 9 : 22 September 2020 - Original article by Finbar O'Mallon - PortMac.News Summary

The New South Wales Liberal Party has unanimously accepted Leslie Williams as a member, following her decision to quit the National Party over its stoush with the Liberals over koala protection laws.

Williams, who is the member for Port Macquarie in the NSW Legislative Assembly, says she has had no "second thoughts" about her decision.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has welcomed Williams' decision, while both say it is up to the NSW Parliament whether Williams retains her role as Deputy Speaker of the Legislative Assembly.

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Senior advisers to front ICAC probe

The Australian - Page 3 : 22 September 2020 - Original article by Max Maddison - PortMac.News Summary

The New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption has commenced an investigation into former Liberal MP Daryl Maguire.

Maguire quit the Liberal Party in 2018 after ICAC played recordings of his conversations, in which he admitted to seeking payment for setting up investors with developers, while he eventually resigned from his seat of Wagga Wagga after initially refusing to do so before the March 2019 election.

A number of senior advisers to the NSW government are tipped to be called to appear before the inquiry, including Premier Gladys Berejiklian's former chief of staff, Sarah Cruickshank, and deputy Treasury secretary Sarah Hill.

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Court told Julian Assange not first to publish US secrets

The New Daily - Page Online : 22 September 2020 - Original article by Henry Vaughan - PortMac.News Summary

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is fighting extradition from the UK to the US, where he would face 18 charges in relation to the release of unredacted classified documents on its website in September 2011.

However, Professor Christian Grothoff from the Bern University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland has told a London court that Assange should not be charged with the release of the diplomatic cables as they had already appeared on the internet.

Grothoff's impartiality in the case has been questioned, after it was revealed he signed a letter sent to Donald Trump in 2017 that urged Trump not to charge Assange and other WikiLeaks staff.

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Wall St losses weigh on stocks

The Australian - Page 20 : 22 September 2020 - Original article by Samantha Bailey - PortMac.News Summary

The Australian sharemarket retreated on 21 September following a negative lead from Wall Street, with the S&P/ASX 200 falling 0.71 per cent to close at 5,822.6 points.

Fortescue Metals Group was down 1.2 per cent at $16.20, the Commonwealth Bank shed 1.4 per cent to end the session at $63.50 and Virgin Money UK slumped 9.2 per cent to finish at $1.39. However, Sonic Healthcare was up 2.7 per cent at $33.27 and News Corporation rose 4.4 per cent to $21.25.

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Platinum's Clifford warns of investor 'Mania'

The Australian - Page 20 : 22 September 2020 - Original article by David Rogers - PortMac.News Summary

The S&P 500 index is now 7.5 per cent below its recent record high, while the Nasdaq-100 has shed more than 10 per cent since reaching a new high earlier in September.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 in turn closed at its lowest level in more than two months on 21 September.

Platinum Asset Management CEO Andrew Clifford has advised investors to be cautious about buying into growth stocks, which have enjoyed strong gains in recent months. He adds that there are "extraordinary opportunities" for investors elsewhere.

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Volt to offer 'Bank in a box'

The Australian Financial Review - Page 20 : 22 September 2020 - Original article by James Eyers - PortMac.News Summary

Volt founder Steve Weston says around 70 non-banks have approached the 'neobank' about offering its deposits to their customers. In order to allow Volt to offer 'white-labelled' deposit products, it is co-developing a 'banking-as-a-service' platform with Microsoft.

Weston notes that Volt's original business plan predicted that around one per cent of its customers would come from partners; he says that now it is likely that more than 75 per cent of its customers will be 'partner-originated'.

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Credit card switch just starting: Zip Co

The Australian - Page 16 : 22 September 2020 - Original article by Lachlan Moffet Gray - PortMac.News Summary

Zip Co CEO Larry Diamond says the 'buy now, pay later' company has enjoyed strong growth in its customer base during 2020.

He notes that Zip has benefited from the growing trend toward online shopping during the coronavirus pandemic, with more potential customers becoming aware of its services.

Diamond also expects the trend for consumers to ditch credit cards in favour of BNPL providers to continue, noting that this is a huge market for Zip given that there are about 16 million credit card accounts in Australia.

Zip Co has been added to the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index.

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Harvey Norman earnings triple in 'Crazy' two months

The Australian Financial Review - Page 13 & 26 : 22 September 2020 - Original article by Sue Mitchell - PortMac.News Summary

Retailer Harvey Norman has reported strong growth in sales and earnings for the first two months of the 2020-21 financial year.

The company has advised that its pre-tax profit for the period will be around $178m, compared with just $62.3m for the same period in 2019-20.

Executive chairman Gerry Harvey says coronavirus restrictions have prompted consumers to redirect their spending to products for their home rather than travel and dining.

Harvey notes that it is too soon to know just how long lockdown restrictions will remain in place.

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Australia prepares for bumper harvest as rain boosts NSW winter crops 300%

The Guardian Australia - Page Online : 22 September 2020 - Original article by Mostafa Rachwani - PortMac.News Summary

Rabobank Australia analyst Cheryl Kalisch Gordon has forecast that the winter crop in New South Wales will total 14.5 million tonnes in 2020.

Farmers have benefited from drought-breaking rains, after the winter crop was around 3.2 million tonnes for the previous two years. The NSW Department of Primary Industries is also bullish about the winter crop; it notes that just 2.6 per cent of the state is now in drought, although about 30 per cent of the state is still affected by drought.

National crop production is tipped to be 60 per cent higher than 2019.

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Exporters sweat on China wine deadline

The Australian Financial Review - Page 3 : 22 September 2020 - Original article by Michael Smith - PortMac.News Summary

China's Ministry of Commerce has given Australia's major wine exporters until 25 September to provide it with preliminary questions in regard to its anti-dumping investigation.

The winemakers that have received questionnaires include Treasury Wines, whose shares have fallen 30 per cent since the investigation was announced in August.

The investigation was prompted by complaints from Chinese winemakers that Australian winemakers were dumping wine into mainland China and were receiving subsidies, and it has prompted concern that China could impose tariffs on the $1.2 billion worth of wine that Australia exports to it.

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Star rolls dice on second Pyrmont tower proposal

The Australian Financial Review - Page 26 : 22 September 2020 - Original article by Liam Walsh - PortMac.News Summary

Casino operator The Star Entertainment Group has lodged a second redevelopment plan as it seeks to expand its waterfront complex in the Sydney suburb of Pyrmont.

Its first attempt to redevelop the site was rejected by the New South Wales Independent Planning Commission in November on the advice of the Department of Planning, Industry & Environment.

The new plan includes two towers, both of which would feature hotels and would cost $1 billion to develop.

Pyrmont Action Group convener Elizabeth Elenius says she will oppose the new proposal as it stands, but stresses that she is not anti-development.

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ABC staff urged to vote to defer 2% pay rise

The Australian - Page Online : 22 September 2020 - Original article by Tom Dusevic - PortMac.News Summary

ABC employees have commenced voting on a proposal to defer a pay rise rise of two per cent for six months.

Ben Morton, the Assistant Minister to Prime Minister Scott Morrison, says the public broadcaster's staff should consider supporting the temporary wage freeze, noting that many public sector employees have already had their pay rises suspended.

However, the Community & Public Sector Union has urged ABC staff to reject the wage pause; Sinndy Ealy of the CPSU contends that putting pay rises on hold will not save jobs at the public broadcaster.

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Chinese authorities threatened to detain ABC journalist's 14-year-old daughter

The Guardian - Page Online : 22 September 2020 - Original article by Daniel Hurst - PortMac.News Summary

ABC journalist Matthew Carney has outlined the circumstances that prompted his departure from China in 2018, where he was bureau chief.

He says he had not spoken sooner about the issue because he did not want to put other staff in China at risk, but changed his stance after journalists Bill Birtles and Michael Smith were forced to leave China.

Carney says he and his family were intimidated by Chinese authorities for more than three months before being effectively forced to leave; the intimidation included a threat that his 14-year old daughter might be taken away to a undisclosed location over an alleged breach of visa rules.

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TikTok says it won't spy on Australians or block content on Chinese orders

The New Daily - Page Online : 22 September 2020 - Original article by Josh Butler - PortMac.News Summary

Chinese-owned video app TikTok has over 800 million global users, including 1.6 million in Australia.

However, it has come under scrutiny over allegations of data harvesting and its connections to the Chinese government.

Federal Coalition MP George Christensen has called for it to be banned in Australia, while colleague Jim Molan has referred to TikTok as "a data collection service disguised as social media".

Its Australian general manager Lee Hunter has used a submission to a Senate inquiry into foreign interference through social media that TikTok has never censored Australian content at the request of the Chinese government, nor has it shared Australian user data with the government.