Australia's planned tax overhaul is set to reshape the market's investment landscape, with high-dividend blue chips poised to benefit at the expense of growth-oriented stocks, fund managers say, Reuters reported. Under reforms unveiled in last week's Budget, the centre-left Labor government will scrap the 50% discount on capital gains for assets held over a year and instead tax inflation-adjusted gains. A 30% minimum tax on net capital gains will be introduced from July 2027. The upshot is a structural shift in how Australians invest.
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Companies in Australia and New Zealand are beginning to signal the financial strain from the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, as higher fuel prices stoke inflation, dent business and consumer confidence, and weigh on corporate earnings. Air New Zealand, New Zealand's flag carrier, forecast its biggest annual pre-tax loss in four years, two months after withdrawing its earlier 2026 outlook, as the Iran war pushed up jet fuel prices, inflating costs and compounding pressure from weak demand and fleet constraints.
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Australia's centre-left Labor government has rolled out the biggest changes to investment taxes this century to help young people break into the housing market, along with cost-of-living relief to cushion the fallout from the Iran war, Reuters reported. Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Tuesday called his fifth budget the most "important and ambitious" in decades, as a landslide election victory last year allowed the government to address the politically thorny problem of intergenerational inequity.
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Australia's corporate regulator has urged the country's financial sector to take urgent action on tackling potential cyber risks from frontier AI systems such as Mythos, Reuters reported. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission on Friday published a letter sent to the financial services industry saying greater action needed to be taken to ensure cybersecurity practices were as strong as possible.
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Australia's financial intelligence unit AUSTRAC has launched two targeted supervisory campaigns into the country's virtual assets sector as landmark anti-money laundering reforms take effect, Decrypt.com reported. "AUSTRAC is checking how well crypto businesses in Australia are managing money-laundering risks, ahead of major new laws coming into force," said the regulator’s Chief Executive Officer Brendan Thomas in a statement. AUSTRAC is conducting two distinct supervisory campaigns targeting crypto businesses across Australia.
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Australia's top wagering and gaming firm Tabcorp has come under regulatory scrutiny over its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing processes, triggering a 28% drop in its shares on Thursday in their worst intraday trade to date, Reuters reported. Tabcorp said that the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) had identified "serious concerns" over its ability to identify, mitigate and manage money-laundering and terrorism-financing risks effectively.
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The Reserve Bank of Australia delivered its third consecutive interest-rate increase on Tuesday, citing a deteriorating inflation outlook and warning of “plausible” scenarios in which fuel-price pressures rise more than expected, the Wall Street Journal reported. The central bank raised its official cash rate by 25 basis points to 4.35%, following increases in February and March, and has now reversed all the cuts it announced in 2025. The decision by the RBA’s policy-setting board was split, with eight members in favor and one against.
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