Industry News

Optus has released the results of a communication survey, with findings showing users place more importance on the quantity rather than quality of communication.

According to the research, 85 per cent of Australians feel they are not communicating with friends and family as much as they would like, while almost half (43 per cent) admit they spend more time communicating with people outside of their friends and family.

Optus found the average Australian has 165 Facebook friends, while only 33 of those are considered close.

“Rather than feeling closer to their network, 45 per cent of people actually feel that social networking makes them feel less close to friends and family, with more than half (54 per cent) admitting they find it difficult to say the words they need to loved ones, in particular to our parents,” the research report found.

"In an age where we can communicate with more people than ever before, the research suggests we find it hard to stay as close to the people who matter most. Social media is a fantastic way of staying in touch. We just need to use it more to stay in touch with the people we care about the most - that is our close friends and family,” Gavin Williams, Head of Segment Marketing at Optus said.

“Rather than feeling closer to their network, 45 per cent of people actually feel that social networking makes them feel less close to friends and family, with more than half (54 per cent) admitting they find it difficult to say the words they need to loved ones, in particular to our parents,” the research report found.

"In an age where we can communicate with more people than ever before, the research suggests we find it hard to stay as close to the people who matter most. Social media is a fantastic way of staying in touch. We just need to use it more to stay in touch with the people we care about the most - that is our close friends and family,” Gavin Williams, Head of Segment Marketing at Optus said.

Executives at Huawei Australia could be shortlisted as the company’s possible new global CEO, according to a report conducted by the Australian Financial Review (AFR).

Current CEO and founder Ren Zhengfei announced plans to rotate the position once every six months among a selected group of senior executives.

Although the pool of candidates is currently limited to the group’s senior directors, Australian executives are considered a black horse for the role, according to insiders contacted by the AFR.

The full AFR story can be found here

Federal Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations has announced the Government has intervened in Federal Court proceedings with the Health Services Union (HSU) by applying for the application for the appointment of an Administrator for the HSU East Branch.

The Government has taken this decision to provide for the HSU to function into the future:

• meeting the expectations and in the interests of HSU members;
• sustainably and in a proper and democratic way; and
• in accordance with its statutory obligations, including those set out in the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act.

“Australians have long supported a free and independent union movement which is representative of and accountable to its members,” Mr Shorten said. 

“I am particularly concerned that the interests of HSU members across Victoria, New South Wales and the ACT are not being properly served by the current dysfunction within the HSU East Branch.”

“My intervention is to ensure the broader public interest in working Australians having effective and accountable union representation is not undermined.”

The Federal Government has announced it will provide the NSW Government with $57.6 million over five years for three new projects to improve the care and support provided to those living with severe mental illnesses.

Under the new National Partnership Agreement (NP), NSW will receive the largest funding boost of all states and territories.

Outlined in the funding package, the spending will support the following:

• $35.2 million for the expansion of the existing NSW Housing and Accommodation Support Initiative (HASI) to enable more people to live in the community in stable and secure accommodation, with links to clinical mental health and rehabilitation services for people who require 16 or 24 hour support.
• $12.3 million for the provision of intensive, family focussed support to mothers with mental illness and their children to keep them together, through the provision of high, medium and low packages of care and short term housing.
• $10.2 million for in-reach support services to boarding house residents who have been assessed as having mental health issues, through the provision of 200 continuous and ongoing new low support packages.

Requests for tenders for the initiatives for will be advertised on the NSW Government e-tendering website https://tenders.nsw.gov.au/health/ in May 2012. Interested parties may register on the site to receive e-mail notifications when new tenders are published.

The new Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer has opened, incorporating the LIVESTRONG Cancer Research Centre and the ACRF Cancer Prevention Unit.

“The work in the LIVESTRONG research wing of this integrated centre will focus on innovation in the early diagnosis, prevention and treatment of cancer,” South Australian Minister for Health and Ageing John Hill said.

The South Australian Government has committed $7.5 million to a project, with a further $5 million in recurrent funding to support research and other work.

The Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer is a joint venture between the Flinders Medical Centre Foundation, the Flinders Medical Centre and Flinders University.

“The Centre’s work ties in with South Australia’s strategic commitment to high-level research and the translation of advances in knowledge and technology into better prevention and treatment,” Minister Hill said.

The Federal Government has convened the first meeting of a new working group tasked with considering the findings and recommendations of the Gonski Review in relation to capital funding for the country’s schools.

Parliamentary Secretary for School Education, Senator Jacinta Collins, said state and territory government and non-government school representatives  had begun conversations on how capital funding requirements can be better met.

“It is clear our collective efforts should be directed at improving the educational outcomes of all students,” Ms Collins said.

“It is important we understand and address capital funding issues and the impact these have on the ability of all Australian school students to maximise their educational attainment.”

The working group will be looking at how best to:

• include ongoing maintenance and minor capital works in a schooling resource standard
• ensure infrastructure spending is more transparent; and
• match infrastructure spending with the needs of schools through planning.

The Capital Working Group, made up of both government and non-government school representatives, will report to the Council of Australian Governments through the Standing Council on School Education and Early Childhood.

The Federal Government has announced the first phase of the Empowering Local Schools initiative that will allow public schools to join together to form ‘confederations’ to allow greater integrated decision-making and community engagement.

The Federal Government will provide over $480 million over the next seven years to roll out the intiative, including $69 million in funding to roll the scheme out to 1000 schools in the next two years.

Under the program:

• Schools will be able to form confederations to work together to achieve greater flexibility and make collective decisions. This could include shared staffing arrangements.
• Regional and rural schools can join with schools in metropolitan areas to increase the curriculum options available to their students.
• Small regional schools can join with other schools to form ‘centres of excellence’ in areas such as joint financial management.
• Schools will be provided funding to change or improve their operations or service delivery in areas such as governance, school operations, maintenance and infrastructure, and workforce issues such as staff recruitment and performance. Schools taking part will consult with their local community, including parents, business and local government, about the changes they wish to make.
• Schools will receive a grant of $40-50,000 to help implement changes.

More information on the initiative can be found here

A team of research scientists has announced a major breakthrough in slowing or even halting the development of Multiple Sclerosis (MS).

In research published in the medical science journal Brain, scinetists from the Monash Immunology and Stem Cell Laboraties, the University of Toronto, Yale and the University of Western Australia have demonstrated research that blocks the development of a protein that contributes to nerve damage, the key symptom of MS.

The research team found that a modified version of CRMP-2 is present in active MS lesions, which indicate damage to the nervous system, in a laboratory model of MS.

The modified CRMP-2 interacts with another protein to cause nerve fibre damage that can result in numbness, blindness, difficulties with speech and motor skills, and cognitive impairments in sufferers.

Director of MISCL, Professor Richard Boyd said the discovery could lead to new treatments for MS.

“Blocking the same protein in people with MS could provide a ‘handbrake’ to the progression of the disease,” Professor Boyd said.  

MS Australia estimates the disease currently affects over 20,000 people in Australia, and up to 2.5 million worldwide. 

The Macquarie group has posted its full year profit for the year ended this March, recording a net profit after tax of $720 million, down 24 per cent on last year.

The year to 31 March 2012 saw substantially lower levels of client activity in many of our capital markets facing businesses caused by global economic uncertainty, which was partly offset by the ongoing growth of our annuity style businesses,” Macquarie Group Managing Director and CEO Nicholas Moore said.

The group blamed its struggling derivatives business, saying it has been affected by the prevailing difficult market conditions and costs of exiting.

Despite the grim postings, the group announced an increase of assets under management from $310 billion to $327 billion.

"Difficult market conditions impacted the performance of Macquarie's capital markets facing businesses. Macquarie Securities Group experienced a fall in cash and derivatives revenues and exited a number of underperforming businesses globally, recording a loss for the year. Macquarie Capital reported significantly lower results due to low levels of client activity across mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and equity capital markets (ECM),” Mr Moore said.

Macquarie’s full statement can be found here

A new report published by the Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS) has identifies around $8 billion in budgetary savings if the Government clamps down on tax loopholes.

"This will have the effect of moving the Budget towards a surplus, as the Government intends, but will also make our tax system fairer and put us in a much better position to fund essential social services and infrastructure into the future,” Dr Cassandra Goldie, CEO of ACOSS said.

"These include subsidies for ‘gap fees' or other private expenditures for health and community services, such as the Private Health Insurance Rebate from ancillary or ‘extras' cover; the Extended Medicare Safety Net; the Medical Expenses Tax Offset; the Education Tax Refund; and tax deduction for self-education expenses.

The report identifies the following key tax breaks to be curbed:

• Taxing ‘golden handshakes' for departing employees at their marginal tax rates instead of the flat tax rates of 15% or 30% that now apply; 
• Removing the Senior Australians (SATO) and Mature Age Workers (MAWTO) Tax Offsets or restricting them to pensioners; 
• Removing the extra Capital Gains Tax concessions for small businesses which apply in addition to the 50% discount of tax for capital gains available to individual taxpayers generally;
• The tax treatment of private discretionary trusts be tightened to restrict these tax avoidance opportunities.

“These ‘tax concessions' are a kind of shadow budget. Super tax concessions, for instance, now cost over $30 billion in lost revenue. That's the highest in the OECD and about the same as our spend on the age pension. Yet most of the concessions on compulsory contributions go to the top 20% of income earners, those who are already well placed to secure their retirement future,” Dr Goldie said.

The report can be found here

A former Optus marketing executive is suing her former employer for $14.5 million in damages, alleging the company fired her after six months of bullying and victimisation.

Kerry Morrison, who was hired as head of sales service and marketing at Optus’ Digital Media subsidiary, said the company had hired her on false pretences and she was progressively bullied until being fired six months after she was hired.

Ms Kelly has accused Optus of a culture of preferential treatment and politicking, saying that serious tension existed between Austin Bryant, whom she reported to, and Optus Consumer managing director Michael Smith.

In a statement to the High Court, Ms Kelly claims she was the victim of “unlawful bullying and harassment” from smith, who she alleges had screamed at her and made her fear for her safety.

Australian Broadband Services (AusBBS) has announced it has secured first round funding for the development of its NBN network, meaning it will become the first ISP to operate exclusively over the National Broadband Network (NBN).

“We will be the first ISP to fully leverage the speed and capacity offered by the NBN, harnessing it to develop a very low cost business model, allowing us to offer cheaper and simpler internet access to all Australians. We will outsource the majority of our needs to specialists all over the country to ensure a top class service at a competitive price,” AusBBS CEO and founder Rob Appel said.

“The NBN will create a highly competitive environment in which new entrant ISPs can compete for the first time in many years. AusBBS will be among a new generation of ISPs structured to take advantage of non discriminatory wholesale pricing and passing on genuine benefits to customers.”

“By leveraging the power of the cloud to outsource most of our needs we can securely make available the applications and information our suppliers need, wherever they happen to be. Our overheads will be significantly reduced using this model, allowing us to offer competitively priced access plans to all Australians, wherever the NBN reaches,” concluded Appel.

More information is available here

Commercial and consumer data intelligence specialist Veda has released its quarterly Consumer Credit Demand Index for the first quarter of 2012, showing a continued decline in consumer credit demand.

The report found that overall consumer credit demand has slipped 4.8 per cent year on year, with credit card applications down by 8 per cent.

While the index found that mortgage enquiries increased for the first time in eight quarters in Queensland, the NT and WA, they have dropped sharply in NSW.

"Turning points in mortgage enquiries usually occur one to three quarters ahead of turning points in house prices, an early warning sign which could indicate that after a continued decline, mortgage enquiries may have bottomed out.  Veda mortgage enquiries are closely related to the number of housing finance approvals so this is a trend to watch, particularly if you are hoping for a future pick-up in house prices," Group Strategy and Planning Manager at Veda Angus Luffman said.

"In terms of state by state mortgage activity we are seeing different trends play out with NSW mortgage enquiries being affected by the expiration of stamp duty and Queenslanders starting to bounce back after a challenging year.”

Credit Card applications declined sharply in SA (-12%), NSW (-11.3%) and Victoria (-8.8%) over the last year while the decline is less severe in Queensland (-1.6%) and WA (-4.2%).  In part, the weakness in credit card applications reflects the rise in the use of debit cards and the introduction of responsible lending laws in 2011, which has led to more steps being added to credit card application processes. 

The Federal Government has released a discussion paper on high cost, small amount loans, commonly referred to as ‘payday loans’.

Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation said that the paper was a response to the concerns raised by consumer groups, industry and consumers.

"Payday lending can be high risk for vulnerable or low-income consumers. People often borrow money from payday lenders in order to meet short-term commitments like rent and groceries. The interest charged on the loan is often so exorbitant it only worsens the financial position of the consumer in the long-term, who may need to take out further loans in order to pay off the original loan and the interest," Mr Shorten said.

"This Government acknowledges that there is no quick fix to problems related to payday lending. As such, we fund a range of programs which help consumers address their financial issues before they resort to payday loans."

The paper outlines three major goals that Government has identified:

• reduce the need for high cost, short term, small amount credit by improving access to low-cost and/or fairer alternative assistance;
• encourage more alternatives to high cost, short term, small amount lending; and
• improve assistance to those in a debt cycle so they are provided with constructive long-term solutions.

The discussion paper can be found here

The deadline for submissions is June 4.

The Federal Government has announced a new $1.5 billion Remote Jobs and Communities Program to start from July 2013.

The program will aim to provide a more integrated and flexible approach to employment and participation services for people living in remote areas of the country.

The program will see jobseekers assisted by a single provider with a permanent presence in their region, while also ensuring that people who are not working are participating in activities that support skill increases.

The Federal Government has announced that the program will see Job Services Australia, Disability Employment Services, Community Development Employment Projects and the Indigenous Employment Program rolled into a single integrated service.

The ANZ Bank has announced two senior Research appointments in a bid to further expand the company’s research product offering to its customer base.

ANZ has announced Li-Gang Liu’s appointment to the position of Chief Economist, China. While Richard Yetsenga has been appointed to Head of Global Markets Research.

Commenting on the appointments, ANZ Chief Economist Warren Hogan said: “The Research team has a central role to play in developing ANZ’s global institutional investor customer base through strong insightful research. These appointments will help in fulfilling that role.”

Li-Gang Liu, previously Head of Greater China Economics, will report to Mr Hogan and continue to lead and develop the Greater China economics team, covering China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, based in Hong Kong.

“China is an increasingly important part of ANZ’s operations with significant potential for our institutional business. It is also an important fulcrum for our Research effort - as the most globally influential economy in the region, it lies at the heart of our research effort at ANZ,” said Mr Hogan.

Richard Yetsenga, previously Head of FX Research, will report to Mr Hogan and oversee all of ANZ Research Strategy, including the existing FX, Rates and Commodities teams. He will be based in Sydney.

“Richard has the right experience to perform the role of Head of Global Markets Research, having run strategy teams across Asia including seven years at HSBC in Hong Kong where he was Global Head of Emerging Market FX Strategy,” said Mr Hogan.

The University of Queensland has appointed Professor Peter Høj as its new Vice-Chancellor and President.

Professor Høj is the Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of South Australia and his previous roles include Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Research Council and Managing Director of the Australian Wine Research Institute.

He was selected from a highly-competitive field of candidates.

Professor Høj said he was honoured to be granted the opportunity to lead a research-intensive institution of UQ's stature.

“I look forward to working with UQ staff, students and alumni to further enhance the University's already excellent global reputation for learning, research and outreach activities across a full spectrum of academic disciplines,” he said.

Professor Høj has a Master of Science, PhD and Honorary Doctorate from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

He has served on the Prime Minister's Science and Engineering Innovation Council, and his many awards include the Boehringer-Mannheim Medal from the Australian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

In addition to his Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, he was recently appointed as a Foreign Member (Natural Sciences Class) of The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.

The New South Wales Government has announced it is currently searching for a Head of NSW State Government Senior IT Manager.

The State Government is calling for an experienced ICT professional, with experience in senior roles as well as experience in developing new opportunities with customers and key industry stakeholders.

The State Government has announced the following prerequisites for candidates

• Strong market profile
• Established networks within NSW and other state Governments
• Demonstrable history in building sustainable senior relationships, particularly dealing with CIO level.
• Inside government experience will be considered very favorably

More details can be viewed here

The first interim report of the independent GST Distribution Review has been published.

The review, being conducted by panel members John Brumby, Bruce Carter and Nick Greiner, is currently considering whether the current horizontal fiscal equalization can be improved.

The first interim report outlines the Panel's current thinking on proposals and seeks further submissions from states, territories and other interested parties on the information and concepts outlined in this interim report.

“I thank the Panel for their work to date and look forward to receiving a second interim report on issues relating to state taxes and mineral royalties in mid-2012, followed by a final report later in 2012,” Treasurer Wayne Swan said.

“After the release of the final report, I will convene a meeting with State and Territory Treasurers to discuss the Panel's recommendations.” 

The review can be found here 

Maths and science will collide with computer games and virtual reality at the new $4 million Quantum Victoria physical sciences centre in Macleod West.

Education Minister Martin Dixon today opened the centre and the $16.2 million Charles La Trobe P-12 College in a landmark launch for Melbourne's northern suburbs.

"We are celebrating two exciting projects that will have a profound impact on both the Macleod community and the rest of Victoria," Mr Dixon said.

"Quantum is a truly exciting centre, using computer games, virtual reality and robotics to show students what a career in maths and science can mean."

Students can participate in different scenarios designed to tackle an area of science, including: studying the physics at work in an iPad game of Angry Birds; taking part in an Amazing Race-style competition that touches on the key areas of the centre – science, technology, engineering and maths; or design a Formula 1 car and test it in a virtual wind tunnel.

Quantum is the sixth and final of the Victorian Government's specialised science education centres in Victoria, designed to engage students in science.

Students from all schools throughout Victoria are able to attend Quantum, and the centre will run an outreach program, enabling schools to run programs from anywhere in the state.

Quantum joins the Victorian Space Science Education Centre at Strathmore Secondary College, the Ecolinc Centre at Bacchus Marsh Secondary College, the Gene Technology Access Centre at University High, BioLAB at Belmont High School and Earth Education Centre at Mount Clear College in Ballarat.