A grandmother in Melbourne’s west who woke up $20m richer after winning Powerball has revealed the secrets behind her newfound wealth.
The Truganina woman held the only national division one winning entry in Powerball draw 1369 on Thursday, turning her into a multi-millionaire overnight.
The lucky winner made the sage decision to switch up her usual numbers, which delivered her the $20m.
“I decided to mix things up, and instead of putting my usual three to four games on, I decided to get a Powerhit consisting of special numbers that mean the most to me,” she told the Lott.
The woman’s winning numbers were different from the ones she usually goes with. Credit: Supplied
“I’ve never expected to win anything big. I usually land three numbers, but never anything more.
The winning numbers in the draw were 30, 23, 9, 22, 5, 28 and 18, while the Powerball number was 3.
The woman also defied her husband’s doubts, who thought she had no chance of winning.
“When I purchased the ticket, my husband and daughter were with me, and I told them that I’d put a ticket on for Powerball, and my husband said to me, ‘don’t bother, we’re never going to win ‘” she grandmother said.
“I guess I’ve proved him wrong.”
The grandmother got the thrill of her life when she realized she had the winning numbers.
“I was sitting in the lounge room, and I checked the winning numbers before going to bed, and I didn’t believe it,” she said
“I couldn’t get out of the chair. I couldn’t go to the toilet. I couldn’t move. It was so surreal.
“I only got about 40 minutes sleep last night. I’m so tired, but it’s worth it.”
The grandmother could not believe her luck when she won. Credit: Supplied, The Lott
The woman wants to use her millions to treat her family, with plans already under way for an Australian holiday.
“We would love to travel around Australia via train. All the sightseeing we would do is getting me excited!” she said.
“We would also love to help our children and grandchildren. We might help them all buy a house!”
The woman bought her winning entry from Wyndham Village Lotto & News, with the store’s owner Mahesh Thakur saying they were thrilled to have sold her the lucky numbers.
“It’s truly a special day for us, and we’re absolutely over the moon,” he said.
“When we found out the news last night, we couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t sleep either.”
The Lott’s division one winning tally has now reached 272 for 2022.
Disney has overtaken Netflix in the global race for streaming customers. But there’s a catch. Actually, there are many catches.
The headline numbers are that Disney as an entertainment megalith now has 221.1 million subscriptions to Netflix’s 220.6 million accounts.
While that looks like Disney has surpassed Netflix in the streaming wars, that 221.1 million number is a combined figure of Disney+ customers as well as US services Hulu and ESPN. Netflix only has the one brand so it’s not a like-for-like comparison.
Of that total figure, Disney+, which launched in late-2019, has amassed 152.1 million subscribers worldwide. It increased its membership by 14.4 million subscribers, more than the 10 million that was forecast.
That’s catch number one in the Disney versus Netflix narrative.
The more revealing asterisk comes when you drill down into the numbers around average revenue per user (ARPU), as industry publication Variety you have donated
ARPU is an important measure for finance types because it reflects how much each customer is worth to a business. The higher the ARPU, the more money each customer is spending with the business.
According to Variety, Disney’s ARPU in the US and Canada was $US6.27 per customer per month compared to Netflix’s $US15.95 for the same region. Disney’s subscription price in the US and Canada is significantly lower than Netflix’s.
The difference in ARPU is even more glaring in India and Southeast Asia where Disney is only making $US1.20 per month to Netflix’s $US8.83 in APAC.
While it may seem like ARPU is something that investors and money people care about, ultimately it will affect audiences.
In a bid to increase that ARPU, there’s currently a lot of movement around pricing.
Disney has announced US prices for Disney+ will increase by 38 per cent in December, from $US7.99 to $US10.99 per month, at the same time as the introduction of an ad-supported membership tier which will be priced at $US7 .99.
Disney+ will roll out the ad-supported option globally in 2023.
In Australia, Disney+ is priced at $11.99 a month. It launched at $8.99 a month but increased the cost in February 2021 when it added the Star sub-brand to its platform.
Locally, Star houses Disney’s more adult-oriented programming and includes many of the exclusive movies and shows that are made for Hulu in the US. This has included series such as dopesick, WeCrashed and the upcoming critical sensation Bear.
Netflix will also introduce an ad-supported membership tier from 2023.
Netflix had previously eschewed introducing advertising on its platform with co-chief executive and co-founder Reed Hastings rejecting the idea.
The company did an about-face in April when it revealed it had for the first time in a decade gone backwards in its subscription numbers.
An ad-supported tier is one of two main tactics Netflix is deploying to arrest its declining membership. A cheaper subscription option could be attractive to existing and potential customers feeling the pinch of global economic and inflationary pressures.
And advertising revenue from brands may increase Netflix and Disney’s ARPU.
Netflix’s other plank in boosting its subscriber numbers is to crackdown on password, a common practice which is a violation of its terms and conditions but is done by 100 million of its customers.
Netflix is trialling two forms of a crackdown in smaller territories in Latin America, both of which means charging customers an extra fee for sharing their login details beyond their residence.
The American streaming market is going through a tumultuous period due to increased competition and economic conditions.
Earlier this month, Warner Bros Discovery announced it will combine its two streaming services, HBO Max and Discovery+ following its merger. The Warner Bros Discovery move could signal the long-awaited consolidation many in the industry have flagged for some time.
In Australia, there are more than a dozen paid streaming platforms, ranging from broad appeal brands such as Binge*, Netflix, Stan and Amazon Prime Video to niche products such as Shudder, Hayu and Shelter.
According to Roy Morgan data published in February, 74.5 per cent of Australians accessed a subscription video-on-demand platform across an average of four weeks in the three months to December 2021, an increase of 2.5 per cent.
The most popular service remains Netflix, followed by Foxtel Group*, which owns Foxtel, Binge, Kayo and Flash.
Roy Morgan estimated Australians use on average 2.7 subscription video-on-demand services, up from 1.8 a year earlier.
*Foxtel Group is majority owned by News Corp, publisher of this website
Google has been slapped with a $60 million fine for some misleading consumers about the collection and use of their personal location data on Android phones between January 2017 and December 2018.
The consumer watchdog, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), took Google to the Federal Court last year, saying the issue may have affected about 1.3 million Australian customers.
The Federal Court found Google represented to some Android users that the setting titled Location History was the only account setting that affected whether Google collected, kept and used personally identifiable data about their location.
But there was another account setting, titled Web & App Activity, which also enabled Google to collect personal information, which was turned on by default.
Google fixed the issue by December 2018.
The descriptions of the Location History setting and the Web & App Activity setting offered up to Android mobile users between 30 April 2018 and 19 December 2018.(Supplied: ACCC)
‘Used by Google to target ads to some consumers’
The ACCC and the overseas arm of Google jointly agreed on the penalty of $60 million.
ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said the hefty penalty was appropriate for the compromise to such sensitive information.
“[It] sends a strong message to digital platforms and other businesses, large and small, that they must not mislead consumers about how their data is being collected and used,” Ms Cass-Gottlieb said.
“Google, one of the world’s largest companies, was able to keep the location data collected through the ‘Web & App Activity’ setting and that retained data could be used by Google to target ads to some consumers, even if those consumers had the ‘ Location History’ setting turned off.”
The Federal Court also ordered Google to adjust its policies to ensure a commitment to compliance, and to give training to staff about Australian Consumer law.
Google will also have to pay some of the ACCC’s costs.
Google Australia has been spared a separate penalty because it had no role in preparing the messages about location data, which the court found was a breach of the law.
The number of international tourists visiting Australia since the country’s borders opened back up is way down on pre-pandemic levels, according to new data.
Much of the decrease is due to international conflicts and a dip in the number of Chinese nationals choosing to holiday Down Under.
Chief executive officer of the Tourism and Transport Forum, Margy Osmond, said getting tourists back to the country’s landmarks is “not as easy as turning on a switch”.
“There is international conflict going on at the moment, but in the middle of it there are people,” she told Today.
“China was our number one visitor previously.
“And also, most importantly, not just by numbers, but by the amount of money they spent when they got here.”
Overall, just 131,000 international tourists visited Australia in May – down 65 per cent from pre-pandemic levels.
Ms Osmond said regional areas which had economies propped up largely by tourist visitors were still far from fully recovering.
“This is a really big issue for many businesses, particularly places like Far North Queensland, which rely almost entirely on international travellers,” she said.
“So we really need those travellers.”
The revelation comes after data revealed the dire state of Melbourne and Sydney’s CBDs almost a year after the cities’ crippling Covid-19 lockdown restrictions ended.
The figures, released by the Property Council, indicate just one in five workers are showing up to the office during the course of a typical working week.
Overall, the average office occupancy has dipped from 49 per cent in June to just 38 per cent in July, with the drop coinciding with continually spiking Covid cases, resulting in tens of thousands of new infections each week.
Elsewhere in the country, workers’ attendance in CBD offices in Sydney dropped from 55 to 52 per cent, Brisbane dipped from 64 to 53 per cent and Adelaide’s changed from 71 to 64 per cent.
The German manufacturer says the Porsche Taycan Turbo S completed a lap of the 20.8 kilometer track in 7min 33.3sec, making it the fastest electric car in production.
That effort, recorded by development driver Lars Kern, undercuts the 7min 35.sec mark of Tesla’s Model S Plaid by more than two seconds.
The 2023 model year Taycan Turbo S benefited from a new performance kit including lightweight 21-inch wheels, high-performance Pirelli P-Zero Corsa tyres, and a software update allowing its electronically controlled suspension to make the most of the new rubber.
The 560kW sedan reached 268km/h during the lap, benefiting from a two-speed transmission that gives it a performance advantage over most electric cars.
But it fell short of the fastest times set by petrol-powered V8 sedans, including the 7min 29.8sec mark of Porsche’s V8-powered Panamera, the 7min 29.5sec of BMW’s latest M5, or the 7min 27.8s of Mercedes-AMG’s GT 63 S .
While the Porsche runs out of puff just shy of 270km/h, the nine-speed transmission in Mercedes’ heavy hitter allows it to reach 298km/h on the Nurburgring, or 315km/h if you can find a longer straight.
Expect the electric car performance battle to heat up in the near future, powered by fresh metal such as the Tesla Roadster, Lotus Evija, Pininfarina Battista and Porsche’s electric successor to the Cayman GT4.
A Sydneysider returned home to an unexpected – and most definitely unwanted – delivery service on Thursday night.
In a photo posted to a Sydney Reddit forum, an Aramex delivery van appears to be bogged in a homeowner’s front yard, damaging their lawn.
Tire tracks suggest the driver was attempting to use the lawn to do a three-point turn.
But when the vehicle was put in reverse, the wheels looked.
“Delivery driver is stuck in my front yard. They weren’t even delivering to my place – tried to use my lawn to turn around,” the caption accompanying the post read.
While the homeowner is unaware of how long the van was in their yard prior to them returning home, it wasn’t until four hours after the original post that the Aramex franchise owner attempted to free the van.
“The owner came and they have dug a bunch of bigger holes, but still can’t get the van out,” the homeowner posted.
The attempt to remove the van shocked one viewer of the post, who suggested an alternative method to removing the vehicle.
“Please tell me I have let the pressure out of the tires and tried that before digging into your grass,” they said. “It makes the tires wider and distributes the weight.”
However, attempts to remove the van didn’t stop there, with the homeowner, who wished to remain anonymous, telling news.com.au that further damage was done when the company attempted to use a second vehicle and some wooden planks to tow the they go out
As for whether Aramex will reimburse for the damages, the homeowner said the delivery service owner told them that their insurance doesn’t cover a “driver driving where they are not supposed to”.
The franchise owner instead left the homeowner his phone number and offered to pay for the damages out of his own pocket.
The van remains at the property. The homeowner hopes it will be removed on Friday.
The post has attracted almost 100 comments, as Reddit users tell of their own trying encounters with Aramex – a global delivery brand with a website that says it has “29 regional franchises and over 900 franchise partners” across Australia.
News.com.au has contacted the company for comment.
One commenter said: “(They) left my parcels, multiple times, on the front door of an apartment complex in a busy area, without even bothering to ring the doorbell.
“I only realized it was delivered when I went to check the website… By then it had been left outside for half a day. It was stolen of course.”
Another said: “Every time I end up with an Aramex parcel it goes missing.”
While a third posted: “Seen facility footage of their drivers treating parcels like actual garbage.”
“So price falls would be deeper, but we may get to the bottom faster. I was originally thinking the top to bottom falls could drag out into 2024, but it now looks like it could be as short as 12 months.”
Dr Oliver said there were already tentative signs, such as slower consumer spending, that the aggressive rate rises appeared to be getting traction earlier than normal in a tightening cycle.
AMP Capital chief economist Shane Oliver. Jim Rice
“The accelerating pace of home price declines would further depress consumer spending via negative wealth effects,” he said.
“This could prompt the RBA to cap rates around 2.6 per cent later this year or early next year and start cutting by late 2023.”
The downturn in house prices accelerated last month. National values fell 2 per cent over three months, which is comparable to what happened in the 2008 global financial crisis and the recessions of the early 1980s and ’90s. Sydney fell by 4.7 per cent over the period, and Melbourne dropped by 3.2 per cent.
“The fall in home prices this cycle could well see some cities – notably Sydney and Melbourne – reverse all or much of the boom in prices since their 2020 pandemic low, which will likely see a rise in negative equity for recent low-deposit buyers, Dr Oliver said.
Sydney housing values peaked in mid-February, based on CoreLogic’s daily home value index (HVI), and have since fallen by 5.9 per cent, a much faster rate of decline than in the previous 2017-2019 downturn.
Over the same number of days after the market peak in 2017, Sydney housing values were down only 2.9 per cent, CoreLogic data shows.
Fastest rate of decline
“Looking at the decline phases historically using monthly data, this is the fastest rate of decline over the first six months of a downturn since at least the early 1980s when CoreLogic’s HVI commences,” said Tim Lawless, CoreLogic’s research director.
“Sydney’s decline trend started off fairly mild. However, the May rate hike was a clear inflection point in the market, causing the pace of decline across Sydney home values to noticeably steepen and diverge from earlier decline trends.”
Similarly, in Melbourne, housing values fell more sharply, down 3.7 per cent from the market peak in early March, compared with a 1 per cent drop during the 2017-2019 downturn over the same number of days.
During the 2017 to 2019 downturn, Sydney house prices took 22 months from the peak to bottom out. It took another 22 months to post a nominal recovery, data from CoreLogic shows.
In the earlier downturn of 2010 and 2012, Sydney values took 16 months to find a floor and another 13 months to record a nominal recovery.
A home at Darlington in inner Sydney goes under the hamer last weekend. Rhett Wyman
Mr Lawless said similar to the pandemic upswing, which was relatively short but sharp, the downturn could be over quickly.
“It depends to a large extent on the trajectory of interest rates. With forecasts for the cash rate to stabilize either late this year or early next year, and potentially a reduction in interest rates through the second half of next year, we could see housing markets finding a floor and potentially recording a subtle rise as interest rates reduce. ,” he said.
“Considering higher interest rates have flowed through to weaker housing market conditions very quickly, we could see the reverse once rates start to fail. However, it really depends on how high rates go, and how the economy is faring after the surge in interest rates.
“If higher interest rates push the economy into reverse, it may take some time for momentum to shift.”
Rebound could be slower
Dr Oliver said the house price rebound this time could be slower because of persistently high inflation and interest rates.
“The long period of falling interest rates in the past 30 years had supercharged the upswings in the past, like waving a magic wand of interest rate cuts, which guaranteed a robust rebound each time, but we no longer have that tailwind because rates are rising again,” he said.
“The return of immigrants could increase demand and rising rents could attract more investors into the market, which may provide a bit of a burst once interest rates top out and start to fall again, but I suspect that the overwhelming influence will be interest rates.
“We’re unlikely to go back to record low interest rates and therefore the recovery may be a more gradual one compared to, say, the last 30 or 40 years, and may take longer than 20 months before prices reach a new high. I think we’ll probably go through a couple of years where prices rise between 5 and 10 per cent.“
Despite the prospect of sharp price falls in the near term and slower growth over the long term, Sydney investor Deniz Sabuncuoglu remains upbeat.
“I’m one of those people who are bullish about the housing market,” he said. “We’re still planning to expand our portfolio. I understand the possibility of recession and rising inflation can scare a lot of people, especially first-time investors.
“For the medium to long term, I understand there may be some price fluctuations, but as long as rents are coming, we can pass the rate rise through rental increases.
“As long as we stick to our own fundamentals of buying affordable properties between $600,000 and $1.2 million in areas with strong growth prospects, we’re not worried about what’s happening with inflation, interest rates and the possibility of subdued growth.”
Sitting in a big chocolate-colored booth, Ridge takes a sip of Californian Chardonnay and starts regaling me with tales of his life as a traveling salesman.
He says he’s been to 72 countries selling the famous blue and yellow cans, two of which he has strategically placed on the lunch table. His current American Airlines travel point balance has surpassed 6 million, and he has 4 million Marriott points.
“It all started in the 1970s,” Ridge says. “I had driven from Armidale through to Narrabri in NSW and it was a really hot, hot, hot day.
“So I had these two suitcases with product I’m trying to sell, and I have walked up the street and I go into a store and this guy comes out. And he says, ‘What can I do for you?’
“I said, ‘I am Garry Ridge and I am from Quality Auto Accessories’, and the guy said, ‘You can get the f— out of here. I don’t like your company and I don’t like your boss.’”
“So I put the two bags on the floor and sat on the bags. And he said, ‘What do you think you are doing?’ and I said, ‘If you think that I have carried these two bags all the way here and you’re going to tell me to get out, well, I’m not leaving here until at least you look at what I have in these cases.’”
The store manager responded by telling Ridge he could sit there all night for all he cared. Ridge did sit there for about an hour. When the store manager finally came back, he told Ridge to get a case of beer.
Ridge at his mother’s home in Sydney’s inner west suburb of Five Dock in 2009. Peter Braig
“I said, ‘No problem.’ I go across the road and get a case of beer. I come back. We sit down and have a couple of beers and start talking, and two hours later, I walk out with the biggest order that we’ve ever got from the area.”
As he finishes the anecdote, a big bowl of truffle fries is placed in the middle of the table and Ridge claws at them like an eagle. His fish tacos from him, glistening primary colors, arrive. He neatly arranges them, noting that there is nothing more Southern Californian than his meal from him.
Ridge might be surrounded by Americans and their culture, but he has not lost a gram of his Australian-ness. He grew up in Sydney’s inner west, worked for retailer Waltons and attended Sydney Tech College. He went on to work for Hawker Pacific, which owned the license for WD-40 in Australia, and then joined WD-40 in 1987 as managing director for Australia. He transferred to the US in 1994 as director of international operations, and was appointed chief executive in 1997.
“When I was first given the opportunity to lead WD-40, I was described by Forbes magazine as the ‘one-time traveling salesman from Australia’,” Ridge says.
His loyalty to one company could have something to do with Ridge’s parents. His father, a fitter and turner, worked for one company, which was owned by Westinghouse, for 50 years.
Home is never far away
His accent is still strong; he thinks this might be due to his listening habits of him.
“I listen to Australian breakfast radio every day. I drive home in the afternoon when it’s morning in Australia. I love the Australian culture. I love the Australian point of view. I love the way Australians reflect on things differently to the American culture.
“If I come up to you, as my friend in Australia, and I say, ‘Matt, will you do me a favour?’ Matt would say, ‘Yeah, what is it?’ But if I ask someone here, ‘Can you do me a favour?’ they say, ‘What is it?’, not, ‘Yeah’.”
Those differences in attitude have meant that Ridge had to adapt and evolve his leadership over the decades. He says he’s gone from being the blunt, tough Aussie to more conciliatory and understanding.
“My leadership style has changed over time. In the early days I was the ‘be brief, be bright and be gone’ leadership style. I didn’t understand the need to have people in an organization that were passionate about what they’re doing.
“For example, I do get really frustrated when people don’t do what they say they’re going to do. In the early days, I would have been really in their face, and say, ‘you have no right to do that’. Back then, I was more aggressive about it. Today, I would handle it differently. Now I would be more coaching about it.”
As well as managing people, Ridge has had to learn other skills.
“When the board of directors decided that I should be the CEO, to lead this public company, I’d never even been to Wall Street. I didn’t understand public markets. I was scared.
“I knew that our dream was to take the blue and yellow can with the red top to the world. But I said, ‘How are we going to do that?’ So, I had to go back to school to learn what I didn’t know.”
He completed a master’s degree in executive leadership at the Knauss School of Business at the University of San Diego, where, in his spare time, he is now an adjunct professor specializing in corporate culture.
Ridge takes another sip of the cool wine. He has a 1000-bottle home cellar, but, strangely, he loves a cheap Lindeman’s white.
The man in charge
“I was described by Forbes magazine as the ‘one time traveling salesman from Australia’,” says Ridge. Nick Moir
The day before we meet, I received a bottle of Penfolds as a gift from a long-term investor, GCQ Funds Management chief investment officer Doug Tynan, one of the few Australian businessmen Ridge has known for more than a decade.
“Meeting Garry for the first time was unforgettable,” Tynan recalls. “The first time I visited the old WD-40 headquarters there wasn’t even carpet on parts of the office floor!”
The restaurant has suddenly filled up and become so loud that there is a chance the interview recording might be difficult to understand, so we huddle in a bit like a coach with a player. Above us are pictures of prized horses; they remind me that Ridge rode into Times Square in 2003.
The idea was inspired by Richard Branson’s 1994 stunt, when he drove a tank into the famous location to crush Coca-Cola cans as a way to mark the launch of Virgin Cola. So for WD-40’s 50th anniversary, Ridge dressed up as a knight in shining armor symbolically protecting the secret formula for WD-40.
One of the biggest costs for WD-40 – about $US3 million a year – is the maintenance and protection of the company’s trademarks. At the San Diego headquarters are floor-to-ceiling shelves full of spray cans. They are divided into three categories: the first is WD-40 cans since the company began, the second is all WD-40’s competing brands over the ages, and the third is all the counterfeit WD-40 cans seized from around the world.
Remarkably, when Ridge visited a factory in China where fakes were being made, he was told they had a letter approving the manufacture. Ridge asked to see the letter and what they produced before him was a decades-old forgery of his signature.
“We have private investigators who go out into the market and identify the cans; once they’re identified, we then link them up with our enforcement people. And we have to then go to the local law enforcement, they will go in and they’ll raid that warehouse. What we’re trying to do is swim upstream to find the bigger fake manufacturer. It can just be a guy in his garage with an aerosol filling machine. Some of them go to jail.”
The current climate
Ridge recalls being one of the first people to bring a can of WD-40 into China.
“That was back in the ’80s, when the competing product in China then was dirty diesel oil, ignorance and a hammer,” he laughs, before saying how much he respects the Chinese people and their incredible growth story.
“I have a lot of very, very close and treasured Chinese friends. I think the Chinese are some of the hardest working, most honest people I’ve ever seen.
“But how their government is doing things may be different. What does the leadership of China want? I don’t know. I mean, I could guess. Look back in history, from the Romans to Hitler to what’s happening in Russia.”
Ridge is nervous about the current economic situation in America. He’s had to deal with a 40-year high in inflation – when he had to pass on prices and keep them there – without engaging in any so-called shrinkflation. “We’re going to talk ourselves into a recession, there’s no doubt about it,” he says.
We have finished our food and decide upon the very un-American option of tea.
The conversation shifts back to his family.
“I don’t really have a best friend here other than my wife,” he says.
He has two children from his first marriage: a son, Peter, aged 41, who is a senior director of sales at Adidas; and a daughter, Kate, 38, who was a professional dancer until a back injury forced a change of career – she’s now a teacher.
Ridge has just bought a tract of land in Kauai, Hawaii, where he is building a dream home.
“The reason I like it is that it’s 10 hours to Australia and six hours to the US. It has a lot of nature, and there is a lot of hiking.”
Ridge says he is not retiring and wants to help businesses improve their leadership. His successor is the company’s president and chief operating officer, Steve Brass, with whom he has worked for 30 years. Ridge says he still has so much to offer and doesn’t want to leave anything on the table.
His mother lived until she was 99 years and nine months old, so he could have plenty of time.
“I have a lot more I want to achieve. Life is a gift, don’t leave it unwrapped.”
bill
Residence, 5951 Skyline, Rancho Santa Fe, California
“If the governor was to stand down now, it would be a disaster for the country because we have got an extraordinarily challenging period ahead,” he said. “It’s all about making difficult decisions and that requires a significant amount of experience in the job.”
Dr Lowe has spent 42 years at the Reserve Bank, to the top job in 2016. He is well regarded among his global peers and a popular successor to ex-governor, and now Macquarie Group chairman, Glenn Stevens.
“We have one of the best central bank leaders globally,” said George Boubouras, head of research at K2 Asset Management. “Unlike the Clash song, he should stay, and there will be no trouble.”
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has launched a major review of the Reserve Bank’s inflation target, monetary tools, board structure, accountability and culture.
Mr Hogan said the Reserve Bank’s board should be held accountable and step down. The board consists of nine members, six of them appointed by Treasury.
It is also the opinion of Bob Cunneen, chief economist at MLC. He agrees that fresh minds are needed to challenge the Reserve Bank’s beliefs and assumptions.
“The lesson of the last year has been that monetary policy hasn’t been very responsive to the inflation risk and the board hasn’t had the critical thinking skills to question the RBA governor and deputy governor,” he said.
Mr Cunneen believes the most senior board members should step down.
controversy
Forward guidance, deployed as part of yield curve control, was a de facto commitment that interest rates would not be increased for three years after the onset of the pandemic.
The unconventional tool policy involved pegging the three-year government bond rate – then 0.1 per cent – to the overnight cash rate target. It was underscored by formal guidance reinforced by the governor in policy decisions.
Mr Hogan has long held the view that forward guidance was a dangerous instrument because it gave the community a sense of false certainty.
He argues that the board failed the Reserve Bank and Australians by not pushing back on this pledge.
not alone
Other economists and fund managers are more forgiving, arguing that the RBA’s misjudgment was “common” in monetary policy.
“They underestimated the strength of the labor market, wages and inflation,” said Su-Lin Ong, RBC Capital Markets’ chief economist. “But are they alone? Hasn’t everybody revised up their inflation forecast globally?”
The US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank also long held the view that inflation was temporary before conceding error. Central banks have become warier of making too many predictions about the future.
Dan Siluk, portfolio manager at bond fund manager Kapstream Capital, said that suggesting the whole Reserve Bank board needs an overhaul is too far-fetched.
He appreciates that it was a tumultuous period. “It’s not a job that anyone craves,” he said. “I can’t say the RBA has not done worse than its peers.”
Robert Tipp, chief investment strategist for PGIM in New York, detected a misconception about how central banks have acted. “It’s like the Keynesian line: ‘When the facts change, I change my mind’,” said Mr Tipp.
well ahead
He said the market simply made the mistake of hearing what it wanted to hear.
In reality, he said, the commitment was only to keep rates low until the economic objectives were fulfilled, which happened sooner than expected. The central bank’s focus is the economy, not bond trader happiness, he added.
Even so, following the 180 degree shift in rates, traders have reported lower turnover in volume and liquidity in Australian swap markets in the last six to nine months.
For others, the passage of time will cast the Reserve Bank in a more positive light.
“They seem to be delivering more sustainable outcomes compared to the Bank of England and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand whose economies have amplified challenges,” said Mr Boubouras. “The RBA has served the Australian economy well.”
Mr Hogan is advocating for the return of less transparency in policymaking.
I have argued that before 2007, when the global financial crisis hit, central banks used opaque language on purpose, so they could not be accused of getting things wrong.
Mr Hogan said central banks must project confidence no matter the circumstances. “What we need to see from central banks is less transparency and more accountability,” he concluded.
Aldi’s pop-up truck is serving up delicious dumplings for the bargain price of $1.44 – but you’d better get in quick for this one night only offer.
Sydneysiders can get their hands on the bargain feed down at Aldi Bankstown Central car park tonight only, Friday, August 12 from 5pm to 7pm.
Hungry patrons will score a box of six Urban Eats dumplings for just $1.44 – which works out to just 24 cents per dumpling.
Offerings include fan-favorites Prawn Gyoza and a delicious new seasonal addition to the range, Chicken Dumplings.
There is a maximum of 4 serves per person, and it will be a card-only venue.
Research commissioned by Aldi shows that almost half (46 per cent) of Aussies are paying between $15 and $20 on a takeaway food order per person, at least $13.56 more than the cost of a serving from Aldi’s dumpling range.
“At a time when consumers are feeling the pinch, it’s rewarding to provide an option for people to still enjoy their Friday night rituals when they shop with us” Andrew King, frozen food buying director for Aldi, said.
“The Aldi Dumpling Truck demonstrates how good food doesn’t have to hurt your pocket.
“You can dish up quick, delicious and affordable Friday dinners at home for less than $1.50 a serve.
“We are so proud of our curated convenience range of frozen food items that have been developed by our trusted supplier partners and are a firm favorite with our customers for good reason.”
All proceeds from the Aldi Dumpling Truck will be donated to Aldi’s national charity partner, Camp Quality, a charity that brings positivity, fun and laughter back into the lives of kids facing cancer.
The Aldi Dumpling Truck will be pitched up at Aldi Bankstown Central, Chapel Rd, on Friday, August 12 from 5pm to 7pm, while stocks last.
Maximum of 4 serves per person. Cards only, no cash accepted.
