Sunday Note 25 October

Key thing to know: Before she was injured, Helen Haines spoke to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese about a shortfall in regional health funding. Her fellow crossbenchers plan to pick up the issue when parliament returns on Monday. 

Key event this week - Monday, 26 October: That’s the first day back in session. Other issues likely to crop up this week include inflation (more on that in a bit), and the government’s plans for gas exporters to keep a share of their gas reserved for Aussie use. It’s a slow-burn issue - the idea has been in the works for years - but it might get a bit hotter on Friday, when a parliamentary committee will hold a public hearing into it.

Key thing to know: Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, is an unusual one - the closest analogue I could find was the Netherlands parliament, and Dutch politics wasn’t exactly my strong suit to begin with. It has 120 seats, with 61 needed for a majority, and voters pick a party, not a candidate. Each party needs 3.25% of the vote to win seats. No one party is likely to reach a majority on its own, so a coalition is needed to form a government. We have a Shortcut that goes a bit deeper for you…

Key event this week - Tuesday, 27 October: Polls open at 4.00pm AEDT, and close Wednesday morning. We’ll be waiting a while for the outcome, though; every prediction I’ve seen basically throws up its hands and goes, “it’s going to be close”, and then the coalition negotiations will draw things out even further. Best guess: we’ll know in about a month - or more…

Key thing to know: The RBA’s key number is the trimmed mean - aka the underlying inflation number that strips out some of the volatile/temporary data - and it’s expecting that number to hold steady at 0.8% for the September quarter. The big 4 banks are a little more pessimistic - they’re predicting closer to 1.0% (which doesn’t sound like a lot, but it could be the deciding factor for a rate rise).

Key event this week - Wednesday, 28 October: That’s when we’ll get the new numbers, and discussion will immediately turn to what they mean for the rate decision. That’s coming on Melbourne Cup Day next week, and at this point, 2 of the big 4 banks are predicting a hold, but the market suspects a rise before the end of the year.

Key thing to know: On Tuesday, Star Entertainment Group will hold its AGM - that’ll get a fair bit of attention given the company is reportedly just staying afloat. On Thursday, Woolworths, with a pending Federal Court decision on alleged misleading discounts hanging over it, will hold its own AGM after what it described as an improved sales year. It also has its quarterly sales update on Wednesday, so we’ll find out if that improvement has held.

Key event this week - Thursday, 29 October: That’s when Super Retail Group - the company behind brands like Supercheap Auto and Rebel Sport - will have its AGM. Awkwardly, that’s exactly the same day as the first case management hearing for the corporate regulator ASIC’s case against Super Retail’s former CEO, Anthony Heraghty, for allegedly breaching his directors’ duties and misleading the market. Might be a bit of multitasking going on that day…

Key thing to know: I once bought a washing machine without checking that it could fit in the space in my apartment where the washing machine was supposed to go - and it didn’t. The state-owned ferry operator in Tassie kinda did the same thing with these new ferries - the berth at Devonport was too small for the boats they bought, so they’ve been stuck in Scotland and Geelong. That meant a new berth was needed, and that caused most of the budget blowout.

Key event this week - Saturday, 31 October: That’s when the new ferries - Spirit of Tasmania IV and Spirit of Tasmania V - will make their first full-scale crossings between Devonport and Geelong. The old boats are up for sale, but they’re staying in Victoria, because - shock horror - there are no available berths in Tassie for them to hang out…