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ESG Summit Latest News & Analysis The Australian Financial Review

A battle over how to treat childhood obesity is brewing between two groups who each believe their approach has young people’s best interests at heart. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US will consider chronic health conditions and even factors like retirement age as reasons to deny visas. Labor is considering advice to subsidise weight-loss drugs for obese people with heart disease, but doctors say more people need access to cheaper treatments.

Bernard Marantelli has for the past few decades outsmarted many in the wagering industry, including US authorities after he won a $95 million lottery jackpot. A long battle between Ainsworth Game Technology and Kjerulf Ainsworth, the son of its founder, over a takeover from Novomatic has landed in Federal Court. WhiteHawk Capital, an American private credit firm, will tour Star’s three precincts ahead of a decision on a possible loan to the troubled casino group. Cricket Australia hoped to test the market with investors for its BBL franchises.

The foundations of the Forrest, Ramsay, Snow and Myer families are donating $30 million to support women in leadership and end domestic assaults. Peter Regan found out the hard way how to strike a good public-private partnership for transport. Sydney’s new Western Sydney Airport metro line could use a robot to inspect the cleanliness of trains and check rail tracks for faults. Daniel Salter wanted to find jobs for army veterans on Victoria’s North East Link project, but he couldn’t open the necessary doors – until he coughed up cash. The Wests Tigers’ travail is a property story through and through.

The Forensic Crash Unit is investigating after a Nissan Navara utility hit the child while turning right onto Toohey Street in Caboolture, Moreton Bay, about 6.47pm yesterday. Anika Wells has repaid $10,116 to the public purse for four taxpayer-funded trips, which included $8093 in expenses and a $2023 penalty.

An independent review led by the Tesla chairwoman has urged the government to overhaul its research and development tax incentive scheme. The industry minister wants a lengthy public discission about a major review’s findings, but business wants bold and urgent action. Industry players and analysts expect the government to push the sale after the Chinese-owned port failed to cause a stir in Beijing. Crisis support services are so stretched that some victims never receive a response, an expert review has told the government. At least 26 domestic flights departing from Sydney Airport have been cancelled as residents in three states battle major power outages.

The treasurer’s fifth budget confirms intentions to put higher taxes on wealth but without reducing income taxes, cutting spending or boosting australian payid pokies productivity. Every argument being made now and in the next few weeks could have been made before the last election – and carried. The S&P 500 has added a staggering 16.6 per cent since hitting a wartime low in late March, while the local bourse continues a long slump.

Under the Coalition, developers were offered financing to build major fuel stores. It is important to recognise that the problem demands year-round dedication, comprehensive strategies, and multi-faceted interventions. There are the men who perpetrate financial abuse, but there are also the platforms which have for too long been unprepared to confront the damage they facilitate.

If the SERD report did nothing other than highlight the precarious state of Australia’s hard-won prosperity, it would still have performed a valuable service. Indigenous groups are achieving legal victories over new offshore gas developments, creating delays the gas industry didn’t see coming. Beijing’s ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian says Chinese port owner Landbridge shouldn’t be punished by having its lease ended on security grounds. The former prime minister said that when he approved the lease with a Chinese company a decade ago, security agencies had no concerns about the deal. Anthony Albanese has doubled down on an election promise to force the Chinese owners to sell Darwin Port despite warnings Beijing may hit back. A regulator dismissed allegations of a cover-up as “sensationalist rubbish” but the episode has opened the floodgates for multiple attacks against the industry.

The government is still hanging its hopes on global oil prices declining by mid-way through the year, and stabilisation by the same time in 2027. It is one of few jurisdictions that has agreed to apply new reporting standards only partially, says former super fund chief David Atkin. Major lenders had promised to send bosses to meet traditional owners near Santos’ Barossa gas project. The Swiss-based commodities giant had proposed spinning off the fossil fuel into a separate company but has decided to retain the division. Institutional investors see natural capital as the next force in corporate governance, with big implications for companies growing and selling food. The big investor says it was drawn to the miner’s shift to metallurgical coal and remains committed to net zero by 2050 after buying shares last week.

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A new report shows domestic violence is widespread among women in their late teens and early twenties. Only a week after the club played a “respect” game for gender equality, new data shows its reliance on revenue that experts say is linked to relationship abuse. The politician is dropping a request for documents concerning Richard White’s communications with the former Labor leader’s ex-partner Nathalie Matthews. Camilla said she decided to speak up because domestic violence has been a “taboo subject” for so long that most people don’t realise how bad the situation was.

April 2023

Spanish daily “El Pais” reported that the passenger left MV Hondius between April 22 and 24, 10 days after the first reports of death from a strain of hantavirus. A Perth start-up called Uluu has raised $8 million, as it tries to make a plastic replacement from seaweed, with famous faces joining VC investors in the round. The equivalent of almost 1 kilogram in single-use products was produced for every person on the planet in 2021, according to a report by Andrew Forrest’s Minderoo Foundation. A more determined approach including government action is needed to accelerate the transition to sustainable plastics, say IKEA and Arnott’s executives. Sydney-based Licella is poised to reveal partners for a proposed plant on the Dow Chemical site at Altona, in Melbourne’s west, in coming weeks. Until it’s always cheaper to use repurposed materials, the industry has little hope of success.

Jackie O asked ARN to stop Sandilands months before implosion

The reason today’s senior executives are ‘shy’ about ESG is that their efforts have not prevented major scandals. Investors and CEOs say non-financial issues remain a key risk for businesses, but we may have outgrown the phrase ‘environmental, social, governance’. How to balance good governance with financial return for shareholders remains a burning issue when it comes to ESG investing. A top consultant says the government’s Climate Active program is no longer part of corporate decarbonisation plans. But diplomats also pressed the World Health Organisation about how it might cope when its biggest donor exits the UN health agency.

• The country’s major developers say the lack of tax relief in the Victorian and West Australian budgets has made federal government measures more pressing.
• The Queensland government has been briefed on the cost to run a gun buyback scheme but is expected to oppose a joint-funding arrangement.
• Anika Wells has repaid $10,116 to the public purse for four taxpayer-funded trips, which included $8093 in expenses and a $2023 penalty.
• Emergency services were called to Karreman Quarries on West Mount Cotton Road in Sheldon about 2.20pm yesterday following reports a man had been critically injured in a forklift incident.

Tradies are sitting idle at the Western Sydney Airport Metro project after a costs dispute between the NSW government and major contractor escalated. The country’s major developers say the lack of tax relief in the Victorian and West Australian budgets has made federal government measures more pressing. Forward bookings are almost “non-existent”, one tourism operator says, as the industry calls on the federal government for relief. Most investors selling property, shares and other assets will pay more tax once the new model to index the cost base of an asset to inflation is bedded down. Over 5300 people at multi-billion dollar software giant Canva’s global workforce have joined the company’s second-ever “AI Discovery Week”.

Psychologists have long focused on treating depression, on making people feel less bad. Shares in Life360 tumbled after the company revealed a series of technical glitches stopped it from reaching its app download targets in the first quarter. A 10-minute set-up for automated deposits and sustainable spending buffers prevent minor financial lapses from derailing long-term prosperity. Markets run on information, but in the age of artificial intelligence, fake news and social media, investors must always question it or risk catastrophic results. It seems the archdiocese is on a selling spree, putting at least its fifth property on the market in the past 12 months. The Western Australian government is now spending more per head of population than debt-ridden Victoria.