← All opinionAustralia
Regulated by ASIC, APRA, ACCC, AUSTRAC. Monetary authority: Reserve Bank of Australia.
The regime that governs published opinion here: Corporations Act financial product advice — AFSL, with a media exemption and a general-versus-personal-advice distinction.
Housing financeFinOpine desk · 16 Oct 2026
Publishing auction reserves will generate fights and may not survive. Publishing every sale price for 18 months quietly dismantles the asymmetry that made underquoting pay. Make that half permanent.
Our viewThe headline is the published reserve, but the lasting reform is the published sale price. A free public record of what houses actually fetch lets every buyer check an agent's quote, which no regulator can do at scale.
Market designFinOpine desk · 14 Oct 2026
Australia's draft gas reservation scheme hangs the obligation on how much an exporter produces. The export plant accused of draining the east coast market is the one that produces least of its own gas.
Our viewTying the set-aside to how much gas a company produces lets off the export plant that produces least and buys the rest here — the very behaviour the scheme exists to curb. Measure net withdrawals instead.
RegulationFinOpine desk · 13 Oct 2026
Canberra has extended a decades-old carve-out from Australian labour law for cruise ships to 2028. A waived rule is industry assistance by another name - and the only kind that never gets a dollar figure beside it.
Our viewSwitching off a wage floor is a subsidy financed by workers instead of taxpayers, and it is the one kind of subsidy nobody ever has to cost. Extend it if you must - but publish the price before 2028.
InsuranceFinOpine desk · 12 Oct 2026
NRMA Insurance has repaid hundreds of injured motorists for miscalculated compulsory third party benefits dating to 2019. The mistake was spotted by a claimant's lawyer — not by the insurer, and not by the regulator that had audited it.
Our viewAn underpayment nobody notices is not a scandal of greed, it is a failure of checking. If a regulator audits an insurer and it still takes a lawyer to spot the arithmetic, the regulator is auditing the wrong thing.
Capital marketsFinOpine desk · 12 Oct 2026
Firmus's bookbuild turned in days. Whether the demand was ever there at $11 cannot now be checked, because nothing in Australian practice requires the banks running a float to define "covered" or keep a log of it.
Our viewThe claim that most moves an IPO - that the book is already full - is spoken, never recorded, and has no agreed meaning. ASIC should make the banks define "covered" and keep a timestamped log of it.
Equity marketsFinOpine desk · 9 Oct 2026
Withdrawing the biggest Australian listing since Telstra was the right call. The problem is that the doubts and the repricing lived in a closed bookbuild while the public document stood still.
Our viewPulling the float was the right call. The problem is that the doubts and the near-25 per cent repricing happened in a closed bookbuild, while the document ordinary investors actually read stood still.
Card paymentsFinOpine desk · 7 Oct 2026
Business groups say the ATO refusing credit cards while small firms must absorb fees is a double standard. The real asymmetry is in the rule: a monopoly can walk away from cards, a cafe cannot.
Our viewThe tax office is right: it has no prices to bury the fee in, so absorbing it would mean all taxpayers funding the rewards points of those who pay by card. The real double standard is in the ban, which lets monopolies walk away and leaves competitors stuck.
PaymentsFinOpine desk · 6 Oct 2026
ANZ says it has moved corporate money across borders on Swift's blockchain ledger. The technology clearly works. What nobody has published is what the holder owns, and at what moment the payment becomes final.
Our viewThe pilot shows the plumbing works. It does not say when a payment becomes final or what a token holder owns if a bank fails mid-transfer — and that rulebook, not the technology, decides whether this is safe to scale.
Utility pricingFinOpine desk · 5 Oct 2026
TasWater billed businesses for sewerage based on the size of their incoming water connection. For a sports club watering an oval, that proxy was always going to break.
Our viewCharging for sewerage by the width of a water pipe was never going to work for a club that waters an oval. The design error is forgivable; sending the bills out before anyone modelled who would be hit is not.
Financial stabilityFinOpine desk · 2 Oct 2026
The Reserve Bank says fewer than two mortgaged households in a hundred cannot cover repayments and essentials. That is a flow number, and it says almost nothing about what falling prices do to the same borrowers.
Our viewThe Reserve Bank's reassuring figure counts who cannot pay this month. It says nothing about what happens when a stressed borrower can no longer sell the house for more than the loan.
Monetary policyFinOpine desk · 1 Oct 2026
Markets cut the odds of a November rate rise because August inflation came in 0.1 below consensus. The Reserve Bank's own statement says the decision turns on oil, firms' pricing and expectations - not on that tenth.
Our viewThe August figure missed forecasts by a tenth of a point, which is noise. The real news was that underlying inflation has not budged from 3.6 per cent in three months, and the Reserve Bank said its decision turns on oil and pricing behaviour anyway.
PaymentsFinOpine desk · 29 Sept 2026
Sending money abroad with a mobile number is a welcome simplification of addressing. But the name on the screen, the loss when it goes wrong and the true price all stop at the border.
Our viewMaking the address shorter is welcome, but it does not make the payment safer. Before Australian PayIDs can be used from overseas, someone must say who guarantees the name on the screen, who pays when it is wrong, and what the transfer really costs.
Card paymentsFinOpine desk · 27 Sept 2026
Banning card surcharges from 1 October doesn't make card acceptance cheaper — the interchange cap does that. The ban only decides who pays, and the answer is: people who pay by cash and debit too.
Our viewCutting the fee cap is real reform. Banning surcharges is not a saving — it hides the cost in shelf prices, so cash and debit users now help pay for other people's credit cards.
Markets regulationFinOpine desk · 24 Sept 2026
New market integrity rules for AI-enabled trading will fail if they rest on documenting how a model decides. Load the weight on halting it — and publish what was deregulated in the same package.
Our viewRules that ask firms to document how an AI trading model decides will be unenforceable. The safeguards should rest on hard limits, a halt that is tested rather than certified, and a named person who owns it.
Merger controlFinOpine desk · 23 Sept 2026
Blocking a merger only needs a judgement. Weighing public benefits against public detriment needs a magnitude — and the regulator has told us it hasn't calculated one.
Our viewThe regulator is right that this deal would hurt Western Australian insurance buyers. But it has moved to a test that weighs harm against benefit, and it cannot weigh a harm it has openly declined to measure.
Private creditFinOpine desk · 22 Sept 2026
The corporate regulator says too many private credit funds have been too slow to lift their standards. That is a verdict on its own method, not on theirs.
Our viewASIC keeps asking private credit funds to improve and says too many have not. The bigger danger is not bad loans but funds promising quick withdrawals against loans that take years to repay — and that needs a written rule, not another speech.
Housing policyFinOpine desk · 22 Sept 2026
Andrew Bragg is floating super for first-home deposits. Until the Coalition says whether that means withdrawing the money or pledging it, and publishes the price effect, it is not a policy — it is a slogan.
Our viewGiving first-home buyers more money to bid with, when the number of houses for sale hasn't changed, mostly raises prices. The seller gets the benefit; the buyer gets the same house and a smaller retirement.
Consumer financeFinOpine desk · 22 Sept 2026
A court found one site compared policies that nearly all came from a single insurer. The regulator's answer — shop around across several sites — asks consumers to fix a problem they cannot see.
Our viewTelling people to visit several comparison sites is not a fix, because they cannot see any site's panel. Make every site state, at the top of the results, how many insurers it can quote, which ones, and who owns them.
Monetary policyFinOpine desk · 21 Sept 2026
The Reserve Bank is justifying further rate rises by describing a destination rather than naming one. Markets have already priced the trip at 95 per cent. Parliament should ask for the number.
Our viewCalling the cash rate's destination "more sensible" is a judgment dressed as a measurement, and it pre-justifies every rise between here and there. The Bank should publish the number instead.
Resources policyFinOpine desk · 17 Sept 2026
A condition attached to a mining approval is part of what the approval cost. Deleting it by legislation, with no published price and no transition, makes every future condition worth less.
Our viewIf the housing condition no longer works, remove it on terms — with a price, a timetable and something in return. Deleting it by statute tells the next company that conditions are negotiable once the approval is banked.
Subsidy designFinOpine desk · 10 Sept 2026
Almost 100 whistleblower tip-offs allege faked installs and forged signatures under a multi-billion-dollar battery scheme. The tell is not the fraud. It is that outsiders found it before the scheme did.
Our viewIf a subsidy is released by a signed form, forging the form becomes the business. The worry is not that people cheated — it is that outsiders found it before the scheme's own checks did.
PaymentsFinOpine desk · 9 Sept 2026
From 1 October Australian shops cannot surcharge card payments. The cost stays and moves into the price of everything — paid by cash customers too — while the last visible pressure on card fees disappears.
Our viewBanning card surcharges hides the cost of card payments, it does not remove it. Unless the fees merchants pay are capped and falling, the bill just shifts onto cash payers and small shops.
SuperannuationFinOpine desk · 8 Sept 2026
One Nation would let workers redirect part of their retirement contributions into take-home pay for three years. Offer that to everyone bidding for the same houses and the money lands in the price, not the pocket.
Our viewGiving every renter and buyer more monthly cash to bid with does not make housing cheaper for them; it makes it dearer for all of them. The relief ends up in the rent and the sale price.
Tax lawFinOpine desk · 7 Sept 2026
Discretionary trusts can dodge the new 30 per cent minimum if they freeze their distributions. That locks in the very income splitting the tax was meant to curb, and rewards whoever organised first.
Our viewPaying for a tax exemption by freezing distributions rewards whoever set up the most aggressive split first and punishes families whose circumstances change. It preserves the problem instead of ending it.
Market structureFinOpine desk · 4 Sept 2026
Australia's central bank wants views on what its settlement system should do in a tokenised market. The decision that matters is which institutions may hold central bank money, and it belongs in the same paper.
Our viewThe Bank is asking how its settlement system should work in a tokenised market. The harder question is who gets to hold an account in it, and that one should be asked out loud rather than settled by engineering.
Monetary policyFinOpine desk · 1 Sept 2026
A demand-driven liquidity regime only delivers ample reserves if banks are willing to ask for them. Price the Reserve Bank's window too far above the cash rate target and "ample" becomes a name, not a condition.
Our viewLetting banks decide how many reserves they hold is sensible, but it only works if borrowing from the Reserve Bank is cheap and ordinary. Price the window above the cash rate target and banks will avoid it exactly when it matters.
Monetary policyFinOpine desk · 27 Aug 2026
Australia now measures its inflation target against a monthly figure. The Reserve Bank says it will keep making rate decisions off a quarterly one until 2027. Those are two different numbers.
Our viewThe Bank is now judged against the monthly figure but still makes its decisions using the old quarterly one. That is a sensible choice, badly explained — and it will cost the Bank trust it cannot currently spare.
TaxFinOpine desk · 26 Aug 2026
A new tax applies to very large superannuation balances. The threshold is meant to rise with prices, but it only moves in $150,000 jumps — so most of the time it does not move at all.
Our viewThe line does rise, but only in jumps of $150,000, which takes about two years to earn. In between it sits completely still while savings keep growing towards it. That is not what most people heard when they were told it was indexed.
FintechFinOpine desk · 24 Aug 2026
The relief letting Australian crypto platforms trade while the law was settled ran out in June. The law replacing it does not begin until April 2027. In between, they are back under the rules everyone agreed were broken.
Our viewThe promise not to prosecute expired in June 2026, ten months before the new law starts. Crypto firms are stuck under the old unclear rules with none of the protection that made them liveable. Those two dates should have been lined up.
PaymentsFinOpine desk · 22 Aug 2026
New laws widened who regulates digital wallets and buy-now-pay-later, which was well covered. They also handed a politician a power that belonged to the central bank, which was not.
Our viewThat decision used to belong to the Reserve Bank alone. New laws let the Treasurer make it too, on national security grounds that may never be published. A technical judgement has quietly become a political one.