THE HOUSE of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics will hold a public hearing in Canberra for its inquiry into impediments to business investment in Australia.

The Chair of the committee, Sarah Henderson MP, said, "The committee is examining how government at all levels can encourage more businesses to invest in Australia."

"At the recent hearings in Sydney and Melbourne, the committee heard that the combination of multiple layers of regulation and high corporate tax rates makes it difficult for Australian companies to compete in the global marketplace. Similarly, these factors can deter foreign investment in Australia. As a net importer of capital, Australia needs to be more competitive."

Ms Henderson said the committee looks forward to hearing from a range of stakeholders and interested parties in Canberra to gain a deeper understanding of impediments to business investment.

Public hearing details: Tuesday, 7 August 2018, Committee Room 2R1, Parliament House, Canberra

9.15am: Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman

10am: Department of Industry, Innovation and Science 

10.45am: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Australian Trade and Investment Commission

11.30am: Break

11.45am: Clean Energy Council (via teleconference) 

12.30pm: Master Builders Australia

1pm: Lunch break

1.30pm: Red Meat Advisory Council

2pm: Australian Trucking Association

2.30pm: Finish

The hearing will be broadcast live at www.aph.gov.au/live

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QUEENSLAND'S resources sector is powering jobs growth across the State with mines re-opening, exploration surging and exports rising said the Queensland Resources Council (QRC).

QRC chief executive Ian Macfarlane said the state’s most valuable export is delivering more than 3500 jobs across Queensland in 2018 after a sustained uplift in the global economy.

“Resources account for about 80 percent of Queensland’s exports and over the last two years the sector has benefitted from elevated prices and a strong tailwind from larger volumes,” Mr Macfarlane said.

“With confidence returning, new projects are emerging, old mines are being extended and mothballed mines are coming back online. We’re seeing strong investment in new gas fields and all this activity is leading to highly skilled and highly paid jobs.

"Seek has more than 1,400 vacancies in mining, resources and energy in Queensland with more than half paying $100,000 or more," Mr Macfarlane said.

“For every direct job in the resources sector across Queensland another six full time jobs are supported indirectly.

“Santos and its GLNG partners will invest $400 million into its Arcadia gas project near Injune establishing up to 300 construction jobs, and a further $900 million in gas developments in the Maranoa, Western Downs, Central Highlands and Banana regions. While Senex will produce gas for the domestic market from the company’s Project Atlas in the Surat Basin creating 150 jobs.

“In this year alone, we’ve had two new entrants to the state’s coal sector with South32 scooping up a 50 percent stake in the greenfield Eagle Downs and Bengal Coal’s new coking coal mine near Dysart attaining State Government approval. Meanwhile, Japan’s Sojitz has acquired BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance’s (BMA) Gregory Crinum mine leading to 300 jobs.

“Stanmore expects first coal in August from its new Isaac Plains East, Bounty Mining’s recommissioned Cook Colliery mine exported coal in June, Metro Mining’s Bauxite Hills project commenced in April with contracts to China, MMG is producing zinc at its Dugald River mine and Peabody secured over 230 jobs by extending its North Goonyella mine," he said.

“Underpinning this growth is exploration with the Palaszczuk Government releasing more than 44,000 square kilometres of land following a 39 percent increase in greenfield exploration.”

The resources sector now provides one in every six dollars in the Queensland economy, sustains one in eight Queensland jobs, and supports more than 16,400 businesses across the State - all from 0.1 percent of Queensland’s land mass, according to the QRC.

www.qrc.org.au

Where 3,506 resources jobs came from in 2018:

• Bounty Mining Cook Colliery 260 jobs
• Metro Mining Bauxite Hills 200 jobs
• Stanmore’s Isaac Plains East 210 jobs
• Peabody North Goonyella 230 jobs
• Sojitz acquires BMA’s Gregory Crinum $100m 300 jobs
• Senex & Jemena $140m Wallumbilla pipeline 200 jobs
• Santos GLNG $400m Arcadia project 300 jobs
• Senex Project Atlas 150 jobs
• Bengal Coal Dysart East Underground 200 jobs
• New Century Resources and Santos gas supply deal 240 jobs
• BMA apprentices start work in central Queensland 40 jobs
• Hastings Deering apprentices 50 jobs
• Batchfire Callide 450 jobs
• Metallica Minerals Bauxite Project 26 jobs
• MMG Dugald River Zinc 400 jobs
• Glencore’s Lady Loretta 250 jobs
• Santos GLNG $900m in gas developments across Maranoa, Western Downs, Central Highlands and Banana
• South32 buys 50 percent of Eagle Downs $100m

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DEFENCE is seeking applications from the cyber community across Australia to develop cyber solutions of high relevance to the country's national security.

Applications close August 15.

Cyber is a priority theme of the Next Generation Technologies Fund, aimed at realising the potential game changing cyber capabilities afforded by research and development in Australia. Defence recognises the need to respond to this technology opportunity, and that technological advances in the cyber domain are likely to lead to the introduction of new capabilities in our region.

Defence is seeking to leverage the vibrant cyber science, technology and innovation capability across Australia to develop technology solutions of high relevance to the country's national security.

Through partnerships with Data61, academia and industry, Defence aims to understand the potential of cyber technologies, create prototype systems, and demonstrate the practical application of systems to Defence problems.

One of the goals of cyber technologies research is to inform Defence of the potential benefits and practical limitations of cyber technologies through studies and demonstrator systems within a three to five-year timeframe.

DST is seeking submissions from academia, and other research agencies, detailing how they propose to contribute to research in the following areas:

• Trustworthy Machine Learning
• Symbolic Execution for Rapid Threat Analysis
• Formal verification of Network Control Protocols
• Data Security and Privacy of Inference Models
• Detecting and Analysing Vulnerabilities in Concurrent Software
• Resilient Cyber Systems
• Depicting human vulnerabilities towards cyber threats via trust analytics
• Privacy-Preserving distributed Edge Computing
• Policy-Defined Networking
• SDN Data Plane Security and extensions to Software Defined Clouds
• Formal Mathematical Modelling Environment
• FPGA Security
• Assisted System Decomposition for Vulnerability Assessment
• Cyber-Enabled Information Warfare

Proposals will be assessed against the following criteria:

• Alignment to Defence strategy and the project priorities articulated in this document
• Future science criticality
• Collaboration depth (e.g. Collaboration with DST staff, Data61 staff, other universities, an industry partner, etc.)
• Delivery of outcomes (e.g. the ability of the proposal to deliver the agreed outcomes and milestones).
• Game changing potential to Defence

For more informaiton visit the Next Generation Technologies Fund - Cyber page.

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ASIC has approved the Australian Banking Association’s (ABA’s) new Banking Code of Practice (the Code).

ASIC’s approval of the Code follows extensive engagement with the ABA, following a comprehensive independent review and extensive stakeholder consultation. The ABA made additional significant changes to the Code in order to satisfy ASIC that it met our criteria for approval.

This is the first comprehensive broad-based industry code ASIC has approved under its relevant powers.

The Code will commence operation from 1 July 2019.

SIGNIFICANT NEW PROTECTIONS FOR SMALL BUSINESS

The new Code provides for improved protections for small business borrowers and expands the reach and impact of legal protections against unfair contract terms.

For small businesses who borrow up to $3 million, the Code provides that lending contracts should not contain a range of potentially unfair and one-sided terms. Unfair contract terms protections in the law apply to businesses who borrow up to $1 million.

At its current setting of applying to small businesses who borrow up to $3 million, the Code will cover the considerable majority – between 92-97 percent – of businesses in Australia. 

To ensure the settings in the Code provide a high level of coverage of the small business sector, ASIC’s approval is conditional on an independent review of the definition of small business within 18 months of the Code’s commencement. This targeted review will test the adequacy and application of the Code’s small business coverage in practice, and will occur well before the Code’s comprehensive review, due three years after its commencement.

At the same time, ASIC will collect quarterly data from banks and the Australian Financial Complaints Authority to monitor the extent of the Code’s coverage of small business. ASIC will ensure that this data is made public every six months. This will provide the public with ongoing transparency about the coverage of the Code.

EXPANDED PROTECTION FOR CONSUMERS

The Code has built on and enhanced the existing protections for consumers in the 2013 Code.

The new Code includes:

• provisions for inclusive and accessible banking, including for vulnerable customers, customers on low incomes and Indigenous customers;

• protections relating to the sale of consumer credit insurance (CCI) including a deferred sales period of four days for CCI for credit cards and personal loans sold in branches and over the phone;

• protections for guarantors of loans, for instance, giving prospective guarantors generally three days to consider information about a guarantee and requiring banks to only enforce a guarantee once they have taken action against the borrower;

• rules requiring credit card customers to receive reminders about balance transfer promotional periods ending, as well as more consistent treatment about how repayments are applied; and

• enhanced processes for assisting customers in financial difficulty and processes for resolving complaints.

MONITORING AND ENFORCEABILITY

All ABA member banks will be required to subscribe to the Code as a condition of their ABA membership and the relevant protections in the Code will form part of the banks’ contractual relationships with their banking customers.

The Code will be administered and enforced by an independent monitoring body, the Banking Code Compliance Committee (BCCC). Any person will be able to report a breach of the Code to the BCCC, and consumers and small businesses with disputes about the Code protections will be able to have those disputes heard by the new Australian Financial Complaints Authority.

ASIC notes the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry may make findings relevant to the Code. ASIC may review its approval of the Code in light of the Royal Commission findings.

BACKGROUND

ASIC has provided guidance on its approach to approving codes, including how to obtain and retain approval in Regulatory Guide 183 Approval of financial services sector codes of conduct (RG 183).

 In approving the Code, ASIC considered that:

• the rules in the Code are binding on the ABA’s members and form part of the contracts between banks and their customers;

• the Code was developed and reviewed in a transparent way, which involved significant consultation with relevant stakeholders including consumer and small business groups; and

• the Code is supported by effective administration and compliance mechanisms. The BCCC will have oversight on banks’ Code compliance, tools to require banks’ cooperation with their monitoring and investigations, and a range of sanctions for non-compliance with Code provisions.

www.asic.gov.au

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