The Bearing (Page 8)

The Bearing

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Parliament House entrance with open door and figures walking through, representing cybersecurity vulnerability

Parliament house is not cyber secure. What could go wrong?

Seven of eight mandatory cyber controls failing at Parliament House — and a 2019 state-based breach that apparently changed nothing.

Weathered mining hardhat covered in various company stickers and logos

Government moves to loosen long service leave for coal miners as industry lobbies for relief

Australia's coal miners have an entitlement that follows them from employer to employer — but that design may be creating the very problem it was meant to solve.

Family tree diagram showing Australian coins, money pots and banknotes as branches and leaves

Here’s how trusts work. And here’s why the tax man wants a bigger slice

Two families, identical incomes — but one pays half the tax. The government wants to close the gap. Here's what changes.

Help Wanted sign on shop window with humanoid robots lined up outside waiting for job interviews

Australian businesses race to adopt Ai so they can…

One in eight Australian businesses now uses AI, and the adoption rate has tripled in three years — but the productivity data tells a very different story.

Politician desperately reaching toward a hydrogen molecule, styled like Gollum grasping for the ring

Hydrogen's Hidden Cost: Why Government Backing Creates Losers, Not Markets

The Grattan Institute has a careful, well-funded case for backing green hydrogen. The logic has one serious flaw.

Confused house with window eyes and roof gables showing conflicting upward and downward trend lines

The RBA's housing blind spot is about to cost Australia

Australia's inflation gauge is built to see new home construction costs — but blind to established property values, and a coming tax change will exploit that gap.

Cow standing in pasture with a striped black and white section marked as off limits, representing a 15 percent portion.

Raising the GST from 10% to 15% is better for…

The PBO has put dollar figures on three ways to raise the GST to 15% — and they reveal a trade-off politicians rarely admit exists.

Hand plugging EV charging cable into car port with severed cable, symbolizing infrastructure problems.

Nobody owns the EV charger problem—and Australia's paying for it

Australia's EV charging network is growing fast and nobody is in charge of it — but the fix might not be what the experts are recommending.

Robot plugging charging cable into itself while city silhouette sits dark without power in background

Senate launches inquiry into AI data centres as power demands collide with climate goals

Australia's Senate is investigating AI data centres — but the real question is whether clean energy targets will bend to accommodate them.

Young man climbing over older man while both compete for auctioneer's attention

Senate inquiry finds capital gains tax discount working as designed—but questions remain on who benefits most

Australia's CGT discount does exactly what it was built to do. A Senate inquiry has now formally asked whether what it was built to do is still the right answer.

Man in business suit standing in strong wind with hat blowing off, finger in mouth while checking wind direction.

Productivity Commission opens data dashboard on Australia's stalling output growth

Australia's productivity dashboard is live — and the five-year trend it reveals is the number Canberra's current policy agenda is least equipped to answer.

Tense handshake between two figures with strained expressions, European flag stars in background

NATO unity fractures over defence spending and strategic priorities

Trump wants Europe to spend more on defence — but the investment horizon is a decade, and his term ends in three years. The incentive problem is structural.

Large red nation looming over small blue island on map, depicting geopolitical tension and regional security concerns

China's Pacific missile test raises stakes for Australia's island partners

A Chinese ICBM landed near two Pacific island nations without warning. The smallest countries in the region had no say — and now they're deciding who to call.

Oil tanker on ocean with wake forming dollar sign shape

Markets shrug off Iran war as oil retreat signals geopolitical risk priced out

A war in Iran ended. Oil fell back to where it started. Wall Street hit a record. But one leading economist says the peace deal is the variable, not the resolution.

Hand holding keyring with house keys, main key broken in half with piece falling to ground

Why Australia's housing cooling is only half the story

Australia's housing market is cooling — but is that actually fixing anything, or just resetting the clock on the next price surge?

Binary code flowing through a large building structure representing data center operations and computational work.

Government Spending

Data centre boom masks weakness in broader capital investment

Australia's capex figures jumped 14.6% in a year — but almost all of it came from one sector, and what that conceals is the real story.

Nuclear power plant with cooling towers reflecting morning sunlight

Nuclear Gamble: Coalition Bets $Billions on 2050 Deadline

Australia has never built a nuclear plant, has no trained workforce, and currently bans the technology — so what does $118 billion actually buy?

Children sitting in crowded playground looking at phones while play equipment stands empty behind them

Three-quarters of Australian children exceed screen time limits, ABS data shows

Nearly three in four Australian children exceed the government's screen time limit — but the harder question is whether the limit itself still makes sense.