Australia’s now paying $370 billion for second-hand AUKUS submarines.
Welcome to Talking Business, a podcast produced in Melbourne Australia, built on the traditional lands of the Kulin Nation. The podcast is available on the Acast site, my own website, the Apple podcast store or wherever you go to get your podcasts. Or you can get it at the Business Acumen website at https://www.businessacumen.biz/.
I am Leon Gettler. My job is review and monitor the week’s news in business finance and economics. I bring it all to you every week.
For the most exclusive access to leading economists and business leaders from around the world, subscribe to Talking Business from my website leongettler.com or whatever your favourite podcast platform is.
This is episode number 18 in our series for 2026 and today’s date is Friday June 5
First, I’ll be talking to Sarah Richardson, CEO of psychiatry service provider ClearMinds, about the importance of employers treating neurodiversity inclusion as both a wellbeing priority and a strategic workforce investment, as well as sharing practical advice for how neurodivergent professionals can leverage their strengths in interviews, onboarding and career progression.
And I’ll be talking to Indeed economist Callam Pickering about Australia’s latest jobs figures.
But first let’s talk to Sarah Richardson
So what’s happening in the news?
So here’s a number that’ll make you wince — Australians now think they need over a million dollars to retire comfortably. That’s up nearly $200,000 from just twelve months ago. And it’s not just a vibe — a big survey by Colonial First State, one of the country’s largest super funds, backs this up. People want to retire at 62, but they expect they’ll actually be working until 66. That four-year gap tells you everything about the anxiety people feel. And it’s not evenly spread. Women are feeling it harder — about 62% of women surveyed said they’re worried they won’t have enough, compared to 48% of men. That comes down to lower lifetime earnings, career breaks, part-time work — the gender gap doesn’t stop at wages, it follows women all the way into retirement. For context, the median super balance for a man aged 60 to 64 is around $220,000. For women in the same age group, it’s about $163,000. The industry benchmark from ASFA says a single person needs around $630,000 to retire comfortably. So there’s a big gap between where many Australians are and where they need to be.
Alright, onto politics. Labor is flagging nearly $90 billion in new revenue over nine years through changes to capital gains tax, negative gearing, and trust taxation. Roughly $43 billion from the CGT and negative gearing reforms, and about $45 billion from trusts. There’s a $250-a-year rebate in the mix too, which economists say could cost around $40 billion over a decade — so it partly offsets the new revenue. The Treasurer Jim Chalmers is using all this to go on the offensive, arguing the Coalition has a $544 billion black hole in its policies. That’s a huge number — and Labor’s pushing the opposition to explain how they’d pay for commitments like boosting defence spending by $93 billion and indexing income tax thresholds, which they say would cost $212 billion alone. The Coalition, meanwhile, is threatening to hold up Labor’s NDIS reforms unless there’s a longer inquiry into the tax changes. The NDIS Minister says any delay is a serious budget problem — they’re trying to bring scheme growth down from over 11% a year to under 5%. High stakes on both sides.
So here’s an interesting twist in the housing debate — Labor’s tax reforms might actually be doing the Reserve Bank’s job for it. Insiders familiar with RBA thinking say that if property prices fall because of the negative gearing and capital gains changes, homeowners start to feel less wealthy — and when people feel less wealthy, they spend less. Less spending means less inflation. Less inflation means the RBA might not need to raise rates again. Westpac is predicting property transactions could fall by 20%. Think about everything that flows from that — fewer removalists, conveyancers, furniture purchases. It all adds up. Former RBA board member Warwick McKibbin put it bluntly — the reforms could be “inadvertently helpful” in the fight against inflation. His words, not mine. Meanwhile, Sydney values dropped nearly one percent in May alone — down over two percent for the quarter. Melbourne’s in similar territory. And consumer confidence? Still lower than during the 2020 lockdowns. Treasurer Chalmers is framing all of this as a win for first home buyers who’ve been getting outbid at auctions by investors with ten or fifteen properties. The Coalition, predictably, is voting against the changes and accusing Chalmers of deliberately crashing the economy to avoid even higher interest rates. The RBA meets on June 16th. Markets say there’s virtually no chance of a rate rise this month — though August is still live at around 44%. The big unanswered question? Whether falling prices slow construction enough to cancel out any affordability gains. That’s the tension to watch.
Art valuers are having a moment right now — and it all comes down to the federal budget. One of the big changes is that artworks bought before September 1985 are now being brought into the capital gains tax system for the first time. From July 2027, that old 50% CGT discount gets grandfathered, and future gains will be taxed on an after-inflation basis with a floor rate of 30%. So what’s actually happening on the ground? Sydney valuer Annette Larkin says her phone has been ringing since budget night. Clients are digging out pieces they bought decades ago — works that were previously exempt from CGT — and just want to know what they’re worth. Not necessarily to sell, just to establish a baseline. Her colleague Michael Fox, who’s both an art valuer and an arts accountant, thinks the really interesting stuff is still to come — works that may never have been valued before, suddenly appearing on the radar. Now, will this trigger a wave of selling? Damian Hackett from auctioneer Deutscher and Hackett is cautious. He says the art market moves slowly, and with gains grandfathered until mid-2027, there’s no rush. But here’s the interesting side effect — once people get a valuation done, some are going to get a shock about how much that painting above the fireplace is actually worth. And that could prompt sales for reasons that have nothing to do with tax. Fox also flags that the new rules will likely favour established artists selling at auction over emerging artists in galleries — because blue-chip works tend to rise steadily, while a young artist can have an overnight spike after winning a big prize, which gets hit harder under the new structure. His bottom line? Art and collectibles account for just 0.07% of the total CGT take. He’s calling it a nuisance tax, and he’s urging the senate inquiry — which is now reviewing these changes — to rethink the whole approach. One starting point: the CGT exemption threshold for artworks is currently $500. The Henry Tax Review back in 2009 recommended lifting that to $10,000, partly because the admin costs often outweigh the tax collected
The AUKUS deal just got a tweak. Australia was originally expecting to receive two used Virginia-class submarines from the US and one new one. Now? All three will be used vessels pulled from active US Navy stock. Defence Minister Richard Marles is calling it “cost-effective” and says using the same model across all three subs makes things simpler for crews and maintenance teams. The change was announced at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, where Marles met with US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and the UK’s Defence Secretary. Here’s the backdrop though — American shipyards are struggling to hit their own production targets of two new subs a year, and there are critics in the US asking why Washington would sell from its own fleet before restocking. The full AUKUS submarine program could cost Australia up to US$235 billion over 30 years. That’s a big bill for second-hand hardware, some will argue.
This next story is one that might surprise you. Significant volumes of Russian timber are reportedly making their way into Australia — but via China and other third countries, which effectively launders its origin and lets it dodge the 35% tariff Australia imposed after Russia invaded Ukraine. The Australian Forest Products Association estimates up to 100,000 cubic metres of annual imports could contain Russian-origin timber, and that as many as 15,000 new Australian homes built each year might unknowingly include it. Russia used to supply up to half of Australia’s market for a specific engineered wood product — laminated veneer lumber — before the war. The tariff cut those direct imports dramatically, but it appears the supply just rerouted through China. Industry groups and the Ukrainian-Australian community are calling on the government to extend sanctions to cover timber processed through third countries, not just timber shipped directly from Russia. A government-commissioned report found the origin of more than half of all sampled timber products couldn’t be accurately verified. The UK and EU have already moved to ban Russian timber indirectly — Australia hasn’t yet.
So the Reserve Bank has some pretty damning internal documents about Labor’s housing record — and they tried to keep them secret. Obtained under freedom of information laws, the notes basically say Labor’s first three years of housing policy were “relatively modest” — and that schemes like Help to Buy and the 5% deposit program may have actually pushed prices up rather than bringing them down, because they just put more buyers into the market without fixing supply. The RBA also flagged that the main levers the government actually controls on housing — migration, zoning laws, and tax settings — hadn’t really changed under Labor’s first term. This time around though, Labor is going after negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, arguing that’ll shift investment toward new homes. They’re also promising 65,000 extra homes on top of what the market would otherwise deliver. Whether that’s achievable is another question — they’re already behind on their 1.2 million homes target.
On AI — the government is drawing a pretty clear line in the sand. Assistant Tech Minister Andrew Charlton says the countries that win the AI race won’t be the ones with the most chips or cash — they’ll be the ones that actually bring their citizens along for the ride. His warning is pointed: unless Australians are convinced AI benefits them — not just big tech companies — there’ll be a backlash. We’re already seeing it in the US, where people are blaming data centres for rising power bills and there are genuine fears about job losses. Meanwhile, the numbers show Australians are actually using AI in droves — 17 million users now, up 51% in under a year. But here’s the tension: 62% feel it’s moving faster than they can keep up with, and barely a third trust tech companies with their data. So adoption is soaring, but trust isn’t keeping pace.
So, you’ve heard of the PwC tax leak scandal — well, now we’ve got a new big four mess on our hands, and this one involves KPMG. Here’s the irony: back in June 2024, KPMG’s top brass were literally sitting in front of the government, handing over a document saying “trust us, our governance is great” — while at the same time, they were quietly burying serious internal whistleblower complaints. Not a great look. So what are the allegations? The big one is that several KPMG audit partners improperly accessed confidential board documents belonging to their client Lendlease — potentially to get an inside read on how directors were feeling about their existing auditor, PwC, who was in the middle of its own scandal. That information may have helped KPMG win major audit contracts, including from Westpac and Macquarie. And here’s where it gets really murky. The chair of Westpac’s board audit committee is Peter Nash — a former head of KPMG. He allegedly stayed at the home of KPMG’s current chairman around the time KPMG won the Westpac audit. Nash’s response when asked about it? “I won’t be talking about that at all.” Then there’s Taylor Swift tickets, invoice falsification that was proven true but never disclosed to the client or regulators, undisclosed relationships between partners and clients, and an ex-NSW Premier — Mike Baird — who resigned as an independent director partly over how the whole thing was handled. The whistleblowers? They were shown the door. Now ASIC is being called before a Parliamentary Committee, the government is considering pausing contracts with the firm, and there are real concerns the reputational damage could spread to KPMG’s Asia-Pacific partners in Singapore, New Zealand and the Philippines. The big question now is whether KPMG comes clean — or whether parliament has to drag it out of them.
So, an update on the Antony Catalano case — and there’s quite a bit to unpack here. Catalano, the media proprietor facing eight criminal charges related to an alleged assault on his wife Stefanie, was back in court on Tuesday. His lawyer successfully had his bail conditions varied, meaning he can now travel to Byron Bay to visit his properties there. Previously he’d been barred from leaving Victoria entirely — that restriction had been put in place right after the alleged assault to keep him away from his wife and kids in Byron. Stefanie, who dialled into the hearing, had actually agreed to the change in advance. The case itself has been pushed back again — he won’t need to enter a plea until July 1st. His lawyer cited ongoing delays, partly blamed on a new staff member being assigned from Victoria Police’s special advocacy unit. Now, just to recap what he’s actually facing — police allege he swung a clothes iron at his wife’s head, choked her, threatened to stab her, and unlawfully imprisoned her in their St Kilda apartment. She was hospitalised with a broken tailbone. Catalano appeared in Tuesday’s hearing remotely — reportedly from his St Kilda penthouse — after arguing that facing the media in court could harm his recovery. He’s previously said he’s been dealing with mental health and substance abuse issues and entered rehab after the alleged assault. On the business side, things have continued to unravel. Australian Community Media — which he controls through an investment vehicle with billionaire Alex Waislitz — posted a net loss of $7.9 million for the last financial year, a 216 percent blowout on the year before. Staff have passed a vote of no confidence in him. And he’s now handed the reins of both the ACM investment vehicle and his Byron Bay property and tourism businesses to his son Jordy.
And finally — something that could quietly make the cost of living worse. Australian farmers are dramatically cutting back on wheat planting this year — we’re talking a projected 20% drop — because of two things hitting at once: the Iran conflict has sent fuel and fertiliser costs through the roof, and dry conditions on the east coast have made planting a gamble. Queensland is looking at a 35% drop in crop area, NSW nearly 30%. Total wheat output could fall by almost half. And because wheat underpins everyday staples like bread and pasta, economists are warning that’s going to show up on supermarket shelves. It’s a slow-moving squeeze — but it’s coming.
And that’s it for this week.
And next week, I’ll be talking to Toby Ellis, the managing director of Citro. We’ll look at a Citro study showing how Gen X is a critical but overlooked cohort in their peak working and caring years, quietly buckling under cost-of-living pressures and family responsibilities.
And I’ll be talking to Rabobank economist Teeuwe Mevissen about the latest meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping.
For the most exclusive access to leading economists and business leaders from around the world, subscribe to Talking Business from my website leongettler.com or whatever your favourite podcast platform is.
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