Calls for a 25 per cent tax on gas exports have been rubbished by energy producers and the federal opposition.

Days after Liberal industry spokesperson Andrew Hastie expressed openness to higher taxes on the fossil fuel, Nationals senator Susan McDonald was highly critical of new levies.

“The answer is not new taxes that stifle investment and private-sector job creation,” the opposition resources spokesperson told the Australian Domestic Gas Outlook conference in Sydney.

“And worse a tax in response to a very well co-ordinated activist campaign.”

The Middle East war has pushed global gas prices higher, putting Australian exporters in line for windfall profits and sparking calls from the Greens, unions, crossbenchers and One Nation for an urgent 25 per cent tax on gas exports.

The Australia Institute says the export taxes would deliver nearly $350 million to taxpayers each week and be more effective than the existing Petroleum Resources Rent Tax levied on super profits.

The prime minister’s department has reportedly ordered Treasury to model “new levy options” on the gas industry.

Labor has also supported a parliamentary inquiry into the tax regime in another sign Anthony Albanese is open to pursuing changes ahead of the May budget.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said there had been no change in policy when queried on Tuesday.

NGO pressure has also intensified, with Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists arrested after disrupting the gas conference on Monday and unfurling banners entitled “tax gas profits”.

Woodside Energy joined other gas majors in warning Australia against a windfall tax.

“We do not support calls to increase tax on some of Australia’s largest employers when it is clear that instead, we should be encouraging the development of new energy supplies,” the gas giant’s vice president marketing and commercial Wojciech Grzech said at the conference.

The roughly $25 billion in taxes, royalties and levies paid by the gas producer since 2011 was highlighted in his address.

Industry rhetoric on an east coast reservation policy was more muted.

Exporters will be forced to reserve between 15 and 25 per cent of gas for domestic use under a federal scheme announced in 2025.

Australian Energy Producers chief executive Samantha McCulloch called for a flexible design that avoids forcing more gas onto the domestic market than demanded by local users.

Ms McCulloch warned poorly designed reforms could stifle investment in projects in areas at highest risk of shortfalls.

“This would be at odds with the intent of these reforms,” the head of the gas producer industry group said.

Australia is staring into a stagflation abyss brought about by the war in the Middle East, making meaningful budget reform all the more timely, former Treasury boss Martin Parkinson says.

As fears mount the oil crisis could cause the Albanese government to shy away from ambitious changes to tax and spending in the May budget, Treasurer Jim Chalmers reiterated his assurance cost-of-living measures would not crowd out reform.

“I’ve got a heap of respect for Martin. I’ve worked closely with him for a long time, formally and informally, and I think he makes a really important point,” Dr Chalmers told Sky News on Wednesday.

“In this budget, we’re not choosing resilience or reform; we’re choosing resilience and reform.

“Even with the quite extreme global economic uncertainty that we’re seeing, that’s no reason to hit the pause button on some really important changes that we need to make.”

Anthony Albanese and his cabinet colleagues harboured plenty of ambition, Dr Chalmers said, denying the prime minister might clip his wings.

In an address to the National Press Club earlier on Wednesday, Dr Parkinson warned Australia was “staring into the risk of stagflation” – a scenario in which an economy is caught between the twin pressures of rapidly rising prices and mounting unemployment.

That made it all the more urgent to fix Australia’s existing poor productivity performance, which was compounding the challenges of an ageing population and a declining ratio of working-age people.

“To deal with these challenges, we need a broader tax base with better targeted, more efficient taxes, or we need to cut expenditure to deliver a more sustainable fiscal position,” he said.

“We need to incentivise innovation and investment to raise the speed limits to our growth rate, and we need either a larger working-age population or a far more productive working-age population.

“These windows of opportunity close quickly. When they are open, we need to strike and strike hard.”

Dr Parkinson, alongside Settlement Services International chief executive Violet Roumeliotis, called for the government to address the under-utilisation of skilled migrant workers in Australia.

About 620,000 people in Australia were not working in their trained professions, while the nation faced skills shortages in those fields, because their qualifications were not recognised, Ms Roumeliotis said.

“There is … a waiting room of wasted talent,” she said.

“Doctors, nurses, aged care workers, tradespeople, engineers. But they’re not waiting because they lack skills. They are waiting because of slow, expensive and unfair processes, just simply to recognise their credentials.”

Dr Parkinson said short-term cost-of-living measures could go hand in hand with steps towards genuine reform in the budget.

He said it was unrealistic to expect the government would do nothing to ease consumer pressures, such as its decision to halve the fuel excise, despite economists warning it would exacerbate demand and inflation.

Australia’s share market has bounced sharply on optimism the US will wind down its military campaign against Iran, but doubts remain and aftershocks from the conflict are likely to linger.

The S&P/ASX200 soared by 190 points on Wednesday, up 2.24 per cent, to 8,671.8, as the broader All Ordinaries gained 201.7 points, or 2.32 per cent, to 8,885.6.

Reports the Trump Administration plans to wrap up its campaign against Iran in the next two-to-three weeks have supported global equities, with investors keenly awaiting a special address from President Donald Trump slated for Thursday at 12pm Sydney time.

The top-200 is trading at its highest level for two weeks, while the All Ordinaries clawed back almost $60 billion of its former $3.2 trillion combined market value on Wednesday, after more than $320 billion was wiped since the conflict began.

The Australian dollar is buying 69.02 US cents, up from 68.69 US cents on Tuesday at 5pm, the Aussie lifting on a rosier outlook for global growth and expected commodity demand.

A US tech giant has agreed to co-operate with Australia on AI safety as its chief executive stresses the importance of regulating the controversial technology.

Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei arrived in Canberra to sign a memorandum of understanding in a meeting with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday, as part of a government bid to foster the responsible development of AI.

Under the agreement, the company will share findings on the risks and capabilities of AI, collaborate with research institutions, and take part in safety and security evaluations as part of a commitment to work with Australia’s AI Safety Institute.

Media were permitted to observe the fireside chat, but news photographers were stopped at the door in a rare throttling of visual coverage. Anthropic declined to comment on the news photography ban.

Anthropic is the maker of cutting-edge chatbot Claude. 

The company agreed to support the local AI ecosystem, collaborate on the development of the technology, and ensure its future Australian operations align with the government’s expectations regarding data centres and AI infrastructure developers.

Compared to Google or Chat GPT parent Open AI, Anthropic has been more outspoken on the need for guardrails around the technology.

At Parliament House, Mr Amodei warned of the consequences should AI fall into the hands of countries with sophisticated surveillance systems.

“They can really go in the direction of a panopticon here,” he said, referring to a philosophical concept often applied to surveillance states.

“On the international stage, I see it as a military competition.

“AI is a powerful technology and I don’t want autocracies to be militarily more powerful than democracies.”

Though the chief executive referred to China in his comments, the company’s agreement with Australia comes after Anthropic filed lawsuits against the US Department of Defense.

That was triggered by the company’s insistence on implementing safeguards to prevent the military’s potential use of its technology for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons.

The Pentagon has since designated Anthropic a supply-chain risk, barring US government contractors from using the company’s technology in work for the military.

“I’m the last person to deny that there are all these risks,” Mr Amodei said.

“But the benefits are real and if we can mitigate the risk, you can have a much better world.”

The Australian government has heralded its arrangement with Anthropic as a way to capture the opportunities of AI while ensuring its citizens stay safe.

But Australia would need to bring other companies into the fold if it wanted its plans to work, University of NSW computer science professor Toby Walsh said.

“It won’t be good enough just to ensure that the Anthropic models are safe,” he told AAP.

“You want to make sure that Google, OpenAI and everybody else’s models are safe too.”

He urged Australia to bolster its AI investment with real funding, rather than rely on a memorandum of understanding that isn’t legally binding.

The digital industry peak body welcomed the Anthropic agreement as an important step in advancing Australia’s artificial intelligence capability under the national AI plan.

“Global partnerships are critical, but they must be anchored in national priorities, ensuring that the benefits of AI are realised across the Australian economy and community,” Australian Information Industry Association chief executive Elizabeth Whitelock said.

The federal government in June 2025 unveiled a $20 billion deal with Amazon Web Services to fund data centre infrastructure, while its NSW counterpart on Friday backed a plan for 15 data centre projects worth $51 billion.

Questions have been raised over the viability of the data centre industry due to concerns over the vast amount of resources it uses.

Some large data centres use up to 40 million litres of water per day, enough for up to 80,000 Australian homes, according to the Water Services Association of Australia.

They also require significant amounts of land, generate a lot of heat, and can create noise pollution which affects nearby communities and animals, the Climate Council says.

“We want to make sure that this massive interest in data centre investment in our country comes with obligations, including natural resource management, water obviously, energy and a whole range of relevant factors,” Treasurer Jim Chalmers told reporters.

A major housing project at the home of Australia’s last Olympics is on the cards, but details about surrounding schools remain scarce.

The 2050 master plan for Sydney Olympic Park was unveiled on Wednesday, with predictions of 15,000 homes, 10 playgrounds, nine outdoor public spaces and four sporting fields.

But the new plan, including a reduced target for local jobs, has no firm plans for new schools, simply referencing that the government will dedicate land for schools.

“We’ve identified sites for those potential schools, and the work will be done in terms of the library and the other community facilities,” Planning Minister Paul Scully said.

“The Department of Education has some triggers in place where it works through the number … the other sites have been identified, and the department will work through those trigger points as they need to make that investment.”

At a press conference on Wednesday, Mr Scully referenced the nearby Wentworth Point High School as an available educational option.

Wentworth Point, which was rezoned as a residential suburb in 2013, was home to almost 13,000 people within eight years, including some 2000 people younger than 20.

But it has just one primary school, while the high school only opened for year seven students in 2025.

The state government has promised $3.9 billion towards new and upgraded schools in Sydney’s west.

The 25-year vision for staged development includes capacity for up to 26,000 jobs and encourages investment in innovation, sport, culture and commercial activity

Some 430 hectares of wetlands, parklands and public open space will be protected across the state-run site.

It also promises reduced-rent homes in perpetuity, with a 15 to 20 per cent affordable housing target on government-owned land not currently subject to a long-term lease and five per cent elsewhere.

But the staged development is unlikely to dent NSW’s contribution to Australia’s target of 1.2 million new homes by 2029, with the state already two years behind schedule.

“We’ve got to make sure there’s a pipeline of housing long into the future, because while the housing accord period ends on June 30, 2029, I guarantee someone would want to live in Sydney … on July 1, 2029, and beyond,” Mr Scully said.

“We’re heartened to see the response to our planning reforms, but we do recognise that we are entering into a challenging period when it comes to the construction sector.”

Businesses will receive COVID-style relief as firms face an existential-level hit from the Iran war.

Data released by the Australian Industry Group on Wednesday showed industrial conditions had the biggest monthly fall on record in March.

The Australian Industry Index fell by 19.9 points to -23.6, with businesses reporting uncertainty, rising input costs and supply chain and demand disruptions as the main issues they were grappling with.

To help manage the blow, the Australian Taxation Office will temporarily provide businesses struggling with cashflow more flexibility to pay tax obligations.

It will include generous payment plans, remission of interest and penalties, and the ability to vary pay as you go instalments, where taxable income has fallen, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said.

Some tax compliance and debt collection measures will also be paused.

“What we’re announcing today will make our systems more flexible, our supply chains more responsive, and also businesses more supportive as well,” Dr Chalmers told reporters in Canberra.

The government will also extend the small business responsible lending obligation to help businesses get faster access to credit.

“What this particular measure is all about, (is) ensuring that there is no additional regulatory burden or further delays when they need to access credit to keep their doors open,” Small Business Minister Anne Aly said.

Business Council chief executive Bran Black said individual businesses had already taken action to support smaller firms through the crisis, including paying suppliers more frequently and ensuring fuel costs are reflected in payments to suppliers.

“This really is one of those points where we need a genuine Team Australia response. It’s not empty rhetoric,” Mr Black said.

He urged small businesses to reach out to larger firms they were dealing with to ask for support if they were struggling.

Australian Banking Association chief executive Simon Birmingham said lenders were also standing ready to help.

“Australia’s banks recognise the … unique responsibility they have to step up in times of crisis,” the former Liberal frontbencher said.

Stocks and bonds rallied and the dollar wallowed at the start of the ‌Asian trading session on Wednesday on hopes of a de-escalation in the Iran conflict, while significantly better-than-expected economic data for March propelled a rebound in Korean and Japanese ‌shares.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 2.7 per cent, snapping a four-day losing streak as South Korea’s Kospi surged as much as 5.5 per cent.

The Nikkei 225 also jumped 3.9 per cent at one point, after US President Donald Trump said the United States could end its military attacks on Iran within two to three weeks and that Tehran did not have to make a deal as a prerequisite for the conflict winding down.

“They’re still quite far apart in terms of what ‌a truce means, or what ‌peace means, but the ⁠market is embracing the fact that they are talking,” said Rodrigo Catril, currency strategist at National Australia Bank ​in Sydney.

“That’s a positive sign, at least in terms of signalling or willingness to end the conflict,” he said, speaking on a podcast.

“Whether a compromise can be reached remains to be seen. While this is all happening, attacks are continuing from both sides.”

S&P 500 e-mini futures were up 0.3 per cent and Nasdaq futures gained ⁠0.5 per cent after the post. Stocks on Wall Street soared on Tuesday as traders bet on ‌the potential off-ramp ​to the war, sending the S&P 500 2.9 per cent higher, though oil markets were more subdued as trading resumed in Asia.

Brent crude futures moved 1.1 per cent higher ​to $US105.16 ($A152.57) a barrel ‌to retrace some of the previous day’s decline.

South Korean stocks were on track for their sharpest jump in two weeks, with Samsung Electronics soaring ​8.0 per cent and SK Hynix up 7.8 per cent, as exports soared 48.3 per cent year-on-year in March, smashing market expectations, while a separate purchasing managers’ index (PMI) gauge showed the country’s factory activity expanded at the strongest pace in more than four years in March, led by semiconductor demand and new product launches.

In Japan, business ​sentiment ​among large manufacturers improved in the three months to March, according ​to a closely watched survey released on Wednesday, a sign that increasing economic uncertainty ‌from the Middle East conflict has yet to hit morale.

The US dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a basket of six currencies, nudged up 0.1 per cent to 99.8070 after logging its biggest one-day drop since March 19 on Tuesday, as traders reassessed the odds that the Federal Reserve may take policy action earlier than thought, rather than sitting on its hands all year.

Fed funds futures are pricing an implied 32 per cent probability that a 25-basis-point cut to interest rates could come ​at the US central bank’s two-day meeting ending on July 29, compared to a 7.5 per cent chance a day earlier, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool.

The ​yield on the US 10-year Treasury ⁠bond was down 1.2 basis points at 4.297 per cent.

In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin was down 0.3 per cent at $US67,988.87 ($A98,638.96), while ether slipped 0.2 per cent ​to $US2,100.94 ($A3,048.07).

Households already under pressure from higher interest rates will still face a cost wall of elevated fuel prices, despite government efforts to take some of the heat out.

Two of Australia’s biggest banks have recorded spikes in spending at petrol stations since the US attacked Iran on February 28, sparking a war in the Middle East that has disrupted oil supplies.

Both say this will push inflation higher, heightening the case for further central bank interest rate rises this year, even as federal government fuel relief comes into effect on Wednesday.

In the week to March 21, fuel spending was 36 per cent higher than the average in February and 15 per cent higher than the same period of 2024, according to a report by National Australia Bank.

“Fuel prices have continued to increase since,” NAB economists Gareth Spence and Taylor Nugent said.

They also noted a sharp rise in the number of fuel purchase transactions, which they linked to people buying petrol to get ahead of further price rises or supply issues.

“The supply disruptions in the Middle East represent a cost shock that will squeeze incomes and flow through to slower household consumption growth,” they wrote.

This, in turn, will create demand issues for retailers and other consumer-facing businesses, which face their own fuel price-led cost increases.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia has also been watching consumer fuel spending.

“We’ve definitely seen the pick up in spending at petrol stations,” CBA head of Australian economics Belinda Allen told a briefing on Tuesday.

At the start of the year, the price of a barrel of Brent crude oil was around $US60.

It’s now above $US100, settling around $US105 on Wednesday, although it has traded as high as $US119.50 since the war began.

CBA’s base case is for an oil price of around $US120 a barrel over the next three months, although it could jump as high as $US150, assuming the Middle East war drags on.

It could then fall back to around $US80 a barrel, if oil supply disruption is resolved.

The federal government has halved the fuel excise to 26.3 cents for three months, and removed the heavy vehicle road user charge for the same period.

But will halving the fuel excise be enough to get Australians through the crisis?

“We do not expect prices to go back to $US60 a barrel, like they were at the start of the year,” CBA head of international economics Joe Capurso said.

“So when the excise goes back on in three months, petrol prices are going to be very high still.”

Both NAB and the CBA expect the Reserve Bank of Australia to lift interest rates again, by 25 basis points, in May.

The government’s fuel relief measures will cost around $2.6 billion and come ahead of the next federal budget to be handed down on May 11.

Unfair trading practices such as subscription traps and drip pricing will be banned under reforms designed to bolster protections for consumers.

The Albanese government introduced laws to parliament on Wednesday to put an end to tactics used by businesses that cost people time and money, as the rising prices sting households.

Subscription traps is a deceptive practice where companies make it easy to sign up for a service, but difficult to cancel. 

This leads to unwanted payments being made by consumers who are often required to jump through many hoops.

Drip pricing is when a low price is initially advertised but ends up being more expensive once mandatory fees and taxes are applied at the check out.

Assistant Competition Minister Andrew Leigh said the measures will be actively policed by Australia’s consumer watchdog, as well as state and territory regulators.

While it will still be at least a month until the legislation passes, he hoped businesses would be proactive and implement the reforms ahead of the laws coming into effect.

“There will be a lot of cops on the beat making sure that firms are doing the right thing,” he told reporters in Canberra.

“The expectation starts from today that firms will be complying with these new rules.”

Dr Leigh said the rules were backed by tough penalties, with the maximum being 10 times higher than it was when Labor came to office in 2022.

Consumer Policy Research Centre chief executive Erin Turner said subscription traps had caught three in four Australians.

“The laws introduced today mean that we can trust that businesses will treat us fairly, or that they’re going to face significant and meaningful penalties if they do the wrong thing,” she said.

“We know unfair business practice bans work. We’ve seen them work internationally.”

The legislation is part of wider reforms introduced by the government to crackdown on anti-competitive behaviour and support consumers.

These include increasing penalties to $100 million if businesses are found in breach of consumer and competition law.

A lawsuit says Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl album stole the spotlight from the life of a real one. 

Maren Wade says in the trademark infringement lawsuit filed on Monday in federal court in California that the glittery branding of Swift’s 2025 album comes too close to the aesthetic of her own Confessions of a Showgirl.

That was the name of a column she wrote on backstage Sin City life in the Las Vegas Weekly starting in 2014, which she turned into a live show that she took on a national tour. 

“Both share the same structure, the same dominant phrase, and the same overall commercial impression,” the lawsuit says. 

“Both are used in overlapping markets and are directed at the same consumers.”

Wade is described as a “singer, songwriter, comedian, and writer” in the lawsuit filed under her legal name, Maren Flagg, and her “Showgirl” brand encompasses performances, writing and digital media. 

The Life of a Showgirl, Swift’s 12th studio album released in October, sold four million copies in its first week. Its cover features her in Las Vegas cabaret garb, submerged in water with her current favourite colour scheme of orange and mint green. 

On Tuesday, the morning after the lawsuit was filed, Swift dropped the newest video for the album for the album’s track Elizabeth Taylor, featuring archival footage of the Hollywood luminary who died in 2011. 

Wade appeared to embrace Swift’s use of the showgirl image initially, sharing Instagram posts that used Swift’s music, hashtags related to the album, and the mint green colour scheme. But Wade’s social media presence has gone silent in recent months. 

Also named as defendants in the lawsuit are the company that manages Swift’s trademarks, her record label and its merchandising arm. 

The lawsuit says the album, its promotion and the products surrounding it caused “textbook reverse confusion: a junior user’s overwhelming commercial presence drowns out the senior user’s mark, until consumers begin to assume that the original is the imitation. What Plaintiff had built over twelve years, Defendants threatened to swallow in weeks”.

A representative for Swift declined comment on the lawsuit. 

Wade and her lawyer say the existence and trademark of Confessions of a Showgirl would not have escaped the notice of Swift’s team. 

The lawsuit says the US Patent and Trademark Office declined to grant a trademark registration to Life of a Showgirl over potential confusion with the existing trademark. 

“Defendants were therefore placed on actual notice that their chosen designation was likely to be confused with a mark that already belonged to someone,” the lawsuit says. 

“They continued using it anyway.” 

A letter issued by the office in early March says the application was suspended due to potential confusion with another pending trademark filed earlier, for “Showgirl,” by a third party and pertaining to perfume. It also cited a Likelihood of Confusion Refusal based on the existing “Confessions” trademark.

The lawsuit seeks an injunction permanently barring Swift and her companies from using the Life of a Showgirl name and imagery, and monetary damages to be determined at trial, including profits attributable to the use of the brand.