Caps designed to protect power users from excessive price hikes are not working as intended and need refining, the federal energy minister will concede in his first major speech since the election.

A convincing Labor win also has Chris Bowen hopeful Australia can triumph in its bid to co-host global climate talks and muscle out competitor Turkey, with a decision expected soon.

In a wide-ranging address to the Australian Energy Week conference in Melbourne, Mr Bowen will promise changes to the so-called Default Market Offer rules to force retailers to compete harder for customer dollars.

“The DMO was intended to act as a benchmark price to stop the worst forms of price gouging, while leaving the job of putting downward pressure on prices to competition between energy companies,” he will say on Wednesday.    

“However, I’ll be frank. I don’t think it’s working that way and reform is needed.” 

In several states, regulators enforce caps on what retailers can charge households and businesses to protect the hundreds of thousands of customers unable or uninterested in chasing a better deal.

Caps are reviewed annually to reflect the costs of generation and moving electricity around through poles and wires.

In NSW, South Australia, southeast Queensland, it’s the independent Australian Energy Regulator’s job, while in Victoria, the Essential Services Commission sets benchmark prices.

Changes to AER’s price cap mechanism have not yet been locked in, but could include clamping down on what retailers can claim back from customers on their bills.

Mr Bowen said it was hard to defend price caps when 80 per cent of billpayers could be getting a better deal.

“That’s why we have work underway to deliver a better regulated pricing mechanism which will put downward pressure on electricity bills and also ensure the energy market better utilises the huge uptake of rooftop solar and batteries,” he will say. 

Mr Bowen will declare Labor’s thumping election win as a vote of confidence in its energy and decarbonisation policies.

He says it puts Australia in a strong position to secure the rights to co-host the COP31 climate talks alongside Pacific nations.

An announcement is possible at the UN climate meetings underway in Bonn, Germany.

The bid has come under pressure following the federal government’s proposed decision to grant an extension on the North West Shelf gas plant’s operating life.

The project was singled out by Oil Change International in a report showing the United States, Canada, Norway, and Australia are responsible for nearly 70 per cent of projected new oil and gas from 2025 to 2035.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers is set to lay out his key priorities for reform as he confronts “intensifying pressures” on the economy.

Fixing the nation’s stagnating productivity and turning around the budget’s outlook amid forecast deficits as far as the eye can see are topping his list.

As the economy records anaemic growth, Dr Chalmers on Wednesday will push for the nation to recognise “three blunt truths” standing in the way of higher living standards.

“Our budget is stronger, but not yet sustainable enough,” he will tell the National Press Club in Canberra.

“Our economy is growing, but not productive enough.

“It’s resilient, but not resilient enough – in the face of all this global economic volatility.”

Dr Chalmers is vowing to ensure Labor’s second term is consistent with those priorities.

And despite the progress made on getting inflation back within the Reserve Bank’s target band, the treasurer will say there’s still more to do.

Dr Chalmers will identify productivity as the government’s primary focus.

“Our economy is not dynamic or innovative enough,” he will say.

“Private investment has picked up, but not by enough to make our capital deep enough.

“Skills aren’t abundant enough or matched well enough to business needs.”

On the government’s productivity roundtable in August, the treasurer will say it won’t be a move to “retract or retrace” the steps taken in the first term, but an effort to renew and refresh.

Weak productivity growth is a major problem for advanced economies around the world.

“Too often it’s seen as a cold, almost soulless concept when it’s really the best way of making people better off over time, creating more opportunities, making our economy and our society more dynamic,” the treasurer will say.

In Australia, labour productivity has stagnated since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The latest GDP figures released earlier in June showed a fall in the year to March.

The 2022 election coincided with the largest quarterly fall in productivity growth in almost half a century, the treasurer will say.

Honda has succeeded in a launch and landing test of its prototype reusable rocket, the Japanese company says in a surprise announcement, marking a milestone towards its 2029 goal of achieving a suborbital spaceflight.

Honda R&D, the research arm of Japan’s second-biggest car maker, successfully landed its 6.3-metre experimental reusable launch vehicle after reaching an altitude of 271 metres at its test facility in northern Japan’s space town Taiki, according to the company.

While “no decisions have been made regarding commercialisation of these rocket technologies, Honda will continue making progress in the fundamental research with a technology development goal of realising technological capability to enable a suborbital launch by 2029,” it said in a statement.

Honda in 2021 said it was studying space technologies such as reusable rockets but it has not previously announced the details of the launch test. 

A suborbital launch may touch the verge of outer space but does not enter orbit.

Studying launch vehicles “has the potential to contribute more to people’s daily lives by launching satellites with its own rockets, that could lead to various services that are also compatible with other Honda business,” the company added.

Reusable launch vehicles have been the driver of emerging commercial space missions over the past decade, led by SpaceX’s Falcon 9, while its US rivals including Blue Origin and companies in China and Europe also have reusable rocket plans.

Tokyo-based startup Innovative Space Carrier last month said it will test-launch a prototype reusable rocket in the United States in December using a US-made engine.

Honda’s rival Toyota, the world’s biggest car maker by sales, earlier this year announced an investment by its research arm in Taiki-based rocket maker Interstellar Technologies to support mass production of launch vehicles.

Japan’s government has established a multibillion-dollar space venture fund to subsidise private rockets, satellites and other missions, targeting to double its space industry’s size to 8 trillion yen ($US55.20 billion) by the early 2030s.

US President Donald Trump has suggested he will likely extend a deadline for TikTok’s Chinese owner to divest the popular video sharing app.

Trump had signed an order in early April to keep TikTok running for another 75 days after a potential deal to sell the app to US owners was put on ice.

“Probably yeah, yeah,” he responded when asked by reporters on Air Force One whether the deadline would be extended again.

“Probably have to get China approval but I think we’ll get it. I think President Xi will ultimately approve it.”

He indicated in an interview last month with NBC that he would be open to pushing back the deadline again.

If announced, it would be the third time Trump has extended the deadline.

The first one was through an executive order on January 20, his first day in office, after the platform went dark briefly when the ban approved by Congress – and upheld by the US Supreme Court – took effect.

The second was in April when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with US ownership that fell apart after China backed out following Trump’s tariff announcement.

It is not clear how many times Trump can – or will – keep extending the ban as the US government continues to try to negotiate a deal for TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance.

Trump has amassed more than 15 million followers on TikTok since he joined last year, and he has credited the trendsetting platform with helping him gain traction among young voters.

He said in January that he has a “warm spot for TikTok”.

Like many Iranians in Australia, Kambiz Razmara has been watching images coming out of his former country with a great deal of uncertainty.

As missile strikes continue between Iran and Israel, threatening to escalate further, Mr Razmara said community members are worried about family back home.

“When infrastructure is being destroyed, it’s unclear what is to come next. It’s a day-by-day or minute-by-minute proposition for people stranded,” he told AAP.

“You worry because you can’t communicate with loved ones and you don’t know if they’re there or not.”

Mr Razamara, who is the vice-president of the Australian Iranian Society of Victoria, said the difficulty in getting hold of people in Iran had exacerbated the worry many in the community were feeling.

While his own family has been confirmed as safe after the bombing attacks, he was concerned about an escalation of violence in the region.

“A big part of my family is near where the main nuclear reactors are, and if the reactors are bombed, then my whole family is exposed,” he said.

“People are trying to reach people, but you can’t contact people online and you can’t call.”

Foreign Minister Penny Wong said more than 1000 Australians had registered with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for assistance in leaving the Middle East.

About 650 Australians in Iran and 600 in Israel had sought help, with Senator Wong saying all options of evacuations were being considered.

“We are assessing very carefully the security implications of the security status of various options. We will provide the assistance we can to get people to safety when it is safe to do so,” she told ABC TV on Tuesday.

“We are making plans to assist Australians where it is safe to do so to safety. But at the moment, the air space continues to be closed and the reason for that is the risk to civilian aircraft of a strike.”

The situation in the Middle East has led many people visiting Iran to also become stuck.

“It is putting a great deal of pressure on people, and practically speaking, people are stranded. Some (community members) have gone for a holiday, and some to deal with family affairs and they can’t return,” Mr Razmara said.

Hundreds of people, including civilians, have been killed in the days since Israel launched a surprise assault on Iranian nuclear and military sites.

The two nations have since exchanged air and missile strikes, with Iran vowing to “open the gates of hell” against its sworn enemy.

More than 224 Iranians have been killed, most of them civilians, since the conflict began on Friday, local authorities said.

In Israel, 24 people have been killed so far in Iran’s missile attacks, all of them civilians.

“I think many people wake up in the morning, they open their phone, they have a look at the news, and they are deeply, deeply unsettled,” Greens senator David Shoebridge told Nine’s Today show on Tuesday.

Liberal senator Dave Sharma, a former Australian ambassador to Israel, said the endgame for Israel was an Iran that can no longer threaten it with annihilation.

“This is a country that has been hell bent on their destruction for at least the last two decades, that’s ideologically committed to wiping out Israel,” he added.

Australia’s sovereign wealth fund will seek out more assets in places like Europe and Japan as President Donald Trump makes the US a less attractive place to invest.

Although the diversification from US assets was already in train before Mr Trump’s re-election, it has only increased the need for insurance against volatility, said Future Fund chair Greg Combet.

“We are considering the need to build the physical portfolio in a more diversified way,” the former Labor MP told a Committee for Economic Development of Australia event on Tuesday.

The fund has already broadened its portfolio, with greater exposure to traditionally defensive currencies like the Euro and Japanese Yen, safehaven commodity gold, and domestic assets to hedge against inflation, higher interest rates and currency movements, Mr Combet said.

“While there are still likely to be compelling opportunities in US dollar denominated asset markets, we will need to devote more time and resources to investigating other markets including Japan and the EU.”

On top of increased trade and security tensions as a result of Mr Trump’s policies, the president’s ‘big beautiful bill’ also threatens to drastically raise taxes for international investors, including the Future Fund.

“In combination these policies and dynamics are making the US a more risky and uncertain investment destination,” Mr Combet said.

Depreciation of the greenback, which has fallen about 10 per cent this year against major currencies, further threatened the fund’s investments, given the majority of its physical assets were in US dollars.

The fund still managed a return of 7.9 per cent in the year to March 31, growing its assets to $240.8 billion.

Mr Combet said the fund was continuing to perform solidly, despite the volatility created by Mr Trump’s ‘liberation day’ tariffs and “other policy-induced disruptions”.

“It seems unlikely that even dramatic reversals of Trump policies would engender a return to a ‘business as usual’ approach from long-term investors now that investor doubt has been sown,” he said.

“And the trend towards deglobalisation, greater geopolitical tensions, and multi-polarity in world power pre-date President Trump and can be expected to post-date the Trump era.

“We certainly do not think the dynamics I have spoken of will pass and return the world to the norms of yesteryear.”

Despite the uncertainty, opportunities remain for the Future Fund, which is hoping to leverage growth in demand for clean energy and data centres as artificial intelligence adoption accelerates.

The fund recently added a 10 per cent stake in Transgrid, a key player in the federal government’s push to expand electricity transmission infrastructure, as well as increasing its holding in data centre company CDC.

“We have also committed capital – including long-dated capital expenditure programs – at the intersection of two of the big secular themes of our lifetime: the energy transition and the AI revolution,” Mr Combet said.

“Data centres, energy infrastructure and renewable generation all expose the Future Fund to what we will be a sustained growth story in the advancement and adoption of artificial intelligence.

“Our view at the fund is that AI is coming faster than perhaps many anticipate.”

In a joint announcement in Seattle on Sunday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and global cloud computing giant Amazon revealed the company would increase its investment in Australian data centres over the next five years to $20 billion.

The cancellation of Anthony Albanese’s one-on-one meeting with Donald Trump is not surprising given the Middle Eastern instability, the treasurer says.

The prime minister was set to meet with the US president on the sidelines of the G7 leaders summit in Canada, but Mr Trump is leaving early due to the conflict between Iran and Israel.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said Australia would continue to push for a meeting with the president.

“When you see the perilous moment in the Middle East and what it means for the world, it’s not especially surprising. It’s understandable that President Trump has left the meeting early,” Dr Chalmers told Sky News on Tuesday.

“This was always a chance of happening, given what’s happening around the world and particularly in the Middle East.

“Prime Minister Albanese has had three conversations with President Trump in recent months. We’ll continue to engage in the usual way.”

Tariffs on Australian exports into the US as well as the AUKUS submarine deal were set to be on the agenda of the face-to-face discussions.

It would have been the first time the two leaders would speak in person.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said the president leaving the summit was reasonable due to the international situation, but was to the detriment of Australia.

“This was an important opportunity for the prime minister to seek assurances on AUKUS and protect Australia from tariffs,” she said.

“Given global volatility and the growing list of issues in our relationship with the United States, this underscores that the Albanese government should not have merely relied on meeting with the president on the sidelines of international summits.”

But Ms Ley said the coalition would work with the government to improve the relationship with the United States.

“The prime minister should have been more proactive in seeking to strengthen this relationship, Australia’s most important, and we encourage him to change his approach to advance our national interest,” she said.

Opposition trade spokesman Kevin Hogan said the government needed to clarify what its approach was to dealing with the Trump administration.

“We expect the prime minister to advocate forcefully for Australian interests – resolving tariff issues, securing our trade future, and advancing AUKUS co-operation in a way that supports jobs and strengthens our national security,” he said.

“The prime minister must provide assurances on what his plan is now to ensure he gets a face-to-face meeting with President Trump.”

The prime minister’s much-anticipated meeting with Donald Trump has been cancelled.

Anthony Albanese was scheduled to hold his first face-to-face talks with the US president on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada on Tuesday local time.

But 24 hours before their discussion, the US president’s press secretary revealed Mr Trump would leave early due to the growing conflict between Israel and Iran.

The two are not expected to meet before Mr Trump flies out.

“Given what is occurring in the Middle East, this is understandable,” a spokesperson from the prime minister said.

Mr Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt said much was accomplished during the president’s time at the summit.

“The president had a great day at the G7 … but because of what’s going on in the Middle East, President Trump will be leaving tonight after dinner with Heads of State,” she posted on X.

Mr Trump was also scheduled to meet with other leaders like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi and Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum on the last day of the summit.

The news broke just minutes after Mr Albanese held his last press conference of the day.

The prime minister told reporters he prepared for the meeting through a variety of means, including contacting those close to the US president, like Australian golfer Greg Norman.

“I’ve engaged as much as possible because I think that I have a great responsibility to take that responsibility seriously,” he said.

Mr Albanese was expected to advocate for Australia’s nuclear submarine deal with the US and UK, which the Pentagon is reviewing, and to try to negotiate an exemption from Mr Trump’s controversial tariffs.

But he is now unlikely to see the president before the departure, as the prime minister is set to attend a dinner for nations invited to the summit that are not part of the G7.

For days, many had speculated that the escalation between Israel and Iran would overshadow the meeting of international leaders.

About an hour before it was revealed Mr Trump would leave, the US president urged everyone to immediately evacuate the Iranian capital Tehran in a post on Truth Social.

The prime minister also expressed his concerns.

“We are deeply concerned and urge all parties to prioritise dialogue and diplomacy,” Mr Albanese said.

The prime minister previously held his first bilateral meeting with his Canadian counterpart Mark Carney and also had discussions on regional security with the newly-elected South Korean President Lee Jae-myung.

Mr Albanese is also due to participate in a string of diplomatic talks on Tuesday with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Despite the US launching a review to explore whether the AUKUS deal aligns with Mr Trump’s “America first” agenda, there is hope the president might have formed a positive view of the nuclear submarine deal without Australia’s help.

After a bilateral meeting on Monday, the president and the UK prime minister backed AUKUS, with Mr Starmer adding it was “a really important deal to both of us”.

But the tariff issue remains.

Australian aluminium and steel products face 50 per cent tariffs when shipped to the US, while other exports have been hit with a baseline 10 per cent levy.

The prime minister was already tempering expectations before Mr Trump’s departure announcement.

“I don’t think it would be reasonable to expect that you would have a complete change and a complete resolution of the issues,” Mr Albanese said.

During his first phone conversation with the president, Mr Trump said he would give great consideration to Australia and the prime minister said he expected that reflection to continue.

“We believe very firmly that it is in the United States’ interest, as well as in Australia’s interest, for these tariffs to not be in place,” Mr Albanese said.

Poor productivity and economic growth are dulling Australia’s competitive edge and sending it sliding down an international economic leaderboard.

Australia fell five spots to 18th place in the latest World Competitiveness Yearbook report, released by the Swiss-based Institute for Management Development on Tuesday.

The disappointing result reiterates the need to revive flagging productivity – which measures how efficiently an economy converts inputs to output – said Cassandra Winzar, chief economist at independent think tank the Committee for Economic Development of Australia.

Australia dropped from 28th to 49th in the productivity and efficiency standings.

That accords with data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics that shows the nation’s labour productivity growth rate has slowed to its lowest level in at least 20 years.

“With inflation looking to be under control in the short-term, we must now tackle the longer-term challenges holding back our economy,” Ms Winzar said.

“Key to this is lifting weak productivity through measures such as streamlining regulation, encouraging business investment and undertaking broad-based tax reform.”

The federal government has targeted productivity growth as a key economic focus of its second term.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced a roundtable of industry, unions and experts in August to help guide its efforts.

“We hope the Albanese government’s recently announced productivity roundtable yields tangible policy outcomes that can lift us out of this funk,” Ms Winzar said.

“CEDA has long been calling for tax reform to be part of the Federal Government’s agenda, and this report makes the need even more clear, given our consistently high levels of company and personal income taxes (ranked 59th and 58th respectively).”

The government has remained coy on whether it would consider lowering the corporate tax rate as part of its productivity push, with Assistant Minister for Productivity Andrew Leigh focusing instead on slashing onerous red tape.

“One of the big challenges here is that you’re working across a range of tiers of governments, and so it’s local, state and federal governments have these regulations. In many cases well-meaning, but often the cumulative effect of them is to create this thicket of regulation,” Dr Leigh told Canberra radio station 2CC on Tuesday.

Housing was being particularly held back by layers of red tape, Dr Leigh said, but he backed away from a suggestion to take a “stick” to local councils that get in the way of new supply.

“Look, I’m a collaborative person. I wouldn’t naturally think about taking a ‘stick’ to other tiers of government,” he said. 

“And I think there is a political challenge if you’re a jurisdiction where your votes are coming from local residents who don’t necessarily want to see infill.”

Australia’s worst result in the institute’s ranking was its level of entrepreneurship, rating 68th out of the 69 countries included in the report.

In real GDP per capita growth – a common measure of living standards – Australia tumbled 40 places to 60th spot, reflecting the fact that the country has experienced a fall in output per person in eight out of the last nine quarters.

Opposition finance spokesman James Paterson and productivity spokesman Andrew Bragg said growth in government-funded jobs under Labor was crowding out the private sector, diminishing innovation and productivity.

“If Labor is serious about making its productivity roundtable a success, they should commit to a process beyond a one-day meeting in Canberra,” the duo said in a statement.

London’s Oxford Street, one of Britain’s busiest and most famous shopping districts, will be pedestrianised, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan says, in a move designed to smarten up the area and create a new public space to help drive growth.

The plan to rid Oxford Street of cars and buses, which has been over 20 years in the making, looks set to become a reality after consultations on proposals published in September showed a majority of Londoners and businesses back the idea.

Supporters of pedestrianising the 1.6km-long stretch in central London say similar traffic-free schemes for Times Square in New York and La Rambla in Barcelona have breathed new life into tired areas.

“We want to rejuvenate Oxford Street; establish it as a global leader for shopping, leisure and outdoor events with a world-class, accessible, pedestrianised avenue,” Khan said in a statement announcing the results of the public consultation.

Oxford Street attracts around half a million visitors every day, according to the mayor’s office, but many flagship stores including House of Fraser and Topshop have shut in recent years, and Khan said the area had been neglected.

“Oxford Street was once the jewel in the crown of Britain’s retail sector, but there’s no doubt that it has suffered hugely over the last decade”, Khan said last year.

The mayor will now work with the UK government on legislation to go traffic-free, which would happen “as quickly as possible”. That will require finding new routes for the dozens of buses which travel down it each hour.

The government has said Khan’s plan for a new “beautiful public space” which will attract more tourists, drive new investment in the area and create jobs.