Young people see the housing market as being stacked against them, Australia’s housing minister says, as the Greens call for drastic changes to property tax concessions.

Clare O’Neil continues to play a straight bat to suggestions the government is considering scaling back the capital gains discount and negative gearing arrangements for property, but says there is a lot more work to do to address the housing challenge.

Official data released on Tuesday showed dwelling approvals fell for a second straight month in January, further setting back the government’s national housing accord target of 1.2 million new homes in five years.

Getting more homes built was the government’s main focus to alleviate affordability, but when asked whether scaling back tax concessions would help, Ms O’Neil wouldn’t shut the door.

It was absolutely clear that the housing burden was falling unfairly on younger Australians, she said.

“Our tax policies haven’t changed and nor have our housing policies,” Ms O’Neil told reporters in Canberra.

“Our government absolutely sees housing as a core part of the generational challenge that faces our country.”

Treasury is reportedly leaning towards slashing the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount, which economists, think tanks and crossbench MPs argue is overly generous and turbocharging house prices, to 33 per cent on investment properties.

With the coalition already ruling themselves out of negotiations, Labor will need the Greens on board to get any changes through parliament.

Greens economics spokesman Nick McKim, who is leading a Senate inquiry into the impact of the capital gains tax discount of housing prices, said the government should use its large parliamentary majority to go even further.

“The capital gains discount … should be removed entirely and it should not be grandfathered in,” he said, citing comments by former Reserve Bank governor Bernie Fraser.

Senator McKim said there was a “very strong consensus across economists and experts” that the government should not exempt existing properties.

Opposition housing spokesman Andrew Bragg said the government was toying with changes to the discount and negative gearing to fix its broken budget.

“Higher taxes on housing will not lead to more houses – it makes no sense,” he said.

“If anything, it will cut supply and push up rents.”

Labor was only making the housing crisis worse, Senator Bragg said, pointing to falling dwelling approval figures.

Dwelling approvals fell 7.2 per cent in January, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, driven by a 25 per cent dip in apartments and townhouses.

The result was below economist expectations for a five per cent rise, but the dataset is notoriously volatile.

Economists tend to focus more on the trend rate, which has risen moderately over the past year but has levelled off in recent months.

Paramount will merge its Paramount+ streaming service with HBO Max following a successful bid for Warner Bros Discovery.

Paramount chief executive David Ellison said the companies plan to combine their streaming portfolios into a single platform over the coming years.

Together, the services currently have more than 200 million direct-to-consumer subscribers across over 100 countries, although some overlap is expected to reduce that figure once the integration is complete.

Paramount ended the fourth quarter with 78.9 million subscribers, while Warner Bros Discovery reported 131.6 million subscribers. For comparison, Netflix recently surpassed 325 million subscribers.

The unified service would bring together major franchises, including HBO’s Game of Thrones and The Sopranos, alongside Paramount’s Yellowstone and Star Trek.

Ellison did not announce a name for the new platform, which would mark another rebrand for HBO Max after prior iterations as Max and HBO Now.

As part of the transaction, Paramount will also acquire US broadcaster CNN. Ellison said there are no current plans to divest cable assets.

The planned merger follows a rival pursuit by Netflix, which ultimately walked away from the bidding war for Warner after deciding the deal’s financial terms were no longer attractive.

Travellers stranded by a widening war have begun departing the United Arab Emirates aboard a small number of evacuation flights, even as most commercial air traffic across the Middle East remained suspended.

The limited flights out of Dubai and Abu Dhabi took place as the US State Department urged its own citizens in 13 countries, including UAE, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon and Oman, to “depart now via commercial means due to serious safety risks”.

Sweeping airspace closures and flight cancellations across the region left many fewer options for heeding the advice.

Since US and Israeli strikes on Iran and retaliatory attacks on Israel and Gulf states started on Saturday, commercial flights have been halted or heavily restricted, leaving tourists, business travellers, migrant workers and religious pilgrims stuck in hotels, airports and aboard cruise ships.

Airspace remained closed Monday over Iran, Iraq and Israel. 

Jordan instituted a temporary closure beginning Monday afternoon. 

Other countries in the Gulf – including Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia – had partial or temporary closures that could be extended, according to flight-tracking service Flightradar24.

The service showed that after reports of Riyadh explosions from a drone, flights into King Khalid International Airport near Riyadh were holding or turning back. 

About 13,000 of the roughly 32,000 flights scheduled into and out of the Middle East since Saturday have been cancelled, aviation analytics firm Cirium said.

Airlines operating evacuation flights are likely doing so with government backing, and the carriers’ home countries may be assuming part of the financial risk, said Henry Harteveldt, president of travel market research firm Atmosphere Research Group.

“Airlines aren’t going to resume operations until they are fully confident that there is a zero – or as close as possible to zero – risk that their aircraft will be attacked,” Harteveldt said.

Long-haul carriers Etihad Airways and Emirates, based in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, along with budget carrier FlyDubai, said on Monday they would operate limited flights from the country, where air defence systems were deployed to intercept Iranian missiles and drones.

At least 16 Etihad flights left Abu Dhabi during a three-hour window on Monday, according to Flightradar24, heading to destinations including Islamabad, Paris, Amsterdam, Mumbai, Moscow and London. 

The airline’s website, however, said all its regularly scheduled commercial flights remained suspended until Wednesday afternoon.

Emirates said customers with earlier bookings would get priority for seats aboard the limited flights it planned to operate starting Monday evening. 

FlyDubai said it would operate four outbound flights and five inbound. 

Dubai Airports, the authority that runs the city’s two airports, showed a larger number of flights on Tuesday but urged passengers to go to airports only if their airline had notified them with confirmation since operations remained curtailed. 

The disruptions have been far-reaching because Gulf airports serve as critical global transit hubs linking Europe, Africa and Asia. Dubai International Airport alone handled a record 95.2 million passengers last year, making it the world’s busiest airport when measured by international travel.

The US operator of a family location-sharing app growing in popularity in Australia has reached a major milestone after delivering its first annual profit.

Life360 delivered net income of $US150.8 million ($A212.7 million) in calendar 2025, compared to a $US4.6 million ($A6.5 million) loss in 2024.

“2025 was a landmark year for Life360,” CEO Lauren Antonoff said on Tuesday in an earnings call from San Francisco.

However, the US-Australia listed group’s profit result was boosted by a one-off tax benefit and would fall to $US32.7 million ($A46.1 million) with that stripped out.

Total revenue for the year climbed to $US489.5 million ($A690.5 million), up 32 per cent, on the back of higher subscriptions income as the group continued to convert ‘freemium’ users to paid.

Most of Life360’s revenue upside came from its users in the US, where its penetration is about 16 per cent.

But Australia sits in the top three non-US markets with 14 per cent penetration, behind the UK on 12 per cent and Canada on five per cent.

Ms Antonoff said the numbers for these “triple tier” markets show there is a runway for growth across the countries, where there is strong interest in digital safety.

In terms of monthly active non-US users, Australia comes in fourth, behind the UK, Brazil and Mexico.

Life360 began as a location-sharing app that allowed family members to share their real-time whereabouts with other users.

It has since rolled out features such as SOS alerts, roadside and medical assistance, severe weather alerts, family driving summaries and pet-finding features using GPS trackers.

Life350 is also looking at developing a GPS tracker for the elderly, although Ms Antonoff said that’s going to take time.

“We’re starting our way in elderly, in ageing parents, really focused on bringing them into our ecosystem and we’re working on devices for the future but we don’t expect to launch those this year,” she said.

The platform had 95.8 million monthly active users worldwide at the end of 2025’s December quarter, up 20 per cent from a year ago.

That period represents the strongest fourth-quarter user growth in the company’s history.

Life360 wants to grow that number by 20 per cent in 2026, to more than 100 million.

Most users belong to Life360’s free tier, with 1.9 million US and 800,000 international users opting to pay for subscription plans that range from $9.99 to $29.99 a month.

Life360 is dual-listed on the US Nasdaq Global Select Market and the Australian Securities Exchange, where it made its debut in 2019.

Its Australian shares rose more than eight per cent in morning trading to $26.78, giving it a market value of about $6 billion.

Strong demand for Australian beef and a record winter crop have pushed the agriculture sector’s value over $100 billion, but tricky trade and climate conditions mean the record peak will be short-lived.

The gross value of agricultural production is expected to reach a record high of $101.4 billion in 2025/26, according to data released by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences.

The industry has had a long-held ambition of reaching $100 billion by 2030.

The early peak was largely driven by higher beef production to meet strong export demand and the second-largest winter crop on record, the bureau’s March quarter report said.

“This forecast gives Australians 100 billion reasons to thank our farmers, whose hard work, resilience and skill is helping power our national economy,” Agriculture Minister Julie Collins said on Tuesday.

But the forecast warned of a six per cent fall to $95 billion in 2026/27, due to the likelihood of lower livestock prices and a more modest crop.

Beef export market conditions were expected to become less favourable after China imposed 55 per cent ‍tariffs on beef imports over certain quotas in January.

About 800 million burgers’ worth of Australian beef may need to be diverted into alternative markets, according to a separate analysis from Rabobank’s research arm.

The Trump administration also announced new tariffs in February, which could hit some Australian produce.

While decent rainfall and mild spring temperatures helped growers deliver a bumper winter crop, summer harvests were hit by a hot and dry January and a lack of irrigation water availability, the report said.

The government would continue to support farmers, Ms Collins said.

“As we celebrate this significant milestone, we also reaffirm our commitment to supporting our farmers and producers during difficult conditions because we will always have their back.”

In the medium-term, the combined value of agriculture, fisheries and forestry production was projected to reach $102 billion over the five years to 2030/31, the report said.

Some conservationists, scientists and farmers have questioned the focus on agriculture’s economic gains, particularly as the government considers its national food security strategy.

A 2025 CSIRO report on the state of Australia’s food system warned emphasising the economics of agriculture has “crowded out” the pursuit of sustainability, equity, food safety and health goals.

National Farmers’ Federation president Hamish McIntyre said the $100 billion target was never about a headline number.

“It is underpinned by a detailed road map that places farmer wellbeing, sustainability and natural capital alongside productivity and profitability,” Mr McIntyre said.

He said the record value was a landmark moment for the industry.

“It proves Australian agriculture can compete with the best in the world.”

The Strait of Hormuz is closed and Iran will ‌fire on any ship trying to pass, an Iranian Revolutionary Guards senior official says.

It’s Iran’s most explicit warning since telling ‌ships it was closing the export route on Saturday, a move that threatens to choke a fifth ‌of global oil flows and send crude prices sharply higher.

“The strait (of Hormuz) is closed. If anyone tries to pass, the heroes of the Revolutionary Guards and the regular navy will set those ships ablaze,” Ebrahim Jabari, a senior adviser to the Guards commander-in-chief, said in remarks carried by state media on Monday.

The ‌strait is the ‌world’s most ⁠vital oil export route, which connects the biggest Gulf oil producers, ​such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates, with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.

The closure was triggered by US and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28 seeking to topple its leaders, with US President Donald Trump offering Iranians help in ousting the ruling clerics.

In response, ⁠Iran fired several barrages of missiles at its Gulf ‌neighbours ​hosting US military bases such as Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain. Tehran also fired missiles at the ​United Arab Emirates, ‌Saudi Arabia and Oman.

With this closure, Tehran made good on years of threats to block ​the narrow waterway in retaliation for any attack on the Islamic Republic.

About 20 per cent of the world’s daily oil consumption passes through the Strait of Hormuz, which is about 33km ​wide at its narrowest point.

Oil ​markets have focused on tensions between Tehran and ‌its old foes, the US and Israel, fearing that a full-blown conflict would disrupt supplies and destabilise the region.

The move also comes after global shipping had already experienced disruptions linked to drone and missile attacks carried out by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi militants. The group has targeted vessels in the Red ​Sea and the Gulf of Aden since the Gaza war broke out in 2023.

It’s unclear whether the US-Israeli attacks on Iran will amplify or dampen inflation, the head of Australia’s central bank says.

Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock said the bank was closely watching events in the Middle East but it would take some time to make sense of their impact on domestic inflation.

“It’s too early to say what the impact will be. Events are moving rapidly and there are different ways this can play out,” she told the Australian Financial Review Business Summit on Tuesday.

“A supply shock could, for example, add to inflation pressures. And the potential implications for inflation expectations are something we are very alert to.

“But at the same time, a prolonged impact on energy markets could have adverse effects on global economic activity and result in downward pressure on inflation. It is not obvious how this might play out.”

Crude prices spiked by up to 13 per cent on Monday after conflict in Iran – one of the world’s largest oil producers – also threatened to shut off supplies from other Middle Eastern nations.

Given oil’s role as an economy-wide input, a price surge threatens to have an outsized impact on global inflation, which is already running well above the Reserve Bank’s target.

In the worst-case scenario – in which the US becomes mired in a prolonged conflict with Iran and oil supplies are disrupted for longer – oil prices could double to about $US150 a barrel, AMP chief economist Shane Oliver said in a research note.

He ascribed a 40 per cent probability to such a scenario.

Ms Bullock admitted the bank got it wrong when it assessed supply and demand in the economy were coming back to balance in 2025, prompting it to cut interest rates.

It misjudged how strong private demand would be in the second half of 2025 and overestimated the economy’s supply potential, she said.

But data released since the Reserve Bank hiked interest rates in February had supported that decision, Ms Bullock said.

Jobs market indicators remained tight and it was uncertain whether financial conditions were restrictive enough to bring inflation back to target in a reasonable time, she said.

“We think a large part of the unexpected increase in inflation since the middle of last year was due to sector-specific demand and price pressures that we expect to ease in coming quarters,” she said.

“But economy-wide capacity pressures in the economy are also playing a role and, overall, we think underlying demand in the economy is further from its supply potential than we had assessed six months ago.”

The Reserve Bank’s forecast showed modelling the direction of the economy was hard enough without geopolitical flashpoints.

Data can send mixed signals.

Hard-to-foresee shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic and global conflict made it important for the bank to supplement its models by listening directly to households and businesses, Ms Bullock said, highlighting how murky setting monetary policy could be.

Australian employers are being urged to address gender pay gaps at senior levels of their companies to ensure workplace equality becomes a reality.

Almost 5.9 million workers will have access to pay gap information as the Workplace Gender Equality Agency publishes results for 10,500 employers.

While more workplace pay gaps have shrunk than during the same reporting period in 2025, more than half of employers have a gender pay gap larger than 11.2 per cent in favour of men.

High-paying and male-dominated industries are more likely to have large gaps.

Men are nearly twice as likely as women to be in the highest-paid roles, while women dominate lower-paid jobs.

This should offer a reality check for people who believe Australia had achieved equality in the workplace, the agency’s chief executive Mary Wooldridge said.

“Employers should treat gender equality like their other business goals,” she said.

“Women and men want a fair and equal opportunity to use their full range of skills and capabilities, hold the most senior and highest paying roles, feel safe at work and have some flexibility to manage other responsibilities, such as caring, outside of work.”

Gender pay gaps measure the difference between the average pay for men and women within an organisation, and can be used to gauge the differences in how their work is valued.

The construction sector has the average gender pay gap of 23.8 per cent, followed by financial services.

“(Construction) is a highly masculinised industry, while (financial services) is a balanced industry in terms of their composition, but quite unbalanced in relation to the proportion of men in high-paying roles versus women in lower-paying roles,” Ms Wooldridge said.

“We need vigilance on employers … so no one gets a particular gold star and can rest on their laurels, they will need to continue to be working to narrow their gender pay gaps and improve their employee experience.”

Large differences in discretionary payments, like performance bonuses and overtime hours, remain a key driver of many employer gender pay gaps.

Stephanie Mediero chairs the women’s network at medical-technology company Medtronic, building leadership opportunities and promoting career advancement.

She said the playing field was particularly uneven between men and women in STEM fields.

“Gender targets alone are not sufficient to close the pay gap, to move the needle we have to work on building the confidence of women in the workplace,” she told AAP.

“When women have confidence in their skills and what they can offer, they are more likely to go for those leadership opportunities.”

It is the third year the agency has released pay gap data as an increasing number of employers conduct analyses and put in place strategies to close the divide.

Flexible work was a key part of shifting the dial towards more equal workplaces, Women’s Minister Katy Gallagher said.

“When workplaces genuinely support flexibility, women are more likely to stay connected to work, progress into senior roles and build their lifetime earnings,” she said.

A new ranking of business investment competitiveness has placed Australia near the bottom for tax and regulation, which businesses say must be addressed to boost productivity growth and living standards.

The findings of the Business Council’s Global Investment and Competitiveness Index, launched on Tuesday, amplify calls for Treasurer Jim Chalmers to undertake ambitious tax reform and bold action on red tape ahead of the May budget.

Despite placing near the top for trade settings, rule of law and energy, Australia came in 37th for regulation and 38th for business taxation and investment restrictions, dragging it down to 21st out of 42 countries on total investment competitiveness.

Business Council chief executive Bran Black hoped the index would shine a light on changes Australia could make to become a top-10 destination for productivity-boosting business investment.

The outbreak of renewed conflict in the Middle East, which threatens global oil supplies and the economy, only made the task more urgent, he said.

“Ultimately, all of the settings that are the subject of assessment within this index are settings that are totally within Australia’s control,” Mr Black told AAP.

“At times of uncertainty, when global conflict is in front of us, the best thing that we can do is control the things that are within our scope to control so that we can be as resilient as possible.”

Since his economic roundtable in August 2025, Dr Chalmers has made moves to streamline red tape, including ordering regulators to cut regulatory clutter and setting up a single front door to make it easier for trusted foreign investors to gain approvals.

Mr Black said businesses were already starting to feel the benefits but employer groups wanted the government to go further by setting a target of reducing the regulatory burden by 25 per cent by 2030.

According to a report released by the Australian Institute of Company Directors in November, the explosion in red tape in recent decades was costing Australian businesses and the economy $160 billion, or 5.8 per cent of GDP, up from 4.2 per cent of GDP in 2013.

Mr Black also called for holistic tax reform to encourage businesses to invest more.

Australia’s corporate income tax rate of 30 per cent for big businesses was becoming increasingly uncompetitive compared to peer economies and made it harder to attract increasingly mobile global capital, he said.

Allowing businesses to more easily deduct capital costs, through investment allowances, immediate expensing, or reforming research and development incentives, would encourage greater investment and boost GDP growth long term, Mr Black argued.

That would serve a similar purpose as the Productivity Commission’s proposed net cashflow tax, without raising the statutory tax rate for big businesses and further reducing Australia’s competitiveness, he said.

Australians stranded in the Middle East may face weeks of uncertainty, as more than 100,000 citizens have been unable to leave the region.

Lucy Finter left Sydney for London on Saturday and was “completely oblivious” of the US and Israeli air strikes launched on Iran – killing its leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – until she landed in Dubai for a stopover.

All flights were suddenly cancelled when she arrived at the Dubai International Airport, which erupted into chaos and was damaged after being hit by strikes. 

“No one knew what was going on, then we checked the news online and saw missiles had been fired and the airspace had been closed,” the Australian woman told AAP.

Ms Finter and her partner, from the UK, both filled out repatriation forms from the UK and Australian governments, but are yet to hear anything further. 

“There’s little to no communication, which is understandable because this is unprecedented,” Ms Finter said, hoping to return to either Australia or the UK.

“I’m trying to remain calm, but then I hear another missile.”

Ms Finter said she burst into tears when she read US President Donald Trump’s remarks on Monday that the war in Iran would take “four weeks or so”.

“It’s just the uncertainty, wondering how long we’re going to be here,” she said.

Mr Trump’s four-week time frame was precise, but depended on variables outside of his control, said David Smith, a professor of American politics and foreign policy at the University of Sydney. 

“Trump has a tendency to describe things in very optimistic terms,” Dr Smith said. 

“It’s really going to depend on how the Iranian regime responds. A lot of this is quite unpredictable.”

It was unlikely Mr Trump expected Australia to become involved in the conflict as he wanted “a limited military action”, Dr Smith said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said there had been no requests for the Australian military to be involved. 

“It’s a long way from Australia, and we are not big players in the Middle East,” he told ABC’s 7.30 program. 

He said it was inappropriate for events mourning Ayatollah Khamenei to go ahead, after reports four Shia mosques and Islamic centres in Australia planned vigils.

“Overwhelmingly, people won’t be participating,” Mr Albanese said.

The prime minister earlier advised Australians to not travel to Iran and to leave as soon as possible if safe to do so.

“The registration portal is now open for Australians seeking assistance in Israel, Iran, the UAE and Qatar,” he said in parliament on Monday.

Defence Minister Richard Marles expected commercial flights would come online first when travel started to reopen. 

“Airspace across the Middle East is currently blacked out, and so there is no air travel at all,” he said.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong said there were about 115,000 Australians in the Middle East.

The Albanese government has repeatedly declined to say whether the military intervention was legal under international law.