Five womenswear stores will close just days after an Australian fashion retailer went into voluntary administration, as the receivers try to find a buyer for the struggling business.

Sydney-based fashion business Cue Clothing Co, which operates women’s labels Cue and Veronika Maine, was founded in 1968.

Now, four standalone Cue stores and one Veronika Maine store will shut down, administrators Kate Warwick and Vaughan Strawbridge from FTI Consulting said on Friday.

The chain, which went into administration on Tuesday, has around 50 stores across Australia and also sells its apparel at Myer and David Jones.

The Levis family last year sold the chain to British distressed assets investor Hilco Capital, which specialises in turning around underperforming businesses.

But an improvement in sales could not offset higher overhead costs.

There had been good initial interest from potential buyers, with expressions of interest due in early October, the receivers said.

The five stores to close include Veronica Maine in the exclusive Sydney suburb of Mosman, and Cue in Woden in the ACT, Parramatta in western Sydney, Armadale southeast of Perth and Melbourne central.

Australian fashion brands are having a tough time due to increased competition from fast fashion stores and online retailers like Shein.

Mosaic Brands, the owners of Katies, Noni B, Autograph and Crossroads, entered voluntary administration in 2024 and all its roughly 700 stores were shut down by receivers in early 2025.

Colette by Colette Hayman, which had 140 stores, entered voluntary administration in 2020 and emerged as an online-only retailer, with its handbags sold at David Jones.

Cue opened its first store in Sydney’s Strand Arcade almost 60 years ago.

An Australian startup aiming to make green hydrogen work for heavy industry has launched an AI-optimised production line making electrolysers to split hydrogen from water.  

Hysata has opened the first part of its manufacturing platform, called HysataFab, at its 8500-square-metre headquarters in Port Kembla, south of Sydney.

The company celebrated its fifth birthday in July with its first heavy industry export customer and though the deal is still under wraps, it expects to deliver a large-scale electrolyser in the first half of 2027.

Electrolysers split hydrogen and oxygen from water using electricity generated from clean sources, but the amount of power used can make the process uneconomic.

The Hysata electrolysers were designed in conjunction with the University of Wollongong. 

Hysata maintains it makes the most efficient electrolysers in the world, and its production line efficiency will be boosted by artificial intelligence monitoring the process, learning from it and making improvements.

In a project worth almost $100 million at Port Kembla, three production lines will be housed covering electrode, membrane and cell and stack manufacture, with the electrode line opened on Friday.

Additional investment will expand the factory to 200 megawatts of capacity, making it the largest electrolyser manufacturing facility in the southern hemisphere.

Hysata chief executive officer Paul Barrett said the company had two compounding efficiency advantages – more hydrogen per megawatt and more product per line, leading to cheaper hydrogen.

“We built Hysata to get more hydrogen out of every unit of electricity. We are now doing the same thing to manufacturing, getting more product out of every line,” he told AAP.

Hysata electrolysers used 20 per cent less energy than any of the incumbent technologies and that was getting the company traction in global markets, Dr Barrett said.

The company’s heavy use of data collection and AI tools to monitor and learn from that data enabled the company to “sweat the manufacturing equipment” to maximise efficiency, he said.

Green hydrogen was critical to decarbonising sectors that cannot simply electrify, such as shipping, aviation, steelmaking and other heavy industry, Dr Barrett said.

After generating headlines in the early 2020s, investment in renewable hydrogen has slowed, with several major Australian developments cancelled.

The prospects of hydrogen-fuelled cars and homes were undercut by the superior economics of electrification.

“The hype has gone and we can no longer seriously talk about hydrogen heating every home or powering every passenger car, and frankly nor should we,” Dr Barrett said.

Hydrogen should be seen as a chemical feedstock to make value-added products such as ammonia for fertiliser, green steel production and low-carbon fuels for aviation and shipping, he said.

“There are fantastic opportunities globally for electrolysers and we’re proud to be doing it in Australia.”

Anthony Albanese is taking plans to rein in tech giants and boost online safety from Apple to the Big Apple.

The prime minister will fly out on Friday for a week-long trip to the US, spearheaded by a visit to Silicon Valley and the UN General Assembly in New York.

Almost a year on from implementing a world-first ban on under 16s from using social media, Mr Albanese will meet with former Apple chief executive Tim Cook to discuss parental control measures being rolled out.

Apple’s parental control measures were in part inspired by the ban.

The tech executive issued an open invitation to the prime minister to visit the company’s California headquarters following a phone call between the pair in June.

Digital safety will also form a key component of Mr Albanese’s visit to New York to take part in the UN’s high-level week of meetings, the largest annual gathering of world leaders.

Efforts to improve internet safety are expected to feature prominently in the prime minister’s events, after teen social media ban talks led the way in his 2025 appearance.

Since then, the federal government has announced plans to introduce a digital duty of care for tech giants to remove harmful content online, as well as allow users to opt out of algorithmic feeds on social media platforms.

Labor has also laid out national standards for AI companies, requiring them to be powered by renewable energy, with data centres having an obligation to underwrite new power supply.

Mr Albanese said work on the world stage as part of the global forum would be crucial to advancing reform.

“Australia is working to prevent online harm, particularly for our children, and I am proud that Australia is setting the world standard for digital safety,” he said in a statement.

“I look forward to joining other world leaders to discuss issues impacting our communities, including fuel costs, climate change and conflict, and how we can work together to find solutions.”

Several bilateral meetings with world leaders will also take place on the sidelines of the summit as Australia ramps up its bid for a seat on the UN’s Security Council.

Australia is bidding to become one of the 10 non-permanent members of the 15-seat council during 2029 and 2030.

A vote for the spot isn’t due to take place until 2028, but lobbying efforts will intensify during the general assembly.

Australia last held a seat on the Security Council in 2013 and 2014.

“Australia’s prosperity and security depend on a strong global system, where nations work together, agreed rules are respected, and co-operation delivers shared benefit,” Mr Albanese said.

The Bank of England has kept the UK’s main interest rate unchanged at 3.75 per cent even though inflation in the United Kingdom has risen to a five-month high as the fallout from the Iran war continues to ratchet up fuel prices.

The decision was widely anticipated, with six members of the Monetary Policy Committee voting to keep rates unchanged, while three backed a quarter-point increase to four per cent.

Though borrowing rates were kept on hold, financial markets think it’s more likely than not that the bank will back an increase at one of the next two policy meetings, either in November or December.

“So far higher global energy costs have had a limited effect on price and wage setting in the UK,” bank governor Andrew Bailey said on Thursday.

“But the longer this volatility persists, the bigger the impact it will have on inflation, and the more likely it is we will need to raise the bank rate to ensure that inflation falls back to our two per cent target.”

Like other central banks, the inflation outlook will be key.

Some have already decided to start raising borrowing costs again, including the US Federal Reserve on Wednesday.

The minutes accompanying the Bank of England’s decision showed that inflation is now expected to rise to about four per cent in the first quarter of next year from the current 3.1 per cent as households face another increase in their domestic energy bills.

That would take inflation further above the bank’s target rate of 2 per cent.

Interest rates in the UK had been trending downward from a 15-year high of 5.25 per cent until the US and Israel attacked Iran in late February.

The Iran war led to sharp increases in oil and gas prices, partly because the crucial Strait of Hormuz has been largely closed to traffic ever since.

As well as affecting the cost of personal loans and mortgages, the uptick in interest rate expectations is a growing problem for the British government as the servicing of its debt accounts for a higher proportion of its spending.

World shares have shuffled higher and the dollar has nestled ‌at a seven-week high after the US Federal Reserve’s first interest rate hike in more than three years and a dip in oil prices helped calm a global bond market ‌sell-off that has rumbled for months.

The focus now shifts to the Bank of England (BoE), which is expected to leave UK rates steady on Thursday, but all eyes will be on whether it points to ‌a November hike, given the pressures of energy prices.

The Bank of Japan, by contrast, is all but certain to lift interest rates on Friday.

Europe’s main share markets opened 0.2 per cent-0.5 per cent stronger on Thursday.

A one per cent drop in oil prices meant Brent was still at $US104 a barrel, but the Fed’s overnight move added to the sense that central banks are now getting the jump on inflation.

The US dollar rested at a seven-week high in currency markets, underpinned by a jump in short-term Treasury yields as markets ramped up wagers that the Fed might have to lift rates again.

But it had ‌been notable that benchmark ‌10-year yields and longer-term 30-year yields ⁠had barely budged.

Lisa Wang, the head of EMEA investment strategy at Franklin Templeton Investment Solutions, said Wednesday’s move made for “a ​more credible Fed and puts a cap on long-term yields, rather than pushing them up”.

With money also set to continue to be poured into AI despite the recent warnings about its risks, “overall, we are still bullish globally on risk”, she added.

Europe’s attention was now on the BoE’s interest rate decision on Thursday.

It looks set to stay at 3.75 per cent but investors are watching for any sign that the latest surge in energy prices could force it to follow the Fed and European Central Bank upwards before too long.

British natural gas and Brent crude futures have leapt by almost 20 per cent ⁠this month – bad news for a country heavily reliant on imported energy.

Money markets currently point to an ‌80 per cent chance of a quarter-point ​BoE rate increase in November, potentially the first of four over the next year.

Economists are less convinced though it seems – only about one in eight respondents in a recent Reuters poll ​expected a November ‌move.

S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures pointed to Wall Street gaining about 0.8 per cent when it resumes later.

Sterling was up 0.10 per cent at $US1.3395 ahead of the BoE decision as the ​dollar just started to ease from the seven-week high it had hit following the Fed’s move, which chair Kevin Warsh had framed as removing “a dose of accommodation”.

Benchmark 10-year UK gilt yields were slightly higher at 5.3 per cent.

German Bunds were nearly 3.53 per cent while 10-year US Treasuries were hovering just below the key 5 per cent threshold.

The Fed’s quarter-point rate rise ​overnight ​had been a unanimous decision. The central bank’s dot plot chart also projected one ​more hike in 2026, but stopped short of signalling any moves next year.

Commodity markets took a hit from the dollar’s overnight rise.

Brent crude futures slipped another one per cent after falling 2.7 per cent overnight on reports Saudi Arabia was offering crude cargoes through Oman.

That had helped ease some of the concerns about Middle ​East supply disruption, following recent escalation of the seven-month war after attacks by Iran-backed Houthi fighters on Saudi cities.

Gold, however, showed some resilience, rising 0.7 per cent to $US4,293 an ounce, offsetting a similar fall ​overnight.

Labor has dumped controversial plans for a $5000 cap on veterans’ allied health payments as part of its “solemn obligation” to ex-serving personnel.

Following sustained criticism and campaigning from advocates, Veterans’ Affairs Minister Matt Keogh announced on Thursday the government had backed down on the measure.

In a bid to improve the budget’s bottom line, the government introduced a $5000 annual limit on allied health services for veterans which was originally set to come into effect from July 2027.

This would have resulted in cutting more than $779 million over the next four years from the portfolio.

The proposal attracted widespread condemnation with the coalition, Greens and crossbench all calling for Labor to dump the cap.

Mr Keogh said the government took its “solemn obligation” to veterans very seriously.

“We brought forward a package of measures to improve access to allied health, improving the fees paid to allied health practitioners, so that they would provide better service to our veteran community,” he told parliament.

“And as part of that, we also committed and did engage with the ex-service organisations, with veterans, with families … and we committed to listen, and we did, and we heard, and we have responded.”

Mr Keogh has faced calls in recent weeks to resign after he initially declined to meet with advocates over the cap.

The government was criticised after the parents of Cameron Baird, who was killed in 2013 during a deployment to Afghanistan, were told their travel allowance would be cut.

This was also overturned.

Fair Care for Veterans spokesman John Armfield, a former Navy clearance diver, thanked Mr Keogh for dumping the cap.

“This is what happens when a government listens to veterans,” he said.

“The minister says he wants to keep talking to veterans and providers. We welcome that, and we’ll be there. 

“We’ll also make sure whatever comes next doesn’t bring the cap back under another name.”

Veteran and Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie, alongside Greens senator David Shoebridge, successfully passed a bill in the upper house to stop any future cap being imposed on health payments.

Senator Lambie, who gave an emotional address about the healthcare barriers facing female veterans, hailed the win.

She urged veterans not to take out their anger on Mr Keogh or the department, noting the work completed on implementing key reforms from the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide.

“I have seen more movement in the last two years since that royal commission than what I have in the whole 10 years I’ve bloody been up here,” Senator Lambie told reporters.

“They are working hard, and there will there will be slips along the way, and that is my job to represent you guys up here.”

Senator Shoebridge said there had been a “pile on” Mr Keogh, who had to deliver a three quarter of a billion dollar saving in his portfolio.

“If veterans are angry about this, and they should be, direct the anger at the people who made the decision,” he said.

“This is a treasurer, prime minister decision.”

Opposition defence personnel spokesman Phillip Thompson became emotional as he welcomed the government’s decision, calling on Mr Keogh to apologise.

“You need to listen to those that it will affect and the sad thing is, the minister didn’t do that,” he told reporters.

“I know what it’s like to carry a coffin. I know what it’s like when your friends are no longer.”

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People who overstay their visa in Australia will be sent to detention centres and backpacker visas will be curbed as Labor launches a major shake-up of the migration system in a bid to fend off the threat of One Nation.

Migration levels were too high and placing a strain on the housing market, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said as he revealed the long-awaited changes at the National Press Club. 

But the suite of policies he was left to announce, six weeks after his initial appearance was shelved amid cabinet disagreement, was not as comprehensive as he would have liked, Mr Burke said on Thursday.

He blamed a breakdown in negotiations with the coalition preventing him from introducing legislative changes that would have given more effective policy levers to fine-tune the migration system.

Instead, Mr Burke was left with regulatory tweaks, including a ballot system for working holiday makers and restricting foreign students from bringing family members to Australia.

Walking the tightrope between quelling community discontent over high net migration and not alienating Labor’s left-wing base, Mr Burke described migration as “fundamentally a strength to Australia” while acknowledging genuine problems to be confronted.

Mr Burke said the demand-driven approach that had characterised the Australian migration system since the Hawke era was no longer fit for purpose.

Still, the announcement copped criticism from multiple sides.

The business community lashed the changes to working holiday visas, which the agriculture and tourism sectors heavily rely on, and not even One Nation leader Pauline Hanson dared to touch in her plan to slash migration unveiled days earlier.

A ballot system will be introduced for years two and three, limited to 45,000 and 5000 respectively, which Accommodation Australia chief executive James Goodwin said would amount to about a 40 per cent reduction from current levels.

“Working holiday makers are the wrong target to try reduce net overseas migration,” Mr Goodwin told AAP.

But the current freeze on processing of working holiday visas will come to an end, with processing times for applications to be stabilised at three months.

A more hardline approach to deporting visa overstayers was condemned by humanitarian groups and the Greens, who warned of Trump-style ICE agents policing the streets.

A central component is the reintroduction of a pre-2015 system that Mr Burke said would encourage overstayers to leave or face being locked up in a detention centre.

An extra 100 compliance officers and 250 detention beds represented a race to the bottom in Australia’s treatment of migrants and asylum seekers, said Kon Karapanagiotidis, chief executive of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.

“Today is a dark day for multicultural Australia,” he said.

About 80,000 non-citizens without a valid visa are estimated to be in Australia.

Ramping up removals – voluntary or forced – would help bring net overseas migration down from 292,100 to meet budget forecasts of 245,000 in 2026/27 and 225,000 each year thereafter.

But a bigger influence on migration remaining above target in recent years has been high numbers of student and bridging visas.

Among the changes, international students will no longer be able to transfer to a lower qualification to stay in the country.

Tourists will be prevented from extending their stays in Australia with the introduction of a ”no further stay” condition on visitor visas.

Some aspects of the changes were welcomed by industry groups, especially in construction.

Housing trades will be prioritised in the skilled migration system, with construction workers given the same treatment in the points test as applicants with university qualifications.

The skilled migration program will also be tweaked to prioritise applicants in healthcare, education, law enforcement, defence, resources, agriculture, aquaculture and fishing.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed net overseas migration fell from about 299,000 in 2025 to 292,100 in the year to March.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi ‌has retained key ministers in a cabinet reshuffle, including her reflationist ally Minoru Kiuchi as economy minister, pointing to no change to her flagship spending plans.

Takaichi’s policies have ‌proven contentious given the huge size of Japan’s public debt.

Her decision to pursue a two-year tax cut on food items sparked a bond sell-off as well as criticism from ‌the US, putting her under pressure to heed market calls for fiscal discipline.

Kiuchi said after the announcement of the cabinet line-up that he would strive towards achieving both a strong economy and fiscal sustainability.

“We won’t engage in wanton fiscal expansion,” he said on Thursday.

In her first reshuffle since taking office in October 2025, Takaichi, however, also retained as finance minister Satsuki Katayama, a former finance ministry bureaucrat regarded as having a ‌conservative stance towards fiscal ‌policy.

That reappointment is likely ⁠to be welcomed by bond markets wary of Takaichi’s plans to increase government spending, which in turn could ​boost debt issuance.

Katayama played a key role negotiating with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on a rare ⁠joint US-Japan yen intervention in July, an effort that underscored the countries’ close co-operation and ‌her reappointment underscores continuity ​in foreign exchange policy.

Other key ministers, including some of her competitors in 2025’s race to lead the ruling party, such as Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and ​Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, ‌remained in their posts.

The reshuffle was aimed mostly at having the Japan Innovation Party, Takaichi’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s coalition partner, share responsibility on ​policymaking by joining the cabinet.

The premier appointed Hiroshi Nakatsuka from the party as minister in charge of deregulation.

Of the 18 minister posts, eight were filled by incumbents including trade minister Ryosei Akazawa, who oversees Japan’s trade negotiations with the US.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Japanese government bond hit ​three-decade ​highs this week on concern Takaichi’s big spending plans could add ​to Japan’s public debt, which, at twice the size of its economy, is the ‌largest among advanced nations.

But with households smarting from rising costs of living, she risks hurting her approval ratings by backing down on her pledge to cut tax and boost spending.

Takaichi’s pledge to cap new government bond issuance about 40 trillion ($A360 billion) for the budget is already facing scrutiny after budget requests swelled to pandemic-era levels.

The cost of funding Japan’s debt is increasing as the central bank raises interest ​rates and slows bond purchases in an effort to wean the economy off decades of massive stimulus.

The Bank of Japan is widely expected to hike ​its main policy rate by 25 basis points ⁠to 1.25 per cent on Friday.

A global financial body has given the Reserve Bank the green light to hike interest rates and urged Treasurer Jim Chalmers to be bolder on tax reform.

With a break-out in price growth hitting Australians’ living standards, returning inflation to target in the near term should be top priority, the International Monetary Fund said in its latest report on the nation’s economy on Thursday.

The “soft landing” the IMF identified in its last mission to Australia in February had hit with a thud, thanks in part to weak productivity growth and the Middle East conflict.

The IMF projected the growth rate of Australia’s economy would slow to 1.9 per cent in 2026 and 1.6 per cent in 2027, following three RBA rate hikes so far.

Rising oil prices, hotter-than-anticipated July inflation figures and hawkish commentary from the bank’s top brass in recent weeks has raised expectations the RBA would follow the Federal Reserve in hiking rates at its September meeting.

“Given persistent underlying inflation pressures and large uncertainty around whether financial conditions are sufficiently restrictive, the RBA should stand ready to hike rates as needed,” the IMF said.

Further increases in energy prices could push prices up even more and lift inflation expectations, which could warrant more rate rises, it said.

But the RBA has a delicate balancing act to manage. If growth slows sharply, it should consider cutting rates, but only if inflation looks like getting under control, the IMF said.

Part of the difficulty in controlling inflation has been Australia’s weak productivity growth, which has gone backwards over the last four years.

Declining productivity has limited the speed the economy can grow at without pushing up inflation and has weighed on Australians’ living standards.

The IMF welcomed the federal government’s attempts to improve productivity, but called for a “more ambitious reform strategy” to boost competition, reduce over-regulation and rebalance the tax system.

It recommended replacing stamp duty with a recurrent land tax and shifting the tax burden away from income and towards consumption.

The IMF urged federal and state governments to cut back on spending amid rising debt levels, noting the difficulty the government would face in implementing “difficult” NDIS reforms. 

Changes to property investor tax breaks in the federal budget also got the IMF’s tick of approval for helping to fix the housing market, although the recent fall in house prices was not enough to fix affordability.

“Recent budget measures to support enabling infrastructure, build-to-rent housing, and social and affordable housing are welcome, and recent tax changes should reduce some demand-side distortions,” the report said.

But the IMF also noted unintended consequences from the reforms, urging the government to minimise compliance costs and the impact on investment.

HSBC chief economist Paul Bloxham predicts prices will fall 13 per cent from peak to trough.

That should slow economic growth by 0.4 per cent over six months, helping the RBA get inflation back to target, he said.

The treasurer said the IMF’s report backed the government’s budget changes and ongoing focus on productivity.

“It’s a timely endorsement of our economic strategy at a time of accelerating change and uncertainty in the global economy,” Dr Chalmers said.

Further efforts to boost supply, such as providing more enabling infrastructure and improving productivity in the construction sector, were also encouraged.

The IMF was optimistic about the impact of the AI and data centre boom on Australia’s economic growth and productivity.

But it could also put pressure on the construction sector and lead to higher electricity costs if new renewable energy projects were not built fast enough, it said.

Shadow treasurer Tim Wilson said the IMF’s report card showed Labor was worsening inflation through excessive spending, causing Australians to fall further behind.

Australia’s share market has logged a second session of tentative gains after a US interest rate hike helped soothe global bond market jitters.

The S&P/ASX200 rose 35.9 points on Thursday, up 0.41 per cent, to 8,732.4, as the broader All Ordinaries gained 36.4 points, or 0.41 per cent, to 8,910.9.

Long-dated yields eased from multi-decade highs after the US Federal Reserve delivered its first interest rate hike in three years, showing it was serious about taming inflation and tempering fears about bond markets – the effective plumbing for the global financial system.

A rebound in the financials sector did some heavy lifting as seven of 11 local sectors traded lower, while energy stocks and non-energy miners slumped as oil, iron ore and gold prices eased since Wednesday.

The Australian dollar is buying 71.08 US cents, down from 71.31 US cents on Wednesday at 5pm.