Furniture trader Nick Scali has posted an uptick in interim profit, but lengthy closures for its refurbished UK stores dragged on the result.

Its bottom-line net profit for the six months ended December rose 36.4 per cent to $41 million, from the previous first half, supported by solid sales growth in its Australia and New Zealand stores.

Revenue for the home team, including NZ, grew 13.1 per cent to $251.7 million, as its gross profit margin rose 150 basis points to 65.9 per cent.

But its UK business has still to turn a profit, after posting a first-half net loss in line with forecasts at $5.6 million, due to lengthy closures as it refurbished and rebranded stores.

“The first half delivered solid sales and profit growth in ANZ (Australian & NZ) with good progress made in the UK as the completion of store refurbishments and rebranding contributed to improvement in written sales orders,” chief executive Anthony Scali said.

The company received UK revenues of $17.6 million, down from $28.6 million in the previous first half.

Despite the closures, British written sales orders for the half grew 12.8 per cent to $21.7 million, in an encouraging sign for its UK foray, while gross margin grew sharply to 59.2 per cent.

The geographical spread of the UK stores also led to some inefficient marketing and advertising spending, Mr Scali told investors during an earnings briefing on Friday.

“We’ve only got 16 stores and they’re spread across the UK, so there’s not a lot of opportunity for localised advertising,” he said.

“It’s mainly national.”

The company is aggressively pursuing more UK stores to open in the short term, with several in negotiations.

Six new locations are set to open in the company’s Australasian heartlands in 2026.

“New stores are critical for our profit growth, as is increased brand awareness,” Mr Scali said.

While the overall first half profit beat expectations, investors were less optimistic, selling down Nick Scali shares by more than 17 per cent to $19.71 in the first hour of trade.

This was likely due to weaker-than-expected January sales growth in its Australia and NZ stores of about three per cent.

The company declared a fully franked first-half dividend of 39 cents per share, up 30 per cent on last year.

Cochlear shares have dropped to a three-year low after the hearing implant company delivered weaker-than-expected earnings after its next-generation implant took longer to roll out than anticipated.

Cochlear’s statutory net profit for the half-year to December 31 was down 21 per cent to $161.5 million.

Net profit excluding one-off items fell 10 per cent to $194.8 million, beneath consensus expectations of $202 million in underlying profit.

Cochlear had $1.18 billion in sales during the half, down two per cent from a year ago after excluding the impact of currency fluctuations.

The Nucleus Nexa system, the only cochlear implant with upgradeable firmware, launched behind schedule in June but was receiving a positive reception from professionals and recipients.

“Overall, we saw a very successful launch, which sets us up for the future,” chief executive and president Dig Howitt told analysts on Friday.

Product registration and contract renewals for the new system took longer than anticipated, but Cochlear had negotiated increased prices for the new system, he said.

Cochlear now expects full-year profit to come in at the lower end of its August guidance of $435 million to $460 million.

Cochlear said gross margins had decreased due to a higher mix of sales from emerging markets, particularly in China.

Cochlear will pay an interim dividend of $2.15 per share, the same payout as a year ago. The dividend will be 85 per cent franked, up from 80 per cent a year ago.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Craig Wong-Pan said the result was weaker than consensus expectations and RBC’s forecasts.

“We expect the stock to be weaker today given the soft 1H performance and management lowering full year expectations,” Mr Wong-Pan wrote.

In early trading, Cochlear shares had dropped 12.4 per cent to a three-year low of $215.11.

Australians looking for love are having their social media used against them as AI is used to tailor romance scams before Valentine’s Day.

Scammers have long used intimacy to groom victims into opening up their wallets around the holiday.

But the rise of AI has allowed criminals to turbocharge their efforts and create scams that are highly sophisticated and even more emotionally manipulative, UNSW computer science lecturer Lesley Land warns.

The technology can be used to analyse people’s social media profiles and craft romance scams targeted to each victim.

“Some people release a lot of personal information, so it might know you’ve become a single mum, just gone through a divorce, or you’ve lost a loved one,” Dr Land told AAP.

“They can just just feed this into the computer learning machines, and automatically create conversations to lure potential victims.”

Traditional romance scams would often require bad actors to speak with victims for months or years on end.

But AI can also automate romance scams, allowing frausters to expand their operations.

Since 2020, Australians have lost more than $220 million to dating and romance scams alone, according to CHOICE.

Many who fell victim did not want to talk about their experiences, which could make it hard to help them, Dr Land said.

“Lots of people have been scammed but they can be filled with shame,” she said.

“People might ask: why were you deceived? Couldn’t you see it coming?

“It’s really very insidious because of the grooming process.”

CHOICE and other consumer advocacy groups including Financial Counselling Australia, Australian Communications Consumer Action Network and more are calling on the federal government to address gaps in their proposed scam protections.

The Commonwealth’s Scams Prevention Framework places no obligations on businesses where scams are rife such as dating apps, email services and online market places, according to the groups.

“Placing the burden on a broken-hearted consumer – at the lowest point in their life – to fight to get their money back when they are the victim is topsy-turvy,” Financial Rights Legal Centre director Alexandra Kelly said.

Though some industries, such as banking, are using AI to try to stop scams before they reach customers, Dr Land also urges Australians to be more aware of scams and report any to police.

Flawless-looking photos, vague and repetitive answers on dating apps, and fast-moving relationships are clues to potential romance scams, according to the Australian Banking Association.

More than 3000 older Australians remain stranded in public hospitals waiting for aged care, as the nation’s health ministers warn of a growing crisis that is stretching emergency departments and costing billions.

State and territory health ministers will present the federal government with an aged care report card at a meeting in Canberra on Friday, showing 3137 people are in hospitals awaiting aged care.

The number of aged care patients who have no medical reason to be in hospital has surged by 30 per cent in five months, according to the ministers’ report card.

Queensland was experiencing the highest level of bed-blocking, with 1096 aged care patients in public hospitals, followed by NSW at 848 and South Australia at 383.

The ministers’ report said there was a direct link between bed-blocking and emergency department waiting times.

Its release highlights continued tensions between jurisdictions over the issue, despite the eleventh-hour signing in January of a deal which provides states and territories with an extra $25 billion in commonwealth funding for hospitals.

Part of that funding will help the states manage elderly patients languishing in hospitals, but state and territory ministers maintain more resources are needed to address the “spiralling” problem.

They say the issue is costing taxpayers “well over” a billion dollars a year, with some patients stuck in hospital for years.

Some patients in SA were being cared for in a hotel which the state Labor government had turned into a transition care facility, Health Minister Chris Picton said.

“We continue to call on the federal government to address this crisis that is their responsibility,” Mr Picton said in a statement.

“The 3137 older Australians currently stranded in hospitals right across the nation need a home, not a hospital bed.”

Federal Health Minister Mark Butler has acknowledged the growing problem, saying a new care facility needed to be opened every three days for the next 20 years to accommodate the ageing population.

“Demand for aged care services really is skyrocketing right now because we are in the midst of the first of the baby boomers turning 80,” Mr Butler told FIVEAA radio last week.

“It’s placing pressure right across the system. I know it’s placing pressure on hospitals.”

About 90,000 Australians were set to turn 80 in 2027, compared to roughly 15,000 in 2010, Mr Butler said.

He said while more facilities were quickly needed, the government was increasing the number of home care packages.

The NSW and Victorian health ministers were not included in the joint-statement to the federal government.

A 2025 report by an independent NSW advisory council on ageing said underinvestment in the sector contributed to the care shortage, along with old building stock and increased construction costs.

That report also highlighted the negative effects of lengthy hospital stays on older patients, including physical and mental decline and exposure to infections.

“Lengthy stays can also exacerbate loneliness and social isolation,” the NSW report said.

“Such stays can also add to pressure on family carers.”

Australia’s biggest bank has extended its reach into the business market and says the sector is doing well, particularly in the regions, despite the threat of higher interest rates down the track.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia revealed this week it had increased its share of the sector to 26.9 per cent, more than eight percentage points ahead of the next business bank competitor.

That lead delivers CBA a lot of business deposits and opens up channels to more lending to businesses.

It also gives the bank insights, which helps identify those it should be focusing on increasing lending to.

“At the moment, it’s an incredibly benign environment,” CBA business bank head Mike Vacy-Lyle told AAP.

“We are incredibly pleased with the credit quality of the portfolio.”

Mr Vacy-Lyle said the bank’s business arm has grown to 1.3 times market system, which means it’s sitting above the average growth of the business banking market as a whole.

“So we’ve been able to safely navigate the credit environment,” he said.

But interest rate storm clouds lie ahead after the central bank earlier in February raised rates for the first time in two years.

More rises are on the way, with economists tipping another hike as early as May.

Last time, the business sectors most under stress included residential developers, builders, and discretionary retail (nice to have but not essential goods and services).

CBA is watching closely, particularly in the agricultural sector and in Victoria, which has suffered another summer of bushfires and is still experiencing drought in some areas.

“It’s been devastating to many people … there and that’s been a big concern of ours, and that drought persists, so we are a little bit worried about that,” Mr Vacy-Lyle said.

CBA is also watching Melbourne, given business confidence has been up and down in Victoria, where the incumbent Labor government is under pressure.

“We are going to need to watch some of the hospitality businesses … in the city of Melbourne,” Mr Vacy-Lyle said. 

“We’ll have to look at your second-tier commercial property places like Melbourne, maybe watch that as we enter an increasing rates cycle.”

Further afield, businesses in regional Australia are proving resilient, according to CBA’s data.

It’s seeing good growth in regional Queensland and Western Australia and continued growth in regional NSW and even parts of Victoria.

“You know, this phenomenon of the regions outperforming the metros – there really is merit in that sort of sentiment, and it seems to be continuing, Mr Vacy-Lyle said.

A new Liberal Party leader could soon emerge as Angus Taylor prepares to lock horns with the party’s first female head in a special party room meeting.

Mr Taylor’s resignation from Opposition Leader Sussan Ley’s front bench on Wednesday signalled the first step in his challenge for the party’s top job.

Liberal MP Phil Thompson’s resignation from the shadow NDIS portfolio followed on Thursday, with he and Senator Jess Collins writing to Ms Ley to request a special party room meeting. 

The leadership meeting is scheduled for 9am on Friday.

After Mr Thompson’s resignation, Mr Taylor used an Instagram post to declare he was running to take the party’s top job. 

“Our country is in trouble. The Labor government has failed and the Liberal Party has lost its way,” he said 

“I’m running to be the leader of the Liberal Party because I believe Australia is worth fighting for.”

Mr Taylor believes he has the numbers to win the leadership.

Nine MPs and senators quit Ms Ley’s front bench on Thursday, including Michaelia Cash, Matt O’Sullivan, Jonno Duniam, Leah Blyth, James Paterson, Claire Chandler, James McGrath and Dan Tehan.

Mr Tehan said he would run for the party’s deputy during the spill motion.

Ms Ley has not spoken publicly about the impending spill, instead publishing a series of social media posts in which she offered a “better future” and that “we will ease the squeeze”. 

While speculation over threats to her tenure started in late 2025, Liberals began openly contemplating a leadership change after a Newspoll published in The Australian on Monday, showing the coalition slipped to a primary vote of 18 per cent. 

At the same time, support for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation surged to 27 per cent. 

Senator O’Sullivan said the polls were clear and change at the top was needed.

“This impasse has to be dealt with this week,” he told reporters in Canberra. 

“Angus Taylor will be able to present a very strong and compelling vision to the Australian people.”

But senator Paul Scarr backed Ms Ley, saying she had shown “great resilience, great grace, since she was elected”.

“Her response to the Bondi terrorist attack showed wonderful leadership,” he said. 

“Sussan has earned my loyalty. I thank her for the opportunity she gave to me.”

UK culture minister Lisa Nandy says she has decided to ‌intervene in the proposed acquisition of the ‌Telegraph Media Group by the owner of the Daily Mail, DMGT on public interest and competition grounds.

Nandy said in a ‌statement that ‌she ⁠had issued a public interest intervention ​notice due to concerns the acquisition warranted further investigation.

The proposed 500 million pound ($A957 million) purchase would bring the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph ⁠newspapers under ‌the same ​umbrella as the Daily Mail, Mail ​on Sunday, ‌Metro and The i Paper.

DMGT previously said ​the Telegraph would remain editorially independent.

Nandy’s decision sends the deal to ​the United Kingdom’s ​media regulator Ofcom ​and the Competition and ‌Markets Authority to examine media plurality and competition issues.

Both must report back to Nandy by June 10.

Britain’s economy barely grew in the final quarter of 2025 ‌as activity fared worse than initially estimated during the run-up to finance minister Rachel Reeves’ budget.

Gross domestic ‌product grew by 0.1 per cent in the October-to-December period, the same slow pace as in the third quarter, the Office for National Statistics said on Thursday.

Economists polled by Reuters, as well as the Bank of England, had forecast 0.2 per cent fourth-quarter growth compared with the previous three months.

The period was marked by rampant speculation about tax increases before Reeves’ budget on November 26.

The ONS revised down monthly GDP ‌data for the ‌three months to ⁠November to show a 0.1 per cent contraction rather than 0.1 per cent growth.

Some more recent data has ​suggested that uncertainty has lifted for consumers and businesses.

“Looking at various surveys, there were some tentative signs that sentiment turned a corner and started to improve after the budget last year, which could help deliver a pick-up in activity this year,” Luke Bartholomew, deputy chief economist at Aberdeen, said.

“However, recent political uncertainty may see that sentiment bounce reverse.”

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has had to fight to ⁠keep his grip on Downing Street this week due to fallout from ‌the Jeffrey Epstein ​scandal.

Thursday’s figures underscored why investors think that the Bank of England is more likely than not to cut interest rates again ​in March.

The monthly ‌GDP data showed a sharp downward revision to growth.

The data suggested hesitancy on the part of businesses during the fourth ​quarter as their investment fell by almost three per cent – the biggest quarter-on-quarter drop since early 2021, driven largely by volatile transport investment.

Manufacturing was the biggest ​driver of the increase in output, despite the fact that car ‌output was still recovering from September’s cyberattack on Jaguar Land Rover, while the dominant services sector was flat.

Construction output contracted by 2.1 per cent.

In 2025 as a whole, Britain’s economy grew by an annual average 1.3 per cent, the Office for National Statistics said, compared with 0.9 per cent in France, 0.7 per cent in Italy and 0.4 per cent in Germany.

British economic growth per head contracted by 0.1 per cent for a second quarter, ​although it rose by 1.0 per cent for 2025 as a whole.

In December alone, the economy grew by 0.1 per cent, the ​ONS said, as expected in the ⁠Reuters poll.

That left the size of the economy back at its level of ​June 2025.

Calls for a royal commission into CFMEU corruption that has “permanently” damaged Victoria’s economy have been rejected by its premier.

Jacinta Allan has also questioned a damning report’s claim that major project budget blowouts caused by CFMEU misconduct cost Victorian taxpayers $15 billion.

The Victorian premier on Thursday fronted the media for the first time since an explosive report alleged the CFMEU’s Victorian branch under ex-boss John Setka became a crime syndicate while the state government did nothing.

Barrister Geoffrey Watson SC’s findings claimed worksites became drug distribution hubs, killers were handed high paying jobs and strippers performed for night crews after organised crime infiltrated the union.

Mr Watson on Thursday said damage to the Victorian economy caused by CFMEU corruption could be everlasting.

He made the concession when quizzed about his report entitled Rotting from the Top, which named former union officials Setka and Joe Myles as malign influences, along with Victorian underworld figure Mick Gatto.

In his report Mr Watson wrote: “There will be many examples of Gatto’s criminal conduct in this report.

“Gatto has damaged the building industry and damaged the Victorian economy – maybe permanently.”

Asked at Queensland’s inquiry into construction industry misconduct if that was hyperbolic, Mr Watson replied: “It’s not at all”.

Victoria’s $100 billion Big Build under Premier Daniel Andrews was a catalyst for Setka’s CFMEU becoming a “violent, hateful and greedy rabble” as the state government turned a blind eye for years, the report said.

Ms Allan was the minister responsible for transport infrastructure during Setka’s CFMEU reign.

The premier on Thursday apologised to the state’s construction workers for the “rotten culture that was in place”, saying some of the report’s allegations were absolutely sickening.

However, she rejected the need for a royal commission into CFMEU rorts or a referral to the state corruption watchdog.

Ms Allan said the state government cracked down immediately once it was aware of union misconduct allegations in mid-2024, and insisted all the CFMEU’s “bad actors” had been removed.

“I want to make it absolutely clear that I and my government (have) zero tolerance for this alleged behaviour,” she told reporters in a tense media conference.

“Indeed during my time as minister when allegations were raised with me, I referred allegations to the relevant authorities.”

She also rejected the report’s estimate that major project budget blowouts caused by CFMEU corruption had cost Victorian taxpayers $15 billion.

“This is a claim that the administrator has said is not well tested or properly founded, so let’s be clear that is not a claim that has been substantiated by the administrator,” she said.

Pages from the report perceived to be highly damaging to the Victorian Labor government were initially redacted at the request of CFMEU administrator Mark Irving KC.

But the deleted sections were unearthed and published by the Queensland commission of inquiry on Wednesday.

Victorian shadow attorney-general James Newbury wrote to the state corruption watchdog on Thursday to request an urgent investigation into Mr Watson’s report findings and the deleted sections.

“The corruption uncovered to date is of a scale that makes it the worst seen in our country’s history,” he wrote in a letter seen by AAP.

The Victorian corruption watchdog was contacted for comment.

The fallout from the report came as ex-CFMEU official and bikie Joel Leavitt, 32, was arrested along with another two men on Thursday.

Detectives from a task force investigating criminal behaviour linked to the construction industry made the arrests over allegations a demand for $663,000 was made at a west Melbourne property on January 19.

Mr Levitt, a patched Bandidos member, was described as a “brutal criminal with a bad criminal record” in Mr Watson’s report.

Governments are making the right moves on housing affordability but builders are still finding it “very challenging” to bring on new supply, RBA governor Michele Bullock says.

Speaking at a second parliamentary hearing in less than one week, Ms Bullock reiterated that a shortage of housing was the key issue. 

“Governments seem to be making the right noises in terms of looking at ways of freeing up the ability to make it easier for developments, and high density I think is an important part of this,” she said in Canberra on Thursday.

“When the bank talks to companies – building companies – in liaison, they say that the process of getting a high-density development approved is very, very challenging, particularly in New South Wales.”

Liberal senator Andrew Bragg said Ms Bullock’s turn of phrase – that governments were making the right noises – was revealing.

“I’d go further than that,” she responded. 

“In the NSW government’s case, they are actually making moves.”

In recent years, the NSW Labor government has increased allowable building heights around transport hubs, reduced local councils’ ability to stall projects and streamlined the state’s planning approvals pathways.

But planning delays remain a major barrier to builders nationwide, said the Housing Industry Association.

Almost nine in 10 builders surveyed in HIA’s Small Business Conditions Report reported that approval time frames exceeded eight weeks, and one in three experienced delays of more than six months.

“For small businesses, time is money and lengthy approval processes mean higher holding costs, delayed starts and increased financial risk, which reduces the number of homes that can be delivered,” HIA managing director Jocelyn Martin said.

Making it easier to win development approvals is only one piece of the puzzle.

Actually finishing projects has become harder since the COVID-19 pandemic as the industry has faced numerous constraints, Ms Bullock said.

“What we hear from our liaison, and this is easing somewhat, but certainly in the year or so coming out of COVID, the time taken to finish actually strung out because you couldn’t get these trades, so there was a big backlog,” she said.

While the industry remains well behind the National Housing Accord target of 1.2 million new homes over five years, there are some promising signs.

Houses are now almost one per cent cheaper to build than at the start of the accord in July 2024, Treasury housing group director general Ben Rimmer said.

“Houses are also getting faster to build,” he told Senate estimates.

“There’s been a 10 per cent improvement in that outcome over that same time period. One might think 10 per cent doesn’t sound like much. 

“That’s a month off the average construction time, give or take, for detached dwellings. Which means the builder can move on to the next project faster, more houses getting built.”