Insights

Businesses are handling a wide array of devices and with the wearable wave on its way the challenges are only getting bigger.

Wall Street put in a lacklustre performance following weaker-than-expected US retail sales.

GRAM's PanAust takeover offer has the whole copper sector jumping, while Nathan Tinkler has reportedly forked out for Peabody's Wilkie Creek coal mine.

Budget papers predict iron ore prices will drop below $100 per tonne in the year ahead.

Former coal magnate secures $150m deal to acquire Wilkie Creek mine in Queensland.

A $1.4bn bid for PanAust drives mid-tier copper stocks sharply higher.

Orica chief executive Ian Smith confirms company will likely exit its $1.2bn-a-year industrial chemicals business.

Satellite broadband provider SpeedCast acquires SatComms Australia ahead of possible ASX listing.

The hard budget numbers reveal a funding appropriation for the Emissions Reduction Fund that is $1.4bn lower, or less than half, what the Coalition suggested before the election. Press releases suggest the government funding is in line with promises, but it all seems rather odd.

With the Government winning the election with a mandate to fix the budget, a bout of fiscal austerity was inevitable.

Will the Liberal Party's historic economic fortune hold for this budget? Balancing Joe Hockey's books would seem to require Australian private sector debt around 250 per cent of GDP by 2025. That's not an off-the-planet outcome.

The government's bid to get older Australians back into the workforce may prove beneficial, but its tough-love stance toward young jobseekers, and the Paid Parental Leave scheme will have only a modest effect on participation.

The Coalition's welfare reforms are styled to decisively break reliance on government handouts, and will push families to rethink the shape of their own interdependency.

The budget forecasts shrinking deficits in coming years, due in part to cuts in health and social spending and higher taxes.

Low revenue forecasts for the high-earners' levy mean it may be as temporary as the government promises. But if you're smart, you still won't have to pay it.