James Hall

Former conservative senator Eric Abetz has launched a full-throated campaign against Bendigo and Adelaide Bank on behalf of the Tasmanian forestry

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has attacked “woke” bankers for rejecting loans to creditworthy businesses after Bendigo and Adelaide Bank declined to lend to a Tasmanian forestry company.

Who is Xingchun Wang, and what does he want with the ailing operator of casinos in Sydney, Brisbane and the Gold Coast teetering on the brink of collapse?

The NSW and Queensland governments signalled their unwillingness to provide fiscal support to Star Entertainment after the embattled casino giant renewed its plea for tax relief in a bid to stave off financial collapse.

Why did Xingchun Wang choose now to invest in Australia's gambling industry? The plot thickens in casino-friendly Macau, the Chinese special administrative region where he resides.

The superannuation system is failing in its role to adequately support Australians in retirement and a lifetime annuity is needed to provide a guaranteed income for life, according to a new Grattan Institute report.

For the life of me, I fail to understand how such a blowhard as Walt Amses gets to do it over and over again weeks, months and on and on.

Until 1962, the Royal Academy of Arts in London owned two of the greatest works of Renaissance art to have left Italy, by Leonardo and Michelangelo. Both works, nearly contemporaneous, were left unfinished in parts, making them ideal for art school instruction. Leonardo's “Virgin and Child with St Anne and the Infant St John the Baptist” is by far his largest surviving drawing (141.5 x 104.6 cm), with life-size figures sketched in charcoal and white chalk highlights. It was first recorded in the Royal Academy collection in 1791, and was sold in 1962 to the National Gallery for £800,000 to alleviate a financial crisis. Michelangelo's “Taddei Tondo”, named after the Florentine merchant who commissioned it, is a circular marble relief of the Virgin and Child with the infant Baptist (107 cm diameter). It was bequeathed in 1829 by Sir George Beaumont, now best known for his patronage of John Constable, who sketched it. It remains in the RA collection for now, though ominously its sale was discussed after the Covid shutdown. For better and for worse, both works burst with excitement, with a hyper-active Christ child hurtling into religious and art history: action disrupts or intensifies?

Ratings agency S P Global could slap Queensland with a credit downgrade as early as this year after the state government revealed total debt would soar to $218 billion by 2028.

Rowan University this year has adopted as part of its mission a goal of reenrolling as many students as it can and has set in place a range of support systems for returning students, from advising and career counseling to financial assistance.