The federal government yesterday launched its national AI plan and released a two-year-old review into “jobs for mates” in a busy day for Canberra. The national AI plan is light on regulation but will push tech giants to build their own renewable energy sources. A $30 million safety institute will be created to advise on the need for new laws on a case-by-case basis. Meanwhile, the report into the jobs-for-mates culture made plenty of recommendations, though the government won’t be enacting many of them. It will implement an appointment framework to tackle the issue of jobs for former politicians and staffers.

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News in brief

Health Minister Mark Butler has conceded that the federal government is in talks with the US administration about drug prices in Australia.

Bond yields have hit ten-month highs, as traders begin pricing in a likely interest rate hike next year.

The Federal Court has ordered Google Asia Pacific to pay $55 million in penalties for engaging in anti-competitive conduct, following an investigation by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

Many blue-collar workers are being paid more than white collar workers, and the introduction of AI is more threatening to office workers than tradies, according to an AFR report.

Samsung has unveiled its first ever trifold smartphone, demonstrating its engineering prowess in foldable devices even as the broader category has yet to catch on with mainstream consumers.

Fear-o-meter

This time a week ago, the bond market had priced in a rate cut for early 2026. Then the October inflation figure printed higher than expected, and now the market has priced in a 70 per cent chance of a rate hike next year.

Bond markets are all-powerful, and the closest thing to all-knowing. President Bill Clinton’s adviser James Carville said in 1993: “I used to think if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or a .400 baseball hitter, but now I want to come back as the bond market”.

The bad news for home borrowers, but good news for many investors, is that Aussie bond yields are at ten-month highs. Yesterday the three-year bond rate rose to 3.93 per cent and the ten-year rate went to 4.62 per cent.

The three-year rate is telling us is that over the next 36 months, interest rates are likely to average 33 basis points higher than what they are now.

The case for a rate hike continues to build.

Fear & Greed Q+A today

On what's influencing cryptocurrencies, and the outlook for Bitcoin after the recent drop in price:

“This has always been a volatile asset class… we’ve been through this before. In 2021, in a four-week period, Bitcoin fell over 50%, Ethereum over 60 and Solana nearly 70%. We’re a centralised, trusted exchange… our job is to avoid the noise and keep shipping the best product. What we’ve seen in the last month is more buyers than sellers when prices dipped below 100K. A lot of highly leveraged players closed out in late October, but markets remained orderly… and we’ve seen a whole lot of people come back into the market.”

Greed-o-meter

Cost of living is the most important issue to Australians, followed by housing supply and affordability, according to the latest True Issues report by JWS Research. Survey respondents were asked to rank their five most important issues - and these are the results:

Source: JWS Research

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