It’s Friday the 23^rd of May 2025, and the Coalition parties hit pause on splitting, the housing market gets set for a bumper weekend, and big plans for Kmart’s Anko brand. Plus, heavy rainfall in NSW blamed for at least three deaths, and the Enhanced Games are set to kick off next year.

Listen to today's episode 🎧 

News in brief

The Nationals have paused their decision to abandon the Coalition, after federal Liberal leader Sussan Ley reached out to senior Nationals who opposed the decision to abandon the Coalition, in an effort to bring the two conservative parties back together.

It is a big weekend for the housing market with 2400 homes across the country going up for auction, days after an interest rate cut.

Wesfarmers, owner of Kmart, plans to accelerate its Anko brand offshore including Anko-branded stores. Anko has been a star for the Perth-based conglomerate and Kmart is now Wesfarmers’ second biggest earner behind Bunnings.

Heavy rainfall is continuing along the NSW coast as floodwaters claim the lives of at least three people, with others missing. Around 50,000 people are expected to be isolated by rising floodwaters and hundreds of people have been rescued by the state’s emergency rescue services.

The Enhanced Games have set their inaugural competition for May 2026 in Las Vegas, with swimming, athletics and weightlifting on the agenda for athletes using substances banned in official competition.

Fear-o-meter

This week we’ve heard that Rio Tinto is pushing into lithium and bauxite and Fortescue Metals wants to produce greener iron ore. Meanwhile, BHP continues to scan the globe for copper assets, including last week’s news that its investment in an Argentinian copper reserve has five time more metal than initially thought.

It comes as Andrew Forrest, the boss of Fortescue, says Chinese buyers are going to look to higher grade ore in Africa and Brazil to aid making “green steel”, and Australia will lose out.

Forrest might be overstating the risk for the iron ore miners, but the race is on to diversify away from the product that last year produced $138 billion worth of income.

Iron ore is Australia’s biggest export but growth in the future will come from commodities used in green energy and electrification. Expect to see more deals around copper, lithium, rare earths and other battery metals. That is where the market is hottest.

Who's talking today?

On which companies are delivering the best customer experience in Australia, and why it matters:

"So a customer experience, a good customer experience can define how to attract and keep your customers, to put it really simply. Why does a customer come to you and why do they stay with you can be determined through great customer experience.

 

We've also seen research in the US that in our Customer Experience Excellence report, when you look at all the hundred companies, the top 50 get double the revenue returns if they focus on customers, you can see that sort of change. There's a real financial benefit."

Greed-o-meter

As mentioned above, it's a big weekend for auctions - a 34pc increase week-on-week. And it's happening right around the country.

Source: Cotality (formerly CoreLogic)

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