The federal government will create an independent agency to manage Defence projects in what it describes as the biggest overhaul of the department in 50 years. In effect the Department of Defence will be downsized considerably, losing about 40 per cent of its budget, one-quarter of its employees, and responsibility for delivering major defence projects. The new Defence Delivery Agency will, theoretically, provide better oversight on the defence budget, which is worth $56 billion, or two per cent of GDP. That figure is scheduled to rise to about $100 billion by 2034.

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News in brief

Australia’s medicines regulator has issued a safety warning over the risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviour linked to drugs known as GLP-1 receptor agonists, including Ozempic. The Therapeutic Goods Administration also said a link between some GLP-1 drugs and reduced effectiveness of oral contraception could not be ruled out.

The ASX suffered an outage yesterday morning, that meant around 80 listed entities couldn’t release announcements, frustrating companies and investors alike. The incident occurred just before 9am, lasted about three hours and puts further pressure on the beleaguered company’s operational performance.

Bitcoin has fallen back below $US86,000 a unit, as markets fear uncertainty particularly in the US economy. Other cryptos fell as well yesterday – Ether was down 7 per cent and Solana dropped 8 per cent.

Grocery wholesaler Metcash, best known for supplying IGA stores, posted a small increase in half year revenue but the big news was that it lost more than $340 million in tobacco sales as the illegal cigarette market surges. Its share price closed down more than nine per cent.

At global consultancy Accenture, its 800,000 staff have gone from “employees” to “reinventors” and are part of what the company now calls its Reinvention Services business.

Fear-o-meter

Corporate jargon gone mad? I think so. Accenture now wants to be clients’ “reinvention partner of choice” by helping them adopt AI tools.

That is the future, according to Chief Executive Julie Sweet, who was part of the team that came up with the “reinventor” nomenclature, which will now apply to Accenture’s 800,000 employees. (Yes, they are no longer “employees” but “reinventors”.)

Accenture has united its strategy, consulting, creative, technology and operations units into a single business called “Reinvention Services”, according to the FT. The consultancy wants to adapt to the explosion of AI and wants to advice companies on adopting the technology.

Accenture is not alone, unfortunately. At Disney, employees are “imagineers” and Amazon has “ninja coders”.

Does any of this re-naming mean they are providing better services? Are the outcomes for clients going to be better? Is it clearer exactly what Accenture can do for your business? I doubt it.

Fear & Greed Q+A today

On the Aussie dollar, including why commodities no longer drive the currency, what needs to happen for the dollar to rise, and why uncertainty still sees the AUD sold off:

 

“Australia… for all its virtues, is still a country that owes a lot of money to the rest of the world. We owe about $700 billion more than the world owes us. So when you see flights to safety, money goes back to countries like Japan and Switzerland. Investors worry about the return of capital, not the return on capital, and currencies where money might be pulled out tend to weaken. The Aussie inevitably suffers, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Greed-o-meter

Home values increased rose by one per cent in November, making it three months in a row where values have climbed by one per cent or more. But the pace of growth is moderating, coming down from 1.1% in October, according to Cotality.

Source: Cotality

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