Australia's Opthea announces 80% headcount reduction, management overhaul
The company also said its chief executive and chief financial officers will be departing, following the termination of a development funding agreement entered in March.
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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Target CEO steps down as company faces weak sales and customer boycott
$The CEO of Target is stepping down, as the embattled retail giant seeks to turn around its fortunes amid an ongoing customer boycott over its scaling back of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Brian Cornell will be replaced next year by Michael Fiddelke, Target's chief operating officer, the company said on Wednesday. Cornell helped re-energize the company when he became CEO in 2014, but has struggled to turn around weak sales in a more competitive retail landscape since the Covid pandemic. Sales at Target, which has almost 2,000 stores across the US, fell more than expected in the first quarter of 2025, and the retailer warned earlier this year that sales will continue to slip through the rest of the year. Target said people were scaling back spending over worries about the impact of tariffs and the state of the economy. The company also said customer boycotts affected sales. The company scaled back many DEI initiatives in January after they came under attack by conservative activists and the White House. The retreat created a backlash, and a poll in February found that Americans had changed their shopping habits and abandoned some stores in response to corporations shifting their policies to align with the Trump administration. The Guardian reported in July that many Black Americans were boycotting stores including Target and Amazon, and earlier this year more than 250,000 people signed a pledge to boycott Target after the Rev Jamal Bryant, pastor of New Birth Baptist church in Georgia, called for a 40-day 'Target Fast' that started at the beginning of the Lenten season. The company had previously come under fire in 2024 after it reduced its collection of LGBTQ+-themed merchandise for Pride month, in response to rightwing criticism. Target reported a 21% drop in net income in second quarter of this year. Sales were down slightly and the company reported a 1.9% dip in comparable sales – those from established physical stores and online channels. The company has seen flat or declining comparable sales in eight out of the past 10 quarters including the latest period.
The Guardian
4 hours ago
- The Guardian
IIt's time Australia ditched the ‘winners and losers' mentality and built an economy that's best for us all
As pens and notepads were being laid out for start of the much-touted economic roundtable on Monday, the chair of the Productivity Commission, Danielle Wood, made a number of dark observations in an address to the National Press Club. People in their 30s today, Wood told us, are the first generation to be worse off than those born in the previous decade in terms of earnings, housing affordability, budget burden and climate impacts. Her comments laid bare how important reform of so many aspects of the economy and regulation are if this situation is to change. The flipside of the situation facing millennials is the largesse that has been laid out for the boomers, such as tax breaks on housing and superannuation that benefit those with already substantial resources, but add to the tax burden of lower-income households who can't get their foot in even one door. Quite obviously, not every boomer in Australia is sitting back with multiple investment properties and a multimillion dollar super balance. But boomers were three times more likely to own their own home in their 30s than their counterparts today are. And so, while millennials cry out for change, boomers resist even reasonable adaptation such as the removal of tax exemptions on super balances over $3m or phasing out negative gearing. And it's not just millennials v boomers. Before seats had been taken at the roundtable, business and unions were firing off at each other over issues such as working from home, work week length and AI adoption. Then add to all that the intense bipartisanship we now see in politics and it's a wonder anyone sat down together at all. And this is the rub. When it comes to policy decisions, too many are too quick to focus on what's in it for them instead of what is best for society as a whole. So, if we make housing more affordable for younger generations, those who are already on the housing merry-go-round cry 'unfair'. Increased density proposals are met with cries of 'Not in my back yard!' If we set much-needed strong climate targets to contribute to reducing the horror show of unnatural disasters that have already become much more frequent, and encouraging investment in green industries, then a narrow segment of vested interests (mainly fossil fuel polluters) focus only on the jobs that will be lost. They conveniently ignore the many more green jobs that will be created, not to mention the vast costs from failure to act imposed on individuals, the economy and the budget bottom line each time these exacerbated disasters unfold. We cannot deny that some policies, even as they contribute to national wellbeing overall, come with a cost to specific sectors or regions or even individuals. The go-to book in Canberra at the moment is Abundance, written by two American journalists, and described by the treasurer as 'a ripper'. Much of the book is devoted to the costs associated with trying to keep everybody happy, but ultimately only delivering increased regulation that leaves us all worse off. And the Abundance authors are perhaps right in saying we have moved too far in the direction of trying to prevent every possible loss at the expense of collective societal gain. (The authors are also silent on the deliberate spread of disinformation around supposed harms which also create barriers to progress. Think of the nonsense around whales and windfarms). Much like the Abundance authors, Danielle Wood says: 'Ministers should always weigh up the impacts of new policies on economic growth and productivity.' This is true, particularly when it comes to 'regulatory burden'. (As an aside, it's worth noting that for all the hype about 'red tape' – and there certainly are complex and duplicative processes facing business – Australia rates very highly by international standards in terms of regulatory quality. On one measure at least, we are second only to Singapore). But I'm not entirely convinced that a 'growth mindset', to use another current Canberra buzz phrase, doesn't risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If we only look at policy from the overarching perspective of growth and productivity, as important as these are, then we overlook other important considerations and by doing so add fuel to the 'us and them' fire. And that makes building a widespread consensus of support extremely difficult. The most critical of these considerations is distributional impacts. Inevitably, big policy reforms will rarely deliver a 'win' for everyone. But instead of pretending this is not the case, governments should be upfront both around the challenges and how they intend to address the impacts on those who may be disproportionately disadvantaged and unable to adjust without support. For example, when we introduced a carbon price scheme in Australia in 2012, widespread compensation was designed for trade-exposed industries and low-income households. When the costly support for the domestic car industry was finally removed, state and federal governments brought in a raft of programs to support workers and businesses in the supply chain. Such solutions may not be perfect but without them we are doomed to be stuck in an economy and society that delivers worse results for successive generations. Surely, we have had enough of that. The two defining crises of Australia today, I believe, are housing affordability and climate change. Required policies on both fronts involve trade-offs for some individuals, while delivering overall benefits to society. Let's stop the 'us and them', 'winners and losers' mentality and focus on planning for solutions such as density done well, credible biodiversity management schemes and regional economic development. Instead of placing barriers to reforms with a narrow, vested-interest mindset, I hope those at the roundtable discussions this week will focus on what is best for all of us. And, if it helps, keep the situation facing today's 30 year-olds in sharp focus and let that not be your legacy. Nicki Hutley is an independent economist and councillor with the Climate Council
The Guardian
4 hours ago
- The Guardian
How do we decide if a tax is good or bad? And which ones are ‘damaging' Australia's economy?
How do we judge whether one tax is better than another? That question will lie at the heart of the tax reform agenda at the economic reform roundtable on Thursday. Four principles have guided tax reform over the decades: efficiency, equity, simplicity and sustainability (or revenue adequacy). All are important. But with productivity growth the name of the game, let's focus on the first: efficiency. Stephen Bartos, a professor of economics at the University of Canberra and a former deputy secretary at the Department of Finance, says taxes inevitably affect behaviour – but 'some taxes are a lot better for the economy than others'. When it comes to efficiency, a core concept is to design a tax system as simple as possible to not discourage productive activities such as work and investing. Chris Murphy, an honorary senior lecturer at the Australian National University, has for decades been a central figure in modelling the impact of tax reform, including the introduction of the GST and the landmark Henry tax review. Murphy has updated his estimates of various taxes' 'marginal excess burden' – the additional economic cost of a tax beyond the revenue raised. His modelling suggests raising the rate of the GST imposes an additional 30c cost to the economy for every dollar raised. Broadening it, he says, comes with a marginal excess burden of 13c. That makes the GST more efficient than personal income taxes (a 48c loss of economic welfare for every $1 of revenue raised) and company taxes (65c). Sign up: AU Breaking News email Speaking at the National Press Club this week, Danielle Wood, the chair of the Productivity Commission, explained that 'generally, anything that switches out higher cost, higher economic-drag taxes for lower cost, more efficient taxes will give you a productivity dividend'. 'Equally, anything that broadens the base of a tax, which winds back concessions but then reduces the rate, will give you an economic kicker.' Four of the five least efficient taxes are at state and territory level. This makes it difficult to coordinate shifts away from more damaging but highly lucrative taxes. The 'worst' taxes on Murphy's measure are the land tax on investment properties (92c of economic damage for every $1 in revenue raised), followed by stamp duties on the purchase of homes (74c) and taxes on insurance (69c). Wood said it was 'very clear' from modelling that 'stamp duties stand out as kind of exceptionally economically damaging taxes'. When experts talk about switching from inefficient stamp duties to a land tax, they are talking about a broad land tax that applies to all homeowners. Murphy says a broad land tax is equivalent to municipal rates – which, as the analysis shows, is a very efficient tax (a 4c offset in extra economic welfare per dollar of revenue raised). Efforts to transition to a more stable and less distortionary land tax have proved a step too far for even the most willing of state leaders. That's why any commonwealth-led discussion on tax reform has to include the states and territories, Bartos says. 'The only way to get the states on side is if you compensate them,' he says. 'Probably the only way to do that is to increase the GST rate or broaden its base' to include excluded items such as fresh food, education and health services. 'Broadening the GST would have the added benefit of simplifying the system.' Luke Yeaman, the Commonwealth Bank's chief economist and a former Treasury deputy secretary, says there is theoretically a strong case for using increased GST revenue to pay for income tax relief – a switch that has wide support among many experts. But cash-strapped states were unlikely to want to make this deal with the commonwealth. 'If you want lower income taxes, you'd have to do some other broader deal with the states, for example, around health funding or education funding, where you agree to provide less on the health and education side, and they claim the extra GST revenue,' he says. 'I think that proves very difficult at the moment in a world where the states are cash-constrained.' Yeaman agrees there could, however, be scope to use any increase in GST revenue to pay for states to get rid of inefficient taxes such as stamp duties. While state-level mining royalties schemes are lucrative for governments such as Queensland, Murphy's analysis shows they are much more inefficient than federal mining 'rent' taxes, which target excess profits. The petroleum resource rent tax, for example, has an offsetting 8c for the economy for every dollar raised. That's in part because foreign owners of the gas companies pay the tax, Murphy says. Bartos explains that 'the problem with royalties is basically you are taxing production, and so that acts as a direct disincentive'. 'A rent tax taxes super profits over and above normal profits, and in that sense they don't distort production at all. That makes them a much better form of tax.' Bartos' high level verdict on Australia's broad tax settings echoes the expert consensus: 'Australia's tax system is weighted too heavily to taxing income and not wealth. 'That encourages people to salt away wealth in unproductive things.' Labor is already chipping away at overly generous tax concessions for Australians with more than $3m in superannuation. But it has balked, at least so far, at suggestions for trimming tax breaks for residential property investors, which also overwhelmingly favour the rich. 'Sadly, the least likely to be on the agenda is inheritance taxes,' Bartos says. 'That doesn't distort behaviour – people are not going to put off dying because they have to pay tax. 'And it actually is a very efficient tax to levy and Australia is really unusual to be one of the few countries to not have some form of inheritance tax. It is very much a political no-no in Australia.' Patrick Commins is Guardian Australia's economics editor
