The small town 'US goods tariff café' raising money to support Ukraine
Ukraine's ambassador to Australia has travelled to the tiny NSW town of Binalong to thank the owners of a café who imposed their own tariff on American goods to show support for Ukraine.
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News.com.au
33 minutes ago
- News.com.au
Rental prices drop across one third of Sydney suburbs
Rents have fallen or frozen in more than a third of Sydney's suburbs over the past year in breakthrough signs of the rental crisis easing. Latest rental data from PropTrack has showed median rental prices have dropped or stayed stagnant across over 250 Sydney locales. Falls in average rents were as high as $350 a week in some areas. It's a notable change from the period between 2022 and 2024, when rampant hikes in rent were the norm across nearly every suburb – driven by post-Covid international boarders reopening, soaring migration, tight rental vacancies and high interest rates. The recent shift will be welcome news for renters considering almost half of NSW tenants polled in a recent Residential Audience Pulse survey by said they're experiencing financial difficulty due to high rents. Wild number of Aussie millionaires revealed Suburbs with some of the biggest rental decreases over the past year included Woollahra, Bondi Junction, Forest Lodge, Kensington, Beaconsfield, Peakhurst and Matraville, with rents in these areas falling $100-$350 a week. There was multitude of other suburbs where the fall in rents was about $50 a week, which would save tenants about $2600 a year. Much of that decline occurred over the last three months, coinciding with moves by the Reserve Bank to cut interest rates. PropTrack economist Anne Flaherty said it was a positive change for Sydney tenants who faced the highest levels of rent across the country. 'It's really good news for renters,' she said. 'The level we saw rent rises, particularly over 2023 as really extremely high and for a lot of renters it was that fear every time that negotiation time came around we were seeing some big jumps.' 'The fact that we have seen the rate of growth slowed to what's hopefully a more sustainable level it's given more people to plan ahead.' Many of the suburbs that were falling were areas with a lot of apartment stock or the higher end of the market, she added. Rate drops had seen an increase in investor activity in NSW, which of 19 per cent over the 12 months to March, could be contributing to the drops. 'Although increased investor activity isn't great news for first home buyers, it can be a good thing in that it increases the supply of rental properties coming up for rent and can slow the rate of growth and provide a bit more supply and choice out there for renters.' This trend could continue later in the year as more first home buyers transition from renting with first homebuyer schemes coming into affect and more potential rate drops come into fruition. Regional NSW was not seeing the same levels of relief as Greater Sydney. 'I think because of that affordability piece, we do see a high portion of people leave greater Sydney and move to regional NSW.' Louis Christopher, Managing Director of SQM Research noted that the rental market remains tight in many areas. 'Landlords appeared to have reduced their rental expectations somewhat and the overall rate of rental growth has slowed since 2024 … yet the rental crisis does remain with us.'
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
Western Power tells Bremer Bay hotel to 'buy generator' for blackouts
A regional business owner says she has been advised to purchase a diesel generator by Western Australia's state-run power provider if she wants a guaranteed electricity supply to her hotel. Bremer Bay, 500 kilometres south of Perth, has a population of about 571, rising steeply on weekends and holiday periods as tourists flock to the pristine coastline. Businesses and residents said power supply to the town, which sits at the edge of the state's largest energy network, the South West Interconnected System (SWIS), has not kept pace with the growing population. Over the Easter and Anzac Day holiday period, residents were hit with half a dozen power outages over 10 days. For 22 years Melissa Joy has owned the Bremer Bay Resort, a pub, restaurant and motel that can serve up to 450 guests at any one time. "Over the years, there have been lots of power issues, but in recent months we've noticed it growing increasingly worse, which is quite alarming," she said. "We have outages quite regularly and quite often, anywhere from a 10-second outage to one hour or even more on a regular basis. "It seems to be worse when we have high numbers coming to town." Western Power blamed the outages on severe weather and "atypical" demand. But with tourism increasingly critical to the town's economy, Ms Joy said outages during peak periods were not acceptable. "It has a huge impact, it's highly disruptive and really quite unacceptable." When the issue was raised with Western Power, Ms Joy said she was advised to purchase a generator for the business at her own cost. "The electricity bills to run this business are over $65,000 a year," she said. Western Power did not respond to claims that it had advised businesses in the region to purchase diesel generators. In a statement, the power utility said it understood the frustrations that unplanned power outages caused residents, and acknowledged the community was prone to more blackouts. It said "some back-up power supply" was in place to support the community, but faults that occurred within the Bremer town site could limit its utility. The situation highlights the complexity WA's legislated power monopoly leaves some regional customers facing. Western Power, a statutory corporation, is responsible for the construction and maintenance of the SWIS. But Synergy is responsible for the generation and sales of power to customers connected to the network. Business owners said the backup wind-diesel power station, owned and operated by Synergy, was inadequate to service Bremer Bay and nearby settlements. Bremer Bay General Store manager Danielle Formica said the business had spent $30,000 on a new generator to keep the shop running. "It's probably the worst year we've had over the years; there were three occasions over the course of four days where we had to run solely on cash," she said. "The locals are a population of about 300–400, but the majority [of people in town during peak season] are 15 to 20,000-plus tourists. "We're not just going to give an IOU, so we lost thousands here at the store." A Synergy spokesperson said it did not manage the Bremer Bay power supply network, but its wind-diesel plant had the capacity to provide 40 per cent of Bremer Bay's energy requirements. It also said four Synergy-owned back-up diesel generators were available to Western Power when managing network outages in the region. However, the patchwork of backup energy infrastructure has infuriated residents who are also being forced to find backup options to power essential appliances. Paul Taylor bought a house at Bremer Bay with the aim of retiring on the south coast. But the 66-year-old, diagnosed with neuropathy of the diaphragm, requires a CPAP machine to help him sleep. "My diaphragm doesn't work, and when I lie down to go to sleep, my diaphragm falls against my lungs, and it makes it very difficult for me to breathe, so my doctors have put me on a CPAP machine so I can sleep at night. "I'm looking at options, having to buy a generator or a CPAP machine that has its own battery system if there is a power failure, but these things are like $10,000, so it's not a good option." Western Power said it was exploring solutions to improve reliability.
News.com.au
an hour ago
- News.com.au
Mystery buyer of Sydney's skinniest waterfront revealed
Olympic gold-medalist swimmer Mark Kerry and his wife, interior designer Lynda are whispered to be the mystery buyers of Sydney's skinniest harbourfront property in Darling Point. The property was listed with $20m hopes in January, which by its February exchange had been adjusted to $17.5m. The four-level, four-bedroom, three-bathroom Carthona Avenue home occupies 207 sqm with a 6 meter sandy beach. It was a right-of-way slipway for nearby flat owners when the house was built in the early 1980s by the developer Bill Shipton, who died last September, aged 85. Melbourne accessory designer Gregory Ladner and his partner, Mark Grenville were the vendors, having purchased it for $15.5m in 2022 from the Dicker Data co-founder Fiona Brown. The bijou sur mer that sits between historic Carthona and Neidpath has been popular with Melburnians, with past owners including the late socialite Lady Susan Renouf. It was Renouf's last Sydney house, which she sold when moving back to Melbourne to be with her daughters in the mid-1990s. Renouf sold to the Melbourne socialite Dianne Allen for $2.9m with its next owner, the acclaimed Melbourne-based landscaper Jack Merlo paying $6.15m in 2009. For many years it was dormant during absentee investor Carl Spies' ownership – other than its use by skylarking rich squatters for raves in the 1980s. The waterfront was then lavishly restored by interior stylist Barry Byrne under the generous patronage of landlady Dorothy Spry, who had paid $2.4m in 1989. The Kerry's recently sold a four-bedroom penthouse in Double Bay to Goodman Group chief executive Greg Goodman for $20m. It had been a $15.25m off-the-plan purchase in the SJD development on Cross Street. The couple had previously owned in Darling Point which they sold for $29.25m in mid-2023.
