Yahoo Finance ASX down, cheap child care and 5 other things to start your day
ASX: The local share market is expected to open lower this morning after a poor session on Wall Street overnight.
Home fund: A plan to increase the number of social and affordable homes across Australia will be presented to parliament by the federal government.
The $10 billion future fund was a key promise from the Albanese government, before the 2022 federal election, as the largest housing investment in more than a decade.
Child care: Aussie parents could soon see a 90 per cent discount on child care no matter how much they earn.
Measures to improve the quality, affordability and accessibility of early childhood education will be reviewed by the Productivity Commission.
Price surge: Gas producers have warned a proposed mandatory code of conduct for the wholesale gas market will send prices even higher.
The code aims to ensure east coast gas users can access supplies at reasonable prices and terms after price spikes and years of work by the competition watchdog to make the market more fair.
International relations: The Chinese government said it wanted to rebuild relations with Australia, following talks between the two countries' trade officials.
The officials discussed China removing $20 billion of trade sanctions against Australia, which the country imposed after the former government, led by Scott Morrison, called for an investigation into the origins of COVID-19.
Spy cameras: And speaking of China, several Chinese-made security cameras will be removed from the Australian War memorial in Canberra.
Newly appointed chair of the memorial Kim Beazley confirmed the decision yesterday, describing it as showing "an abundance of caution".
Tech war: Google and Microsoft are going head to head in the battle for artificial intelligence domination.
Google announced a slew of new AI-powered features for its Search, Maps, and Lens apps after rival Microsoft rolled out a new version of its Bing search engine - complete with generative AI capabilities, bringing a rare threat to Google’s search supremacy.
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