Think: Business Futures

To lead or not to lead, that is the badly paraphrased question. Trendsetters and thought leaders proliferate across every aspect of our lives, from our workplaces to our social media. But what makes a leader? Does leadership just come down to how many people follow you on LinkedIn? Or is there something more intangible than that? Does the cream always rise to the top? Guests: •Dan Caprar, associate professor at the University of Sydney •David Goldbaum, associate professor in economics at UTS.

Semiconductors are the tiny microchips that are critical to the operation of electronic devices. Working from home means that people want newer smarter devices, driving demand for semiconductors up. At the same time, its fragile global supply chain has been impacted during the pandemic. Industries relying on these tiny silicon chips, like carmakers, are losing money and running out of chips. How did this happen? And should Australia start making its own chips to build up sovereign capability? Guests: •Jim Rabeau, director of quantum technologies future science platform at CSIRO •Moira Scerri, lecturer in strategic supply chain management at UTS

The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report is yet another warning to decarbonise the economy as soon as possible. To reach net zero, countries are putting a price on carbon emissions through cap and trade schemes or taxation. The EU and US are looking at going one step further by considering additional tariffs on trade partners who lack an emissions trading system through border adjustment mechanisms. The Australian government is hostile towards emissions targets, let alone carbon pricing. So will we continue to hold out against meaningful change or will we be forced to take action in order to keep up with our trading partners? Guests: •Bob Carr, former Foreign Minister and Industry Professor of Climate and Business at UTS •Nicki Hutley, economist and councilor to the Climate Council

Afterpay is the darling of the financial world following its acquisition by US payments fintech Square in the largest acquisition in Australian corporate history, valued at $39 billion AUD. It caps off a monumental run for the pioneer of the Buy Now, Pay Later market. The payment scheme allows its target users to purchase goods upfront and pay them off over 4 fortnightly installments. So is this credit by another name operating in a regulatory loophole? Or is this modern day form of lay-by the future of payments? Square seems to think so, but will they be paying in 4 fortnightly installments too? Guests: •James Sleep, policy advisor at Financial Counselling Australia •Marta Khomyn, post-doctoral researcher in economics at UTS •Lien Duong, senior lecturer in economics and finance at Curtin University

Around the world, house prices are surging. In Australia, house prices are climbing at their fastest annual rate in 17 years. This is propelled by a combination of low interest rates and government stimulus along with a small number of properties on the market and a strong demand from people looking to buy. To be fair, it always feels like house prices are impossibly high in state capitals like Sydney or Melbourne, with young people feeling locked out from owning their own patch of affordable land. So how can we change this? What policy levers can be pulled to burst the bubble and make housing more affordable for Australians? Guests: •Janet Ge, Associate Professor in the School of Built Environment at UTS •Matt Grudnoff, senior economist at The Australia Institute •Saul Eslake, economist at Corinna Economic Advisory

As NSW faces a protracted lockdown, stimulus is back on the agenda to keep the economy from crashing and burning. The Federal government has come out with a COVID-19 disaster payment while avoiding the magic word on everyone's lips: JobKeeper. Do we need to bring back a new refined version of the wage subsidy program or will the current stimulus plan be enough to save businesses? Guests: •Mary Aldred, CEO of the Franchise Council of Australia •Peter Docherty, Associate Professor of Economics at UTS •Steven Hamilton, Assistant Professor at George Washington University and Chief Economist at Blueprint Institute

It may be 2021 but the 2020 Olympics are only just about to get underway. Tokyo has been a saga, with spectators banned from attending due to COVID-19 outbreaks and calls for the event to be cancelled. With Brisbane working hard to get a guernsey and host the 2032 Olympics, we're asking: are the Olympics fit enough to go the distance? Guests: •David Rowe, Emeritus Professor of Cultural Research, Institute for Culture and Society at WSU. •Tim Harcourt, Chief Economist with the Institute of Public Policy and Governance at UTS.

Well, the financial year has come and gone, and you may have received emails or phone calls or postage from any number of charities calling for tax-deductible donations. The not-for-profit sector makes up 11% of the economy, employing around 1.4 million Australians. Indeed, a glimpse at the sector in 2019 paints a rosy picture of a broad industry made of large businesses and smaller volunteer outfits, a sector growing in donations, assets and government support. But this was before the pandemic where operations were shuttered and volunteers were sent home while at the same time, demand for services increased. To discuss a sector under pressure, I was joined earlier by Dr Bronwen Dalton, Head of the Department of Management at the UTS Business School and co-ordinator of the Masters of Not-for Profit and Social Enterprise Management and Tim Costello, Chair of the Community Council for Australia.

More and more, companies are investing based around the buzzword of ESG. That stands for Environmental, Social, Governance, which broadly describes the non-financial factors that are increasingly important to investors. These can include incorporating gender diversity in a company board, to not supporting carbon emitting investments or other such ethical commitments. As the European Union and the United States take steps to regulate the ESG investing industry, the question is whether Australia can match up in a socially conscious manner. Cassandra Williams, Certification and Ratings Manager at the Responsible Investment Association Australiasia and Danielle Logue, Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Business and Sustainable Development at the UTS Business School joined me to discuss this further.

Where did you go to school? Over the last 30 years, non-government schools have doubled in size as more and more parents are opting for greater school choice. How these schools are funded has been a point of contention. School funding is provided by partnerships between the federal and relevant state governments. Private schools are predominantly funded by the federal government, while public education is mostly drawn from state funding. A funding model for private schools is set to come in next January, but will this ensure all independent schools are fairly funded? And is the amount of money going to private schools fair and equitable when compared to the staffing and resources struggles of public schools? This week, host Toby Hemmings was joined by Glenn Fahey, research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies and Associate Professor Jane Hunter from the University of Technology Sydney School of Education to discuss how money is spent on private and public education in a post-Gonski world.

They say confidence is key to many things in life, but when a pandemic brings a city to a lurching halt, how does it bounce back? As restrictions in Melbourne begin to ease, and government stimulus payments attempt to stem the bleeding, how will Melbournians regain the spring in their step when it comes to spending? It's a question for a behavioral economist really, and today, we're joined by Professor Michelle Baddeley from the UTS Business School, to help us understand why confidence is key.

The Chinese Government have made a monumental policy shift, announcing that it will allow couples to have up to three children, after census data showed a steep decline in birth rates. China scrapped its decades-old one-child policy in 2016, replacing it with a two-child limit which has so far failed to generate the uptick in the birth rate needed to keep pace with the countries rapidly ageing population. An online poll conducted by state media outlet Xinhua news found 29000 out of 31000 respondents would never dream of having three children, so will the governments easing of the rules make any difference? And, iron prices are once again unsettling nerves, as Chinese regulators attempt to cool-off the countries white-hot recovery in manufacturing and industry. Joining the program today, Professor James Laurenceson from the Australian China Relations Institute and Industry Professor and Chief Economist with the University of Technology Sydney's Institute of Public Policy and Governance, Professor Tim Harcourt.

It's been a big week since the Treasurer handed down the Budget 2021, but the biggest story- and certainly biggest handout- was in the Aged Care Sector. $17.7 billion dollars has been allocated to making a once in a generation change to a sector that has been plagued by horror stories from the Royal Commission, underpaid staff and limited career opportunities. But is almost $18 billion dollars enough when the funding is set to be drip fed over a five year period? The Treasurer announced the plan as 'practical', but what do the experts think?

The Morrison government has announced the New Home Guarantee will allow 10,000 first home buyers to purchase a new home with a deposit of just 5 per cent, while over the next four years the Family Home Guarantee will let 10,000 single parent families put down a deposit of only 2 per cent. But can we bank upon the housing market with interest rates at uneasily low levels? What happens when they jump? To break this down today is Professor Harry Schuele, Professor of Finance at the University of Technology, Sydney. An expert on the housing market, and a long time contributor to Think: Business.

Australia has had a touchy relationship with Multinationals since the economy was opened to the world during the Hawke-Keating years. But now, the distinction between those well-known multinationals in primary industries such as Rio Tinto or Adani Mining, and the new-age arrivals like Facebook, Google, Netflix and Spotify, is making the argument about why less corporate tax gives Australia competitive advantage a little harder to argue.