Squiz Today – Thursday, 2 August

SQUIZ SAYINGS

“I have so many things on my mind, I don’t have time to be shocked about a loss.”

Working mum/tennis star Serena Williams recorded the worst loss of her career going down 6-1 6-0 against Johanna Konta in the Silicon Valley Classic yesterday. Konta is Aussie born so we’ll claim that one.

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ENVIRONMENT SAVER NOT IN THE BAG

THE SQUIZ
Coles supermarkets yesterday said it would continue to offer free heavy-duty/reusable plastic bags in Victoria, NSW, Queensland and WA “indefinitely” to give shoppers more time to get used to life without single-use plastic bags. The ABC’s War on Waste host Craig Reucassel tweeted that Coles was making things worse for the environment by giving away even thicker plastic bags. But opinion on the move was divided on social media.

WHAT’S GOING ON?
Squizers in the SA, NT, ACT, and Tassie must be wondering what all the fuss is about. Those states and territories have not had single-use plastic bags since before late 2013 and made the transition with little fuss. What's happened in the last month elsewhere is:

• Governments in Queensland and WA introduced a single-use plastic bag ban on 1 July.

• Victoria has committed to introducing a ban but hasn't announced a start date. NSW has not committed to one – yet.

• To get ahead of the impending bans, and to big-up their environmental credentials, Woolies and Coles announced they would get rid of the grey bags across the board. And it’s been mayhem ever since.

SURE. BUT WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON?
This is about sales. Hands up how many times you’ve gone to the supermarket with your reusable bags and only shopped for as much as your bags will fit? Or you've forgotten your bags so you just grab the essentials? Yep, us too. That gives Coles a potential commercial advantage over Woolies, even for a few weeks, by offering their bags for free. And it’s important to Coles’ parent Wesfarmers that they put their best sales foot forward with the business to be ‘demerged’ by the end of the year. It’s a tricky game, is retail…

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SQUIZ THE REST

ENERGY PLAN WILL DELIVER MORE RENEWABLE ENERGY
So says the Energy Security Board - the mob who have done modelling on the Turnbull Government’s proposed National Energy Guarantee (or NEG to the acronym savvy). If the plan is introduced, renewable energy production will make up 36% of our power generation within 11 years, up from 17% now. The flip side is that coal-generated power will drop from 75% to 60%. Significantly, the Board says power prices will come down. But NEG sceptics like former PM Tony Abbott says without more coal-fired power production, prices will only continue to go up. Game on.

ZIMBABWE ELECTION UPDATE
Opposition supporters have rioted in Harare after election officials said the incumbent Zanu PF party won Monday’s parliamentary election race in Zimbabwe. Reports say Mugabe’s old party secured a high vote from rural areas. We're still waiting to hear who won the presidential ballot - incumbent Emmerson Mnangagwa or opposition challenger Nelson Chamisa. That result most likely won’t be known until the weekend or later.

LONG WAY HOME FOR THE FALLEN
US Vice President Mike Pence will receive the remains of 55 soldiers killed in North Korea during the war in the 1950s in a ceremony in Hawaii today. The hand-over of the remains was agreed at the June meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean Kim Jong Un. Reports say it could take some months to identify the remains, and it is possible that lost Australian and South Korean soldiers could be among them. No documents or details of where the remains laid were handed over by the North Koreans.

HOME PRICES DOWN AGAIN
New month, new property market news. And it’s not pretty for many homeowners (but good for buyers…). Nationally, prices fell 1.6% for the year - the sharpest decline since 2012. Prices are down 5.4% in Sydney for the year, and 0.5% in Melbourne, but its decline is starting to pick up the pace. Hobart recorded no growth in July but is up 11.5% for the year. Brissie, Adelaide, and Canberra are also in positive territory for the last 12 months. Tighter lending conditions and reduced investor activity is behind cooling prices, analysts CoreLogic says.

HUA-WOW ON SMARTPHONE SALES
Chinese telco Huawei has passed a significant milestone by toppling Apple for second place in the handset sales race. It sold 54 million handsets last quarter – a 40% increase on the same period last year. Samsung is still the clear leader with sales of 70 million handsets for the same period. Huawei's success has come despite concerns from governments including the US and our own about the company’s close ties to the Chinese government. Not that any of this has bothered Apple - the tech giant is almost the first trillion dollar company.

AUSSIE WINS THE NOBEL PRIZE OF MATHS
We were going to tell you about Beyoncé’s influence wielding on the prestigious US Vogue September issue. (Tyler Mitchell will be the first black photographer to shoot the cover in the magazine's 126-year history.) But we’re going local… Professor Akshay Venkatesh, a maths protégé educated in Perth, has won the Fields Medal. The award is equivalent to a Nobel Prize. After completing high school at 13yo and going on to big university jobs in the US, his mother, herself a professor, said she just wants him to be happy. Congrats to him.

SQUIZ THE DAY

ABS Data Release - International Trade in Goods and Services, June

Birthdays for Susie O'Neill (1973) and Mary-Louise Parker