Good morning. Costco and Aldi pulled in almost $20 billion in Australian sales last financial year, up from $17.5 billion the year before, with the pair now holding 4.5% of the entire retail market between them.
Costco's 15 warehouses did $5.66 billion while Aldi's 600 stores hauled $13.97 billion, and both are opening more locations as Woolworths and Coles scramble to close the pricing gap they've let open.
Colesworth is fighting back by widening their ranges and improving home brands, but shoppers are now visiting 8 to 9 different stores per week instead of the 3 to 4 they used before 2022.
All the headlines and more below...
GP CLINICS AND PRIVATE HOSPITALS ARE RAISING FEES TO OFFSET CREDIT CARD SURCHARGE BAN
GP clinics and private hospitals are increasing consultation fees after the federal government banned businesses from passing credit or debit card payment fees to customers. Medibank's 55 Myhealth clinics will adjust pricing because most are 100% bulk billed, making it harder to absorb the fees, while its 61 Better Medical clinics in Victoria will absorb some of the cost.
Digital GP booking platform HotDoc, which handles 25 million appointments annually, introduced a $2.45 transaction fee from 1 October after the previous credit card processing fee was scrapped. Healthscope, the country's second-largest private hospital operator, removed its 1% credit card surcharge on 22 September and is absorbing the cost.
The Consumers Health Forum said consumers are already making impossible choices about healthcare based on cost and that providers need to prioritise care over cash.
AUSTRALIAN NEWS
Australia’s rental market recorded its slowest price growth in nearly 2 years as national rents rose 0.5% in the September quarter and vacancy rates climbed to 2.1%. LINK
Chinese-made electric vehicles dominated Australia’s market as more than 180,000 EVs sold in the first 9 months of 2026, driven by high fuel costs, tax breaks and low trade barriers. LINK
The federal Labor government is pursuing a universal childcare system to boost affordability and births while grappling with soaring fees, subsidy costs projected to reach $18.4bn and competing policy models. LINK
The federal government provided extra funding so the ATO can keep accepting credit card tax payments until July 2027 after backlash over fees of about $200M a year. LINK
AUSTRALIAN HOUSE PRICES FELL 5.2% IN 6 MONTHS BUT AFFORDABILITY HIT A RECORD LOW
A typical-income household can now afford just 12% of homes for sale across the country according to realestate.com.au, the lowest share on record, even as Australian house prices dropped 5.2% since peaking in March 2026. Four rate hikes this year cut borrowing capacity by roughly 9%, or $90,000, for a median-income household according to Cotality, while more than 32% of borrowers are now at risk of mortgage stress, up 8.4 percentage points since January.
New Zealand's prices surged 44% during the pandemic before falling 18% over 18 months as the central bank lifted rates to 5.5% and the economy entered recession in 2023. First homebuyers now account for 29% of sales, the highest proportion since 2003. Canada's prices fell roughly 20% from their early-2022 peak after rates rose to 5%, and rents declined for 24 consecutive months after the government cut temporary migration by 43%.
Australia's downturn started later partly because governments supported the market with cash grants that New Zealand and Canada did not use, and because unemployment at 4.6% is lower than Canada's 6.4% or New Zealand's 5.6%, reducing forced sales.
COMPANY NEWS
Principia Advisory found that KPMG fostered a culture of systemic mistreatment of whistleblowers and internal cheating under intense commercial pressure, and recommended 14 governance and ethics reforms. AFR
Westpac cut 102 jobs under its Bain & Co-led Catalyst restructure after earlier assuring staff there would be no redundancies, with a further 72 workers moved into new roles. LINK
Guzman y Gomez lifted first-quarter FY27 network sales 18.8% to $387.5M on 7.1% comparable growth driven by stronger transactions, while reaffirming guidance for higher full-year margins. LINK
Lifestyle Communities reported a 22% drop in September-quarter net new home sales to 39 as cautious Victorian downsizers delayed commitments, while net debt fell $8.4M to $265.3M. LINK
Macquarie accelerated a strategic reinvention in its latest half-year as it exited aircraft leasing and other capital-heavy assets, and pivoted toward capital-light private credit and fee-rich asset management. AFR
Yo-Chi rapidly expanded from 4 Melbourne stores to 80 across Australia with new outlets in Dallas and London as young customers embrace sober, social frozen yoghurt hangouts. LINK
EasyPark built an AI sales agent called Parker using Salesforce’s Agentforce to analyse behavioural data and rapidly qualify or exclude high-intent B2B leads, freeing human reps for strategic deals. LINK
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Editor’s Pick: A Yale-led study found that large language models like ChatGPT and Claude internally encode implicit symbolic structures using numeric vectors, helping explain their strong performance on tasks requiring symbolic reasoning.
Draft Pick: Wallabies coach Les Kiss named an almost unchanged side with Isaac Henry replacing suspended Hunter Paisami as Australia attempt to end their Eden Park and Bledisloe Cup hoodoos.
Doctor’s Pick: The radical idea that temperature sets when we sleep.
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