Hello and welcome to Wednesday.

1. Firstly, some figures. Victoria reported two cases of COVID-19 and two deaths – still obviously very low. New South Wales recorded two new local cases yesterday, with 10 in hotel quarantine.

2. Is Australia out of its recession already? Technically that could be the case, if the RBA is to be believed. Australia’s economy may have grown during the September quarter, RBA Deputy Governor Guy Debelle told Senate Estimates. However, like the pandemic, Australia’s economic worries haven’t gone anywhere.

3. The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has revealed its performance in the last financial year. The figures reveal income tax refunds surged to more than $55 billion, with tax paid dropping by around 5% to around $405 billion. The tax office also settled with more than 100 multinationals, eventually collecting $1.1 billion less than it was owed.

4. The federal government promised its JobMaker credit, a wage subsidy valued up to $200 for workers under the age of 30, would ‘support’ 450,000 jobs. Of course, ‘support’ is a slippery word when it comes to something with a name like ‘JobMaker’, which one would expect to make jobs. Treasury revealed this week that its own calculations suggest only 10% of the promised 450,000 jobs would be “genuinely additional”.

5. The University of Sydney will earn almost as much in student revenue this year as it expected before the pandemic, leading to calls for it to halt job losses. The unexpectedly strong result was because of a strong domestic market and fewer international students dropping out than expected.

6. Tasmania is set to open its border to New South Wales on November 6. It comes after Tasmania opened its border to other states including Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory on Monday. The decision, however, is subject to public health advice.

7. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Queensland Premier Annastasia Palaszczuk are continuing their beef over the border closure between their states. Gladys wants it open, Annastasia is delaying until after this weekend’s state election. “It think it’s rather cute that it’s happening the day before her election, and I’m just so upset and frustrated that the border has been in place for so long,” Berejiklian said, adding she hoped an announcement would come before the end of the week.

8. Aussie social media company Linktree raised US$10.7 million (A$15 million) in its first ever funding round, backed by Airtree Ventures and Insight Partners. Co-founder and CEO Alex Zaccaria told Business Insider Australia the company has been “cash positive” since it began but elected to raise capital to expand the business. The funds will be used to grow the business both in Australia and globally.

9. Microsoft reported $37.2 billion in quarterly revenue, beating Wall Street estimates. Its overall commercial cloud business – which includes its Microsoft Azure cloud computing business, the Microsoft 365 suite of cloud software applications and other services – reached $US15.2 billion in sales for the quarter, up 31% compared to the same quarter last year.

10. As COVID-19 cases surge across the world, the World Health Organisation has warned that countries may need to impose stricter measures to get the virus under control. “We’re well behind this virus,” Dr. Mike Ryan, a WHO official, said, adding that controlling the virus might “require a sacrifice for many, many people in terms of their personal lives.” Nonessential businesses may have to shut down again to take the “heat” out of this stage of the pandemic, Ryan said.

BONUS ITEM

This is killing me. Do not we all dream of turning our $2.2 million book contract with an Australian intelligence agency into an excuse to pursue our dream of waxing poetic about Greco-Roman cryptography? Oh, just me? Carry on then.

Follow Business Insider Australia on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.