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1. The Morrison government issued its strongest censure of China yet after it reportedly banned Australian coal. Responding on Tuesday, Trade Minister Simon Birmingham suggested it was a breach of trade rules and urged the Chinese government to pick up the phone. Prime Minister Scott Morrison meanwhile said the ban would breach the countries’ free trade agreement.

2. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has thrown his support behind an inquiry into banks pulling back on lending or insurance for big mining projects due to climate change concerns. The inquiry is being chaired by Coalition climate sceptic George Christensen. “It is only appropriate that the Parliament be able to examine trends in banking, insurance and superannuation investment practices and how they may affect our resources sector and the regions in which they are based,” Frydenberg told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

3. Financial regulator ASIC has released its final review of bank-run school programs, finding they were largely “customer acquisition” channels and provided little actual value to school kids. While it covers 10 different school programs, the Commonwealth Bank’s Dollarmites program – representing upwards of 97% of all school programs and valued at $10 billion – is the most well-known example covered in the report. CBA will modify its program in light of the review, while other banks are cancelling theirs and the Victorian state government bans them outright.

4. The ACCC has taken court action against the owner of the Michel’s Patisserie, Donut King and Gloria Jeans chains, alleging it misled franchisees into believing the stores they bought were actually viable businesses. “The prospective franchisees simply had no way of knowing the true financial performance of the stores, and we allege that Retail Food Group took advantage of this when selling or licensing the stores,” said ACCC chairman Rod Sims.

5. It looks like neobank Xinja is on the way out. “Xinja has decided to discontinue the Xinja Bank Account, Stash Account and all services relating to these products, in order to focus on other areas such as its US share trading product, Dabble, should circumstances allow,” a note on its site now reads.

6. Online campaign platform Change.org has released its list of top petitions Australians backed in 2020. COVID-19 related petitions were among the most popular, including calls to freeze rent, extend wage subsidies to New Zealanders and provide PPE to frontline healthcare workers. Petitions about racial justice, the environment and violence against women were also in the top 10 most popular Australian petitions, each garnering hundreds of thousands of signatures.

7. The popular porn website Pornhub is deleting all unverified content on its platform, the company announced this week. “As part of our policy to ban unverified uploaders, we have now also suspended all previously uploaded content that was not created by content partners or members of the Model Program,” the company said. It’s the latest response from Pornhub following a New York Times column that accused the company of hosting child pornography and other illegal content, like videos filmed without the consent of those featured.

8. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday congratulated President-elect Joe Biden on winning the 2020 election. “The Electoral College has spoken. So today I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. He is the highest-profile Republican so far to acknowledge Biden’s victory and the latest GOP lawmaker to do so after the Electoral College officially certified Biden as the winner on Monday.

9. Apple has launched new information labels that tell users how apps are collecting data about them. The new App Store labels tell you how an iPhone app collects “data used to track you,” “data linked to you,” and “data not linked to you.” This is part of a two-part launch – early in 2021, Apple plans to launch an extra feature that will mean users have to opt-in to being tracked for advertising purposes.

10. Imran Khan told CNBC on Tuesday that the recent post-IPO stock pops including those of Airbnb and DoorDash represent an “epic level of incompetency” from the bankers who underwrote the stocks. The former banker, who led Alibaba’s IPO in 2014, said that it’s the job of the bankers to understand the market and price the IPO’s correctly: “Why are you getting paid 5 to 6% if you can’t figure that out?” Khan asked. “When the stock doubles for a very high large market cap company, clearly something didn’t work right here.”

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