Happy Tuesday!

1. Australians over the age of 50 will have access to the coronavirus vaccine after National Cabinet agreed to bring forward the next stage of the country’s COVID-19 roll out. “National Cabinet agreed in-principle to a series of changes to the Australian COVID-19 Vaccination Strategy that will be put forward for approval at the next meeting of National Cabinet including options to bring forward the commencement of vaccinations for over 50-year-olds under the Australian COVID-19 Vaccination Strategy priority group 2a,” Scott Morrison said in a statement.

2. The most likely result of Australia’s troubled vaccine rollout will be a program that concludes up to a year from now, says Michael Buckland, executive director of policy think tank the McKell Institute. With the end of JobKeeper, government support and the New Zealand travel bubble aren’t enough to enable economic growth, Buckland said. Modelling by the McKell Institute around the cost of Australia’s vaccine program delays found it could cost the economy up to $1.4 billion.

3. Scott Morrison “all but locked in” a commitment to get to net zero emissions by 2050 in an address to a Business Council of Australia dinner in Sydney last night. “We need to change our energy mix over the next 30 years on the road to net zero emissions,” he said, saying that commercialisation of low-emissions technology is the way to get there. “We will not achieve net zero in the cafes, dinner parties and wine bars of our inner cities,” he also added. I think the suburbs have cafes and wine bars these days, but whatever.

4. Afterpay has a hot new PR pitch as it tries to dodge the gaze of Aussie regulators. The buy now, pay later company has released a new report claiming it supports as many as 63,000 local jobs as well as the spending of the people in said jobs. It claims that it saved Australians more than $110 million in fees when compared to credit cards and generated billions of dollars worth of extra sales. You might quite reasonably wonder why Mastercard and Visa don’t feel the need to trumpet their job creation bona fides.

5. The blockbuster prequel to “Mad Max: Fury Road” will be filmed in New South Wales, Premier Gladys Berejiklian has announced. The film, starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Australia’s own Chris Hemsworth, will create some 850 jobs and pump $350 million into the local economy, Berejiklian said. Big-budget screen productions have flocked to Australia due to comparatively low rates of COVID-19 as well as favourable financial incentives and tax concessions.

6. Australia risks being left behind on digital assets, the local blockchain community has warned. Blockchain Australia CEO Steve Vallas said Australian banks were dragging their feet and would be beaten by international companies if they didn’t act fast. NAB CEO Ross McEwan meanwhile echoed industry fears that the lack of local regulation was holding back local businesses from getting involved amid growing interest.

7. British finance minister Rishi Sunak revealed the UK is exploring the feasibility of “britcoin,” Reuters reported. It is a cryptocurrency backed by the Bank of England aimed to address the issues bitcoin has. A new task force was launched on Monday to look into a central bank digital currency or CBDC. Last year it was revealed the RBA was working on a digital version of the Australian dollar, though it doesn’t have quite as catchy/annoying a name.

8. Dogecoin’s 7,199% rally in 2021 has made the meme-based cryptocurrency worth $50 billion. I’m using ‘worth’ in a very loose but sadly quite objective sense here. Dogecoin’s unlimited supply and the bewilderment of its founder hasn’t stopped investors from piling into the meme token, making it now more valuable than these 10 well-known companies, including heavyweights like Ford.

9. Wondering why your European football-mad mates are popping off right now? The shares of the biggest European soccer clubs rose after they announced a new Super League partly backed by JPMorgan. Some of the biggest teams in the world have signed up for the breakaway league: Manchester United, Borsa Italiana, AC Milan, Arsenal, Atletico Madrid, Chelsea, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Liverpool, Manchester City, Real Madrid and Tottenham Hotspur. Critics say that the move to form a new league undermines the spirit of the game and is largely down to making financial gain from signing up to the new league, playing throughout it and selling the TV rights to those games.

10. A record 5.2 million people globally tested positive for COVID-19 last week, despite the vaccine rollout ramping up in wealthy nations. Surges in India and Brazil have contributed to the rise. Most COVID-19 vaccines have gone to wealthy countries, and poor nations have struggled to get shots.

BONUS ITEM

Very interesting piece from our friends at Gizmodo Australia.

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