1. The Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman’s (ASBFEO) office has been inundated by survey responses from over 1,000 distressed travel agents who say COVID has decimated their businesses. “These travel agents are working around the clock to negotiate refunds from travel companies and airlines for their customers. In fact 56% of these small businesses have said they would have already closed down, if not for their commitment to ensure their customers were refunded for holidays they could no longer take.” said Kate Carnell, ASBFEO’s ombudsman. “The challenge for the travel agent is to get back the deposit, particularly from offshore companies that are also under enormous financial pressure. If these small business owners were to walk away without facilitating customer refunds, there would understandably be a public outcry. However, these travel agents’ businesses are losing money by staying open and working to do the right thing for their customers,” she added.

2. Moderna CEO, Stephane Bancel, says coronavirus vaccine emergency approval could come in November/December.  Speaking during The Wall Street Journal’s annual Tech Live conference on Monday US time, Bancel said if sufficient interim results from the study take longer to get, government authorisation of the vaccine may not occur until early next year. His comments suggest Moderna’s timetable isn’t far off from Pfizer’s, which said last week it expects to seek U.S. authorisation of emergency use of its vaccine by late November. Large U.S. trials for two other leading Covid-19 vaccines, from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca have been paused, while the companies investigate unexplained illnesses among study subjects.

3. The weekly ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence ratingrose by 0.4% to a 20-week high of 98.1 (long-run average since 1990 is 112.6). Confidence has lifted in nine of the past 10 weeks. Sentiment is up by 50.2% since hitting record lows of 65.3 on March 29 (lowest since 1973). Consumer views on whether it’s a ‘good time to buy a household item’ rose by 5.8% to a 17-week high of 4.6 points last week. ANZ noted: “Among the major cities, Melbourne [sentiment] weakened while confidence in Brisbane and Sydney surged. Further easing of COVID-19 induced restrictions should support the index over this week as it seeks to move back to its pre-pandemic level.”

4. Nice work if you can get it, with the CEO of NBN Co Stephen Rue (a taxpayer funded business) taking home $3 million, which included a $1.2 million bonus. Australia Post’s Christine Holgate was paid $1.6 million after taking a voluntary pay cut. But in the case of Mr Rue, the problem is the bonus. Labor jumped on Mr Rue's total pay yesterday, saying NBN Co had missed revenue forecasts set in 2018 by $1.1 billion, fell short of new broadband connection targets and had rising capital costs. At NBN the senior management team took home nearly $3 million in short-term bonuses in 2019-20, up from $2.1 million a year earlier. 10 current and former staff take home more than $1 million. This will surprise many out there who have had their battles with NBN: the chief customer officer earnt $1.4 million, which included a $320,000 bonus!

5. US stock markets rose overnight after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signalled Democrats and the White House were making progress in negotiations for a new fiscal stimulus deal. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 113.37 points higher, or 0.4%, at 28,308.79. The S&P 500 gained 0.5% to end the day at 3,443.12 and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.3% to 11,516.49.