1. Barnaby Joyce sworn in as Deputy Prime Minister

Barnaby Joyce has been sworn in as deputy prime minister again this morning after winning a party room vote yesterday against outgoing leader of the Nationals Party, Michael McCormack. Joyce’s wife, Vikki Campion, and children were in attendance. PM Scott Morrison attended via video link.

2. NSW nurses, police and paramedics to receive a pay boost in new budget

NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet will reveal the government's new wage cap policy in today's budget. Previously the public sector's wage rise was capped at 1.5 per cent, this will now be moved to 2.5 per cent for public servants, including nurses, police, paramedics and teachers. Last year these same workers had their wage increase by only 0.3 per cent due to the pandemic.

3. China's crackdown causes bitcoin to crash

Business experts at Shelly Partners say "China is full-on anti-crypto". Many gigantic Chinese bitcoin mining operations have been shut down, causing transaction times to lag. The market has seen the crackdown from China as real and cryptocurrencies are crashing, with Bitcoin down 9.39% and Dogecoin taking a 28.45% hit in the last 24 hours.

4. Banksy launches legal bid to protect some of his famous artworks

Street artist, Banksy has applied via a Perth law firm to register two images as trademarks in this country. The applications have been accepted and they will be registered next week. The trademarks will apply to the use of the images on a huge range of goods including posters, handbags, umbrellas, bedsheets, clothing, rugs and many more.

However, intellectual property specialist, lawyer Tim Golder said that if Banksy wants to remain anonymous, he cannot use copyright law to stop people copying his work for commercial gain. “The legal person who owns the right has to make the claim,” he said. “You can’t get out of that.”

5. Wall street up overnight

Overnight the Dow Jones was up +586.98 points (1.76%) to 33,876.97. The Nasdaq rose +111.10 points (0.79%) to 14,141.48 and the S&P 500 leaped +58.34 points (1.40%) to 4,224.79.