NZ tourism levy, weak household spending, frigate deal

Good morning, Rich Henderson in Bloomberg's Melbourne bureau with the latest:Today's must-reads:• Australian tourists face NZ levy• Househol

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Good morning, Rich Henderson in Bloomberg's Melbourne bureau with the latest: Today's must-reads: • Australian tourists face NZ levy • Household spending weaker • Australia to buy Japanese naval frigates

What's happening now

Australian tourists crossing the Tasman will be charged to visit some of New Zealand's most popular tourist sites such as Milford Sound under a new levy system that could be introduced in 2027. Household spending was weaker than expected in June as Australian consumers spent less on services ahead of an anticipated interest rate cut next week. Australia awarded a contract for naval frigates to Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries as part of a replacement program that has a budget of up to A$11 billion.  Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has reiterated his support for a two-state solution in a rare phone call with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Speaking on Bloomberg TV's Australia Ahead, Australian National University Professor Donald Rothwell says the time has come for Canberra to do more than just issue statements. Click image to watch. Click to watch Bloomberg House prices in New Zealand fell for a fourth consecutive month as sluggish economic growth and rising unemployment keep buyers on the sidelines. Nyrstar said it will receive A$135 million from Australian governments to prevent the closure of the Port Pirie lead smelter and Hobart zinc works.

What happened overnight

Here's what my colleague, market strategist Mike "Willo" Wilson says happened while we were sleeping… US stocks ended lower after data show the services sector of the world's biggest economy was stagnating. Yields rose as another gauge showed sticky price pressures. Oil fell as a possible air-truce between Russia-Ukraine eased supply risks. Aussie was little changed and the dollar declined slightly.  President Donald Trump said on Wednesday in the US he would raise raise tariffs on Indian goods "over the next 24 hours" due to the country's purchases of Russian oil. The US has arrested two Chinese nationals on charges that they sent tens of millions of dollars worth of advanced AI chips made by Nvidia to China in violation of US export restrictions, according to authorities. Separately, Taiwan arrested six people for stealing trade secrets from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. US colleges are facing a crunch-time as international students struggle to secure visas following the Trump administration's efforts to curtail immigration, weighting on budgets. Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter arrived in Washington seeking to engage US officials in talks with a view to reducing the 39% tariff imposed last week.

What to watch

• 8:45 a.m.: New Zealand Unemployment Rate

One more thing...

OpenAI is releasing a pair of open and freely available artificial intelligence models that can mimic the human process of reasoning, months after China's DeepSeek gained global attention with its own open AI software. The two models, called GPT-oss-120b and GPT-oss-20b, will be available on AI software hosting platform Hugging Face and can produce text — but not images or videos — in response to user prompts, OpenAI said on Tuesday. These models can also carry out complex tasks like writing code and looking up information online on a user's behalf, the company said. Sam Altman, chief executive officer of OpenAI Inc. Photographer: Nathan Laine/Bloomberg

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