澳洲新闻 (ABC新闻快递) 2013-05-15

 Business groups have cast doubt on the federal government’s ability to return the budget to surplus. They say the budget does nothing to inspire business confidence. The Chief Executive of the Business Council of Australia Jennifer Westcott is critical of the government’s plan to crack down on multi-national tax loopholes.

 

“It’ll make it difficult to attract companies in Australia when they really don’t come to terms with the fact that we live a very competitive world. But it’s a sort of principle of more ad hoc, incremental¹  tax changes as supposed to a fundamental review of the tax system. We need to do tax reform. We need to make sure that we've got the revenues to pay for the future and we've got a tax system that is competitive. You can’t keep putting these things off. Every budget that we’ve been seen has put them off again.” 

 

Jennifer Westcott on 7:30 last night. 

 

Let’s look at the markets now. 

 

The Dow is up 124 points. The Nasdaq is 24 points higher. S&P 500 is 17 up. In London, the FTSE closed 54 points higher.

 

Looking at commodity prices.

 

West Texas Crude’s trading at 94 US dollars a barrel. Tapis is at 108 US dollars a barrel. And gold is trading at 1424 US dollars an ounce. 

 

The Australian dollar is buying 99.82 US cents and 64.98 pence sterling².

1 incremental   

adj.增加的

参考例句：

• For logic devices, the incremental current gain is very important. 对于逻辑器件来说，提高电流增益是非常重要的。 来自辞典例句
• By using an incremental approach, the problems involving material or geometric nonlinearity have been solved. 借应用一种增量方法，已经解决了包括材料的或几何的非线性问题。 来自辞典例句

2 sterling   

adj.英币的(纯粹的，货真价实的)；n.英国货币(英镑)

参考例句：

• Could you tell me the current rate for sterling, please?能否请您告诉我现行英国货币的兑换率？
• Sterling has recently been strong,which will help to abate inflationary pressures.英国货币最近非常坚挺，这有助于减轻通胀压力。