THE NEWS WRAP: Coalition unveils plans for shakeup of the top income tax rate

Retail sales fell away badly during October, although exports from Australia increased, according to new figures.

Sales dropped by 1.1% in October, before the latest interest rate rise. The biggest falls were suffered by restaurants, cafes and takeaway food. Meanwhile, exports grew by 1% in October.

Hockey proposes tax and IR changes

The Federal Coalition has unveiled plans for a shakeup of the top income tax rate for individuals and companies, as well as a move towards liberalising workplace laws for small businesses.

Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey told the Australian Financial Review that he was sympathetic to the burden faced by small firms to comply with unfair dismissal laws and minimum work hours.

Google aims to tackle piracy

Google is to remodel its search service in a bid to combat piracy. The search engine giant said that it will make a number of changes, following lobbying from the music industry. The changes include removal of words associated with piracy that appear in its autocomplete search feature. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11900347

Overnight

The Dow Jones industrial average was up 98.38 points overnight while the Australian dollar leapt to 97.62 US cents.