\u201cI thought we had a cost-of-living crisis and inflation? People are suffering and struggling, but the corporates just get away with price gouging and insane increases in profitability?<\/p>\n
\u201cI get inflation happens, but these figures feel real out of step with inflation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI run a small business and tolerate lower margins when things are tough – why shouldn\u2019t our corporates also tighten their belts when the rest of us do? An increase is good – but 25-30 per cent feels obscene.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another lamented that the companies would be pressured to beat these results in the next quarter, while another said the lack of competition in many Australian sectors meant major companies could continue scoring huge profits.<\/p>\n
\u201cHighly competitive markets are a race to the bottom,\u201d the Reddit user said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese listed companies enjoy very little competition or heavily manipulated markets.\u201d<\/p>\n
IAG\u2019s profit jump came as it enjoyed higher income from insurance premiums and lower-than-expected natural disaster payouts.<\/p>\n
The company’s gross written premium income rose by 4.3 per cent to $17.1b while its total payouts were $10.2b for the 2025 financial year.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, payouts for natural disasters was $195m below what the company expected.<\/p>\n
It comes as insurance costs have surged more than 35 per cent in the three years to June.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Origin\u2019s profit rise followed energy costs soaring over the past few years.<\/p>\n
While various state and federal government power rebates partly covered consumers, major energy companies continued to reap massive profits as electricity prices soared.<\/p>\n
![\"CBA](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/3ef0940b708f908137176167a12adcbd.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\u201cI really need cost of living explained to me like I’m a five year old,” a Reddit user said.<\/p>\n
“Over the past twelve months, various governments gave me large sums of money via my electricity bill to help with my ‘cost of living’, to then pass onto Origin who records a $1.5 billion profit?\u201d<\/p>\n
Another user claimed the government rebates were barely covering the daily supply charges or the rate increases many faced.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, the money went straight back to the electricity retailer,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
CBA\u2019s massive profit was torn into by the Finance Sector Union, which labelled the bank \u201cun-Australian\u201d for slashing jobs in favour of offshore work and AI.<\/p>\n
\u201cCBA is Australia\u2019s wealthiest bank, yet it is systematically undermining local workers, shunting jobs offshore and replacing skilled workers with untested automation,\u201d FSU national secretary Julia Angrisano said.<\/p>\n
Alongside these companies, JB Hi-Fi revealed a $462m profit earlier this week while Evolution Mining posted a $926m profit and Penfolds-owner Treasury Wine Estates’s profit was almost $437m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Major Australian companies have unveiled massive profits, causing \u201cdisgust\u201d from struggling Australians suffering cost of living pressures. On…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,21976,28044,164,53802,53801,16911,8419,8420],"class_list":["post-67736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-cba","tag-commonwealth-bank-of-australia","tag-economy","tag-iag","tag-insurance-australia-group","tag-origin","tag-telstra","tag-westpac"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}