Michael Thompson

And as I said, only a few minutes and you get to have your say on kind of where the podcast heads and maybe win a holiday out of it as well.

Quick break.

Back in a moment with the rest of the day's business news.

Sean, the preliminary auction clearance rate across the country over the past week rose to 54%, but still remains well below the average rate over the past year,

Once the final clearance rate then does actually come in, that could be below 50%.

The Federal Liberal Party is about to lose one of its better performers after the spokesman on Home Affairs, John O'Dooney, announced that he will resign from the Senate before the end of the year, Sean.

He said that the Liberal Party's internal issues, especially the leadership change from Susan Lee to Angus Taylor, had left him exhausted.

Meanwhile, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson is going to use millions of dollars in donations to fund a political campaign during sporting events based on her Fire the Liar campaign.

Let's talk aircraft, Sean, which I'm very excited about.

Qantas is in talks to replace its biggest aircraft, the Airbus A380, and accelerate plans to fly to more long-haul destinations without stopping, as delays at Airbus and Boeing mean timeframes for new plane deliveries are growing.

We've been talking about this a bit lately.

The national carrier, though, is now exploring how it could exercise options over new wide-body Airbus A350s

and Boeing 787 planes to replace the glorious beasts of the sky, the A380s.

This is according to the Financial Review.

Aren't they the most magnificent planes to fly in the A380s?

Every time we see them, we just go, I do not understand how they get those off the ground, but my God, they're fun to fly in.

We'll finish up with this one, Sean, because it's very much tied into that story.

And holidaymakers are swapping Europe for Bali, with the Middle East conflict triggering a surge in trips to Indonesia and Vietnam.

There was 1.8 million departures from Australia during the month of April, which is down 6% from a year earlier.

That's a big drop.