ASIC has taken action against King Quartet Pty Ltd, trading as The Rental Guys, a white goods and furniture rental company operating in the Parkes and Forbes region in NSW. King Quartet has paid A$100,000 to some of its former customers as it failed to meet its responsible lending obligations when moving those customers onto new much less favourable credit contracts. The action dates back to November 2013, when The Rental Guys, purchased Country Rentals. Since then, the Rental Guys failed to undertake responsible lending assessments as required under the National Credit Act, in ASIC's view. The AFR reports that Commonwealth Bank of Australia is "at war" with small business and family enterprise ombudsman Kate Carnell, accusing her of ignoring facts, breaching its confidentiality and denying it procedural fairness. In a letter sent by the bank's chief counsel, Anna Lenahan, the CBA "savaged" Carnell over her appearance on a 60 Minutes program that accused the bank of driving the Queensland construction company CEC Group into liquidation. The show quoted from a condition report by Carnell that accused the bank of "highly unreasonable or potentially unconscionable" conduct over  CEC Group. When the global financial crisis hit property prices, CEC shares plunged and it breached its banking covenants. "Hours worked are picking up fast," HSBC's economist Paul Bloxham almost cheered in a review of Australian Bureau of Stats labour market data for June 2017. Total hours worked were up 3.3 per cent over one year in the Australian labour market. Total hours worked rose by 0.5 per cent in June, from May, "a further boost from the 1.7 per cent growth in May" Bloxham wrote. Jump back to February and hours worked were in decline, down 0.5 per cent that month.