The top stories today
Here’s what’s making news today:
- Australia has recorded the largest number of building approvals in five years – but the improvements will struggle to make up for pent-up demand for housing.
- The Albanese government has been told to do more for Indigenous Australians after the Voice to parliament failed, as Coalition frontbencher Julian Lesser makes a speech today calling for a “new direction for Indigenous affairs”.
- Up to 400 Defence Force personnel will be tracked during weapons training as part of a sophisticated study that follows years of growing complaints about a lack of action on alarming reports of blast injuries among military veterans.
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One of Australia’s leading constitutional law experts says One Nation’s proposal to create a new ban on foreign fighters would do nothing to block Australians with terror links from returning to the country.
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And in breaking news, Australia has just won a gold and silver medal in Glasgow: Rose Davies and Jess Hull finished in the top two spots of the women’s 5000m race. Follow the latest here.
Another bird flu case reported in Victoria
Authorities suspect there has now been another H5N1 bird flu case in Victoria – the day after the first case was confirmed in the state.
The greater crested tern returned a positive result for the virus and has been sent for further testing. The bird was found in the coastal town of Portland, which is the same location as Victoria’s first positive test.
A member of the public alerted authorities to the sick bird. The first case was also a greater crested tern.
Victoria’s chief veterinary officer Graeme Cooke said the latest suspected case highlighted the importance of early reporting of sick and dead wildlife.
“We have been preparing for the arrival of H5 bird flu, and we’re now using those plans to support surveillance, testing and response activities across the state,” he said.
Stand-up comedian appears at royal commission
The Royal Commission into Antisemitism has resumed to hear from Jews in the arts, beginning with a stand-up comedian speaking under a pseudonym, who drew laughs from the usually stern and sombre audience.
The comic, who goes by the initials CGM, described how he withdrew from performing after October 7, 2023, the launch of the Israel-Gaza war.
A comic with a Muslim background reached out, asking where CGM had been.
“And I said, ‘I just feel like staying in, you know, I feel so much fear and shame’,” CGM said.
“He said to me, ‘Brother, I’ve seen your act, you should have been feeling fear and shame the whole time’.”
Gosling assault charges a ‘test of leadership’ for PM: Taylor
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor is speaking in Perth and says the charges against federal MP Luke Gosling are a “test of leadership” for the prime minister.
“This is a test of leadership for him, and when it really matters, whether it’s on the economy, whether it’s on protecting our way of life, when it really counts, the prime minister is nowhere to be seen,” he said.
“He runs for the hills. Well, this is a test of leadership for him, this is a very serious, of course, situation, and arrest charges [are] being laid against the most senior official in the Northern Territory. The prime minister needs to step up.”
Australia sends crews and aircraft to fight French fires
Australia is sending aircraft and firefighters to France to help fight the country’s bushfires.
Twenty-four NSW Rural Fire Service aerial and ground crew will head to France over the next few days, along with a CH-47D Chinook helicopter, which has an 11,300-litre water tank, and another reconnaissance aircraft.
“The wildfires in France are among the worst the country has experienced in decades, driven by multiple active fire fronts and a prolonged summer heatwave,” Australia’s Defence Force said in a statement.
“The assistance is being provided in response to a request from the French government. It will be delivered in close partnership with the Australian Defence Force, which will support the rapid deployment of personnel, aircraft and equipment through strategic airlift and logistics.”
Microsoft adds nearly half a trillion dollars to value
Microsoft made market history on Thursday (US time), adding nearly half a trillion dollars to its value, the most by any stock in a single day.
Shares of the company soared 16 per cent, their biggest gain since October 2008, to add roughly $US450 billion ($640 billion) to its market capitalisation. The move eclipses Nvidia’s $US440 billion addition, following President Donald Trump’s announcement of a 90-day tariff pause last year, as the biggest ever, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Microsoft’s surge came after the company reported that revenue for its Azure cloud unit surged 43 per cent during the fiscal fourth quarter, the most since early 2022. Microsoft also said its capital spending plans for 2026 are unchanged.
The nearly jump is larger than the market capitalisation of roughly 96 per cent of S&P 500 stocks, data compiled by Bloomberg show. It’s also bigger than the combined value of the benchmark’s 41 smallest members, which includes companies like Domino’s Pizza, Clorox and Hasbro.
Microsoft’s one-day add in value also dwarfs many of the world’s other equity markets. South Africa, Turkey, Finland and Vietnam all have total stock market values that are less than what the software maker added.
Bloomberg
Hamas agrees to disarmament plan, BBC reports
Following our earlier reporting that US President Donald Trump said his Board of Peace had a plan for the “complete disarmament” of Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza, there are now reports that Hamas has agreed to the plan.
The BBC is reporting a “senior Hamas official” has told the news organisation the group has agreed to the disarmament plan.
Plans revealed for huge expansion of Australia’s marine parks
Expanding marine parks around Lord Howe and Norfolk Island would mean Australia reaches its goal to protect 30 per cent of its oceans well before 2030.
The plan was announced by Environment Minister Murray Watt today alongside the 10-year review of how existing marine parks are working.
The proposed expansions would bring an additional 671,500 square kilometres of Australia’s waters under protection, protecting the areas’ high biodiversity of migratory seabirds, cetaceans, fish and sharks.
The review will include six new management plans for 44 Australian Marine Parks, which cover 2.37 million square kilometres of ocean – an area larger than Queensland and NSW combined.
Public consultation on the preparation of new management plans, and the proposed changes to Norfolk and Lord Howe marine parks, is open until 4pm AEST on September 30 through the Have Your Say portal.
The fishing industry will also be consulted directly, the government said.
Anthropic says its model hacked systems during safety tests
Artificial intelligence giant Anthropic has revealed its Claude models broke into the live systems of three organisations during cybersecurity testing, days after rival OpenAI disclosed a similar issue.
The company said a misconfiguration left its testing environments connected to the internet, despite Claude being told in its prompt that it was in a sealed simulation. Believing the real companies it found were part of the exercise, Claude compromised them using basic techniques including weak passwords and unauthenticated endpoints.
HSBC sells its $36b Australian home loan portfolio
Global bank HSBC is selling its $36 billion Australian home loan portfolio to private equity giant Blackstone, and it will wind down the rest of its local retail banking business over the next 18 months.
The banking group said today said it was quitting retail banking in Australia to focus on banking commercial and corporate clients, as part of a simplification push.
The bank, which has held a commercial banking licence in Australia since 1986, will sell its local mortgages to the US private equity behemoth Blackstone, while local non-bank lender Pepper Money will be the service provider for the mortgage portfolio.
Its move to exit retail banking in Australia follows global bank Citi’s decision to also quit this part of the market in 2021, when it sold its retail business to National Australia Bank.
Music journalist Glenn A. Baker dies
Glenn A. Baker, an Australian rock music journalist, collector, commentator, author and broadcaster, has died. He was 74.
In 2024, the fierce collector of records, CDs, books, magazines, newspaper clippings and other rock music ephemera put his record collection, estimated at over 80,000 items, up for auction.
An eminent music journalist and commentator for over 200 magazines and the author of at least 16 books, Baker was known for always donning variously coloured fezes – Ottoman-era Turkish headwear.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
