OPTUS SPILLS THE BEANS
Optus has finally revealed how many people had their identity data stolen. Of the 9.8 million victims of the Optus hack, 2.1 million need to replace their ID — and everyone has reportedly been contacted. About 150,000 passport numbers were exposed, and 50,000 Medicare numbers, making it the biggest cyberattack in Australia’s history, The Age reports. The besieged telco has announced an external review headed by Deloitte to get to the bottom of it. Government Services Minister Bill Shorten and Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek both slammed Optus for being slow to give the government final figures on Medicare numbers affected, but The Australian ($) points out the deadline for the info (October 4) is yet to expire. One would think time is of the essence, however.
Optus chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin was “frustrated” by the government’s comments, telling the AFR the best thing would be to present a “united front” with her embattled company. Rosmarin reckons Optus has mostly done the right thing so far, having “communicated to these customers and recommended that they take action to address the heightened risk of theft”. The larger issue at play, the paper continues, is the Privacy Act falling short — Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil says Optus left “the window open” to a basic breach, the ABC reported, reportedly facilitated via an unprotected application programming interface (API), and we can’t do squat about it in terms of penalties. It would’ve resulted in a fine in the hundreds of millions of dollars overseas, O’Neil added. So far, Optus has agreed to cover the cost of passports, driver’s licences and credit monitoring, to the tune of $1 billion.
THE GOING RATE
It’s rate day, folks. The Reserve Bank will meet today to look at another cash rate rise — it’s 2.35% at the time of writing, and a half percentage point increase would see monthly repayments on a $750,000 mortgage go up by a whopping $222, the SMH reports. That’s the number NAB’s chief economist Alan Oster is expecting to see — and it’ll be the fifth straight 0.5% hike if so, The Australian ($) reports. Oster says everyone should keep 1989 in mind — where rate rises led to a recession and unemployment. Plus, Crikey’s Bernard Keane and Glenn Dyer point out that the likelihood of a global recession ranges from likely to 98% by some estimations.
This year has seen the interest rate increase at the fastest pace since the mid-1990s, the SMH continues. So why the heck is this happening? Inflation. Put simply, slow down spending and the abundance (supposedly) drives down price. Is it working? Hmm. The paper quotes the Melbourne Institute’s monthly measure of inflation showing a 0.5% lift in prices in September, putting our inflation rate at 5.4%. But the RBA wants it to fall to half that — between 2% and 3%.
It comes as anticipation of the interest rate rise has tumbled Perth property prices by $2500, bringing them to a median of $556,645, The West ($) reports. Not that renters have it easier — Perth’s rental crisis is so dire it’s approaching record lows, WA Today reports. There are only 1675 properties for rent across the entire city, just 138 more than the all-time low in 2010. And the scarcity has pushed prices to an average of $495 a week. But there are some 24,000 houses under construction, the Real Estate Institute of WA points out — we just don’t have the tradies to finish them faster.
WET, WET, WET — AND COLD
Folks, stock up on tea bags and thermals — there’s an icy cold five days ahead, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, from the Top End to Tasmania, Guardian Australia reports. Sydney can expect 100mm of rain over the next few days, news.com.au reports. It’s bad news for the Warragamba Dam — Sydney’s main water source — which has hit capacity, the SMH adds, spilling 3.5 gigalitres a day. It’s going to pour in the NT, SA, Queensland, western NSW and north-east Victoria today, though the heaviest rain will be tomorrow, prompting flood warnings for many inland areas. And the victims of February’s flood disaster are still reeling, The Courier-Mail ($) reports. Nicholas Street in Windsor has uncollected mail overflowing from letterboxes, doors left wide open and windows boarded up while wildlife run rampant, as residents still haven’t been able to go home yet.
Speaking of our environment, the chairman and two directors of Energy Resources of Australia (ERA), a company that is cleaning up a uranium mine on the edge of Kakadu, will resign. ERA’s major shareholder Rio Tinto called for the resignation of the chairman yesterday, ABC reports, after a report suggested the ERA could create a second uranium mine. The ERA says the clean-up would cost $1.2 billion more than expected and take until 2028 — but the Mirarr traditional owners and Rio Tinto were both furious at the suggestion that another mine could be created.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
The competitive fishing world has been rocked, scandalised, and outraged by a cheating affair, The New York Times reports. It all kicked off when US fisherman Jacob Runyan proudly presented his catches to the judges to be weighed. They were five walleye, or yellow pike, lying in a box limply. They looked to weigh a little over two kilos each, or nine kilograms in total, pundits figured. But the scale showed the lot came in at some 15 kilograms, which meant Runyan and his team-mate Chase Cominsky had won first prize. And that was no small thing — bragging rights aside, it meant a hefty $46,000 in prize money. The director of the Lake Erie Walleye Trail, Jason Fischer (oh come on, the surname is too much), watched on incredulously as the weight was recorded. There’s something very fishy about this, and it’s not the fish, he thought. So Fischer flipped his trusty knife out and sliced open one of the walleyes in one swift swoop as the shocked crowd watched on.
Lo and behold, Fischer pulled out an egg-sized weight ball. “We got weights in fish!” he proclaimed, and the crowd exploded into a scandalised frenzy. Fischer turned to Runyan and yelled at him to “Get outta here!” in a dramatic moment. An immediate question mark befell the cheating pair’s many previous wins — they’ve taken home first place in no fewer than three Lake Erie Walleye Trail events this year and won several tournaments elsewhere. There was nothing for it — Fischer went straight to the authorities, who are collecting evidence and preparing a report for the prosecutor’s office. It was tight-lipped when approached for comment, saying the chunky fish were an “open investigation”. The devious fishermen almost got away with it, even passing voice-stress and polygraph tests in the past. But sometimes, Fischer figured, you’ve just got to go with your gut and slice open the gut of a fish.
Hoping you act on something that’s weighing you down today too.
SAY WHAT?
Just cancelled a Dr’s appointment because of mask requirement, almost 950 days into the pandemic, after everyone vaxed, multiple times. Too humiliating. Can’t be intelligent Dr if actually believe the propaganda.
Adam Creighton
The Australian’s Washington correspondent would rather not see a health professional about his health if it means wearing a mask to keep everyone healthy — a bit of a tough one to wrap one’s mind around.
CRIKEY RECAP
Jacinta Price is the breakout star of the opposition to the Voice to Parliament
“NT Senator Jacinta Price was the breakout star of Australia’s conservative political conference at the weekend where speakers sketched their staunch opposition to a Voice to Parliament.
“The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Sydney featured two days of sessions on topics ranging from climate change denialism to Marcus Aurelius, with speakers including former UKIP and Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage, former prime ministers John Howard and Tony Abbott, and former Trump adviser Jason Miller.”
Why the UK pension system nearly collapsed last week (apart from Truss’ stupidity)
“Over the past two decades, UK pension funds have been encouraged by financial regulators to adopt liability-driven investment (LDI) strategies — often using derivatives — aimed at ensuring current and future liabilities of the pension plans offered by funds are covered.
“Many of these funds — about 5200 serving 10 million members — offered defined benefit products, as opposed to defined contribution schemes, which are typical in Australia — think ordinary super funds, where the benefits reflect investment returns. Defined benefit products require quite different investment strategies to provide the benefits guaranteed to members.”
Who turned down Simon Holmes à Court’s dosh in 2019?
“In 2019 Labor ran Yvonne Langenberg — who describes herself as a ‘Small Businesswoman | Political Commentator | Renewables Advocate’ in her Twitter bio — against Barnaby Joyce who, whatever else you may say about him, has fought against climate change action and at the time was associated with ‘numerous scandals’.
“Further, we note that up against ‘minister for getting energy bills down’ Angus Taylor in Hume that year — and it’s easy to forget what a profoundly scandal prone 2019 that guy had — was Camden lawyer Aoife Champion, who said she was particularly keen to go up against Taylor on environmental issues.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Football Australia starts disciplinary action against Sydney United 58 over fascist songs, salutes (SBS)
Nobel prize in physiology or medicine is awarded to Svante Pääbo (The New York Times)
Unpacking the results of Brazil’s heated presidential election (Al Jazeera)
Truss abandons plan to cut tax for highest earners amid revolt by her own MPs (The Guardian)
The 10 [US] Senate seats most likely to flip in 2022 (CNN)
Iran’s Khamenei blames Israel, US in first comments on protests (Al Jazeera)
Kim Kardashian to pay $1.26 million to settle SEC investigation into role in crypto deal (The Wall Street Journal) ($)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Coal is booming but you won’t hear about it at the ABC — Greg Sheridan (The Australian) ($): “Having seen the disastrous economic and social outcomes of Europe’s energy crisis, Australia, perversely, perhaps uniquely, is determined to inflict similar damage on itself. The decisions of the Queensland government, and AGL, to get rid of coal-generated electricity by 2035 will likely be, if implemented fully, disastrous. I say “likely” because it’s possible that some great technology fix may show up in the meantime. But based on what we know of technology today, these moves mean much higher electricity prices and in time almost certainly unreliable supply and intermittent crises. Nothing is certain, of course, least of all the future. But if as a nation we wanted to replicate the European mess, this is the way we’d go about it.
“There are times in Australia when the plain truth is so unfashionable that almost no one speaks it. Here is one simple truth about Australia. We are a wealthy society — with first-class hospitals, affluent universities that can indulge their postmodern critical theory nuttiness, modern transport, modern if ineffective defence forces, a vast welfare system and everything else — for one reason: we make an enormous amount of money exporting commodities. But the anti-fossil fuel sentiment has become so great that now there is a corporate wariness even about gas exploration and development.”
When will the Fed ease the market anguish? — Karen Maley (The AFR): “At what point will the US Federal Reserve be forced to abandon its inflation-fighting efforts and instead ride to the market’s rescue? That’s the overwhelming question for investors as the US bond market experiences its worst volatility since 2009, apart for a brief period in March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic roiled financial markets. Ructions in the US$25 trillion US bond market — which acts as the bedrock for the global financial system — have been exacerbated by the huge amounts of leverage that financial institutions, including banks, pension funds, insurance companies and hedge funds, have used to bolster the returns from their bond portfolios.
“Only now are risks lurking in their financial strategies becoming apparent. Banks for instance, purchased a lot of government bonds to satisfy regulatory requirements, but the addition of huge amounts of leverage has made these supposedly safe assets much riskier. As a result, analysts are warning of an extremely dangerous period ahead, as the US central bank pushes ahead with aggressive monetary tightening, forcing central banks, particularly those in emerging markets, to follow suit to defend their currencies, while investors around the world are seeking refuge in the greenback.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Online
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Guardian Australia’s Katharine Murphy and Essential Media’s Peter Lewis will unpack the fortnight’s political news in a webinar for the Australia Institute.
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
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Former prime minister Julia Gillard will reflect on her groundbreaking misogyny speech in Parliament (spot a younger Albo in the background too!) on its decade-long anniversary in a talk held at Hamer Hall.
Yuggera Country (also known as Brisbane)
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Author Holly Ringland will chat about her new book, The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding, at Queensland Multicultural Centre auditorium.
Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)
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UK activist Zion Lights will chat about decarbonising our economy and whether nuclear needs a second look, held at Colombo Theatres.
