Workers on 13 Bathla sites stood down as funding runs out – as it happened

That’s where we’ll end our coverage for today. Here are the top stories today: A person has died and several other people have been injured after a multi-vehicle collision involving a bus. The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, revealed an artificial intelligence agent developed by OpenAI hacked Medicare in June, and said the company only notified Australia earlier this month. The PM, who has been in the US, also announced Australia will provide $60m more in support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s invasion. The Australian Bureau of Statistics released data showing unemployment ticked up to its highest rate since the pandemic, with the key jobless figure lifting to 4.6% in August, from 4.5% the month before. A former senior National Gallery of Victoria employee was alleged to have funnelled $8m from the gallery over six years by buying and selling mobile phones. The government department that overseas Questacon was fined $140,000 for work, health and safety failures after a child’s hands caught fire at the science centre. More than 600 Qantas ground crew workers began a 24-hour strike across the country over an escalating industrial dispute. And children’s author Andy Griffiths remembered his friend and collaborator of 35 years, Terry Denton, after the latter’s death on Monday. Victoria’s Labor and Liberal leaders weigh in on twilight AFL grand final speculation Victorian opposition leader, Jess Wilson, has described herself as a “grand final traditionalist” while the premier, Ben Carroll, says he’d like to see the match played at twilight. With just two days until the AFL grand final, the perennial question about the match time was a topic of conversation at parliament. It follows a report in the Herald Sun suggesting that if the Liberal party were elected in November, it would look to use ministerial powers to block staging an AFL night grand final at the MCG. Wilson would not confirm the report but said: I’m the Grand Final traditionalist. I love the grand final. I love how big [an] event it is for Melbourne. It’s when Melbourne comes alive, and I think the Saturday afternoon grand final is a big part of that. But I’m also really focused on how the grand final can be an event for families, and I believe that the afternoon grand final is the best way to do that. Carroll, when asked, said he’d prefer a twilight start: I will leave it to the AFL and our experts at Visit Victoria, and all of our experts that make these decisions … not the politicians … I think that twilight is something that could be considered by the AFL. I certainly think it is the sweet spot in terms of family-friendly TV ratings and the weather. Victoria police have confirmed a woman died in the bus crash in Glenburn this afternoon. The force has just issued a statement saying the driver of one of the cars involved in the collision died at the scene. Detectives are investigating the crash, but police say they understand the bus collided with a white car and a blue Toyota on the Melba Highway near Two Hills Road about 2.40pm. The driver of the white car died at the scene, police say, while the driver and passenger of the Toyota sustained minor injuries. Policed say they believe there were 18 people inside the bus, including the driver. Two occupants of the bus were taken to hospital with serious injuries, two were taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, and the others were treated at the scene. This post has been amended. Owing to incorrect information in a police statement an earlier version misstated the gender of the person who died. The insolvency advisory Teneo has announced it is standing down workers and stopping construction on the embattled developer Bathla Group’s semi-finished properties. Bathla – one of Australia’s largest property developers – went into voluntary administration on 25 August, weighed down by almost $3.6bn in debt, leaving thousands of customers in limbo, some with semi-complete homes they’d bought off-the-plan. Its administrators at Teneo had been in crisis talks with private lenders to try to save Bathla and its many projects, saying their immediate priorities included finishing the estimated 2,000-2,500 homes on which construction had already begun. Teneo managed to secure short-term funding to temporarily continue construction on the 13 Bathla sites where construction was under way, but it announced this evening that the money had run out and it had not managed to secure further funding. Teneo said its discussions with lenders for further funding “have now concluded”. As a result, construction workers across 13 Bathla sites have been stood down and all construction operations have ceased, Teneo said. Teneo’s Stephen Longley said the administrators were now focused on working with lenders for an “orderly sale” of Bathla Group’s subdivision and land bank sites. He said: A core team of Bathla employees has been retained to assist with the management and realisation of the assets. The administrators will provide further updates to customers, employees, creditors, subcontractors and other stakeholders as the administration process progresses. At Bathla, 125 staff members were let go today, and 67 employees have been retained. We’ve asked Teneo to clarify if the 13 construction sites it is referring to encompasses all of Bathla’s current projects, as well as how many construction workers have been stood down. You can read more about Bathla’s downfall here: Ambulance Victoria has provided some more detail on this afternoon’s bus crash in Glenburn, a town north-east of Melbourne. The state’s ambulance service says its paramedics responded to reports of a collision involving a bus in Glenburn about 2.40pm today, and assessed 21 people at the scene. They say: A teenage male was treated at the scene and flown to the Alfred hospital in a serious condition with upper body injuries. A man in his 50s was treated and transported by road ambulance to Box Hill hospital in a serious condition. A teenage female was treated and transported by road ambulance to the Royal Children’s hospital in a stable condition. A teenage male was treated and transported by road ambulance to Maroondah hospital in a stable condition with upper body injuries. Sixteen other people assessed by paramedics at the scene did not require emergency treatment or transport. Ambulance Victoria asked journalists to speak to Victoria police regarding a fifth person who was injured, so we will bring you more information as soon as we can. Australian chefs have joined their global colleagues in refusing to serve ocean-farmed Atlantic salmon. The Gourmet Farmer Matthew Evans, Analiese Gregory and Josh Niland have signed an open letter, together with more than 120 leading chefs from 26 countries, and food-system campaigners such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. The list includes chefs from some of the world’s best restaurants, holding more than 90 Michelin stars between them. The chefs have pledged to stop serving ocean-farmed salmon until it can be produced without harming wild fish, marine ecosystems and coastal communities. Tasmania produces virtually all of Australia’s farmed salmon. Evans, the host of Gourmet Farmer and What’s the Catch?, said he would never serve Tasmanian-farmed salmon at his Fat Pig Farm. Evans said: It’s clear that the way we produce salmon in open pens is done in a way that continues to harm Tasmania’s natural environment. It’s a dirty industry that refuses to clean up its act. Multiple people have been injured after a bus crash in Victoria. Ambulance Victoria paramedics are on the scene in Glenburn after reports of a crash involving a bus at about 2.40pm today. Paramedic crews are assessing multiple patients, with initial reports from on-scene crews suggesting 18 people may have been injured. “Our paramedics’ priority is with their patients. Further updates will be provided as information becomes available,” Ambulance Victoria said in a statement. Systemic racism to blame for Indigenous people’s wage disparity: landmark study Systemic racism is to blame for a glaring Indigenous pay gap that is costing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples billions of dollars a year, a landmark study has found, AAP reports. The Australian-first Towards Indigenous Pay Parity report released on Thursday revealed Indigenous employees earn 16 cents less for every dollar compared with the average Australian worker, culminating in an average $15,000 discrepancy each year. That figure climbs to 21 cents for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, who earn an average $41 per hour, compared with $52 for men overall. The UTS Centre for Indigenous People and Work report analysed Australian Tax Office and Australian Bureau of Statistics data from almost 230 occupations, identifying wage gaps in three quarters of sectors. The centre’s director, Prof Nareen Young, warned the pay gap cost Indigenous Australians a combined $3bn in 2022-23, with a total cumulative loss of $170bn possible by 2050. Exploring factors including education, age, job type and hours worked, the study found those elements accounted for less than one third of the average hourly pay gap. Speaking to ABC News Breakfast earlier today, Prof Young said: Having examined all of the usual things that explain a pay parity gap we can only put it down to systemic racism. When it’s up to the discretion of the employer or manager or a REM (remuneration) process or an HR process, the gap is wider, which is of real concern. New South Wales police say a 50-year-old man has died after he was spotted struggling in the water off a beach south of Sydney. Emergency services were called to Marley beach in the Royal national park about 12.50pm today, to reports two swimmers were struggling, police said. They said local police, officers from the Marine area command, surf lifesavers and three helicopter services assisted in the search and rescue operation. Police said a 20-year-old man was pulled from the water after being washed back to shore by waves. He was treated at the scene, winched out of the remote beach by helicopter and taken to St George hospital in a stable condition, police said. A short time later, police said officers attached to the Marine area command found the 50-year-old man’s body in the water. Police have said they will prepare a report for the coroner. Money markets are still predicting a 90% chance of the Reserve Bank raising interest rates next Tuesday. The surprise rise in unemployment to 4.6% in August data today would normally reduce the prospect of a rate hike but today’s data also showed hiring actually increased, just by less than new jobseekers. As a result, Commonwealth Bank, ANZ and NAB have all reaffirmed their predictions for a hike in the cash rate on Tuesday from 4.35% to 4.6%, as have analysts at AMP and UBS. That would take rates to their highest level in 14 years. (Westpac has not explicitly said whether it still agrees with that view.) For someone with an average-sized new mortgage of $731,000, paying a typical rate of 6.2%, a rate increase would add about $119 to their $4,477 monthly repayments. Rugby league tsar Peter V’landys has increased his grip on the game after being named executive chairman of the Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC). The V’landys appointment adds the responsibilities of the NRL chief executive – a position held until July by new Tennis Australia boss, Andrew Abdo – to his existing duties as ARLC chair. The move is controversial, given the ARLC was established in 2012 with clear separation between management and operations within a sport plagued by political infighting. V’landys has the unanimous backing of NRL clubs and state associations, however, and resigned as Racing NSW chief executive earlier on Thursday to allow him to focus his energies on rugby league. A former senior National Gallery of Victoria employee is alleged to have funnelled $8m from the gallery over six years, AAP reports. He allegedly bought $8m worth of mobile phones using an NGV account, which he then sold for personal financial gain. The state’s corruption watchdog has charged the former employee with eight offences alleged to have taken place between September 2019 and September 2025. “IBAC will allege that mobile phones were purchased under an NGV account to the value of approximately $8 million and then sold for personal financial benefit,” the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission said in a statement on Thursday. The watchdog said it began investigating allegations of corrupt conduct in relation to theft and misuse of his position by the former senior employee earlier in September 2025. The man has been charged with seven counts of theft and one count of misconduct in public office. He is expected to appear before Melbourne magistrates’ court on 20 October. Founded in 1861, the NGV is Australia’s oldest and most visited art museum. NGV has been contacted for comment. Hello, thanks for reading so far. I’ll take you through the rest of the day’s news. That’s all from me. Catie McLeod will snag the blog from here. Take care. Violent, serious offences decrease as crime rate falls in Victoria The crime rate in Victoria has fallen by almost 4% in the past year, with police praising controversial “adult crime, adult time” laws as being responsible for a major drop in youth offending. AAP reports the state’s crime rate, which accounts for population growth, fell to 8,679.6 offences per 100,000 people, according to Victoria’s Crime Statistics Agency figures released on Thursday. Overall, the state recorded 624,624 criminal offences in the 12 months to June, a reduction of 13,360 offences compared with the previous financial year. Youth offending decreased by 8.1% in that time, but police maintain child offenders aged 10-17 continue to be over-represented in major violent crimes such as home invasions, aggravated burglaries and robberies. Police attributed some of the reductions to increased visible and proactive policing. But other areas of offending continued to rise. Drug offenders apprehended increased 11.6%, while the number of offenders processed for drug trafficking and dealing rose 18.5%. Police also recorded a 2.7% increase in retail theft, with 43,124 offences recorded. Last-minute decision to protect endangered birds from SA space project Conservation groups have welcomed an 11th-hour decision to protect “precious and important habitat” on South Australia’s Eyre peninsula from plans for a rocket launching facility. The Whalers Way “orbital launch complex”, which could see as many as 42 rockets a year take off from conservation land, had already been approved under federal and state planning and environment laws. But a recent decision by the state’s independent Native Vegetation Council could scuttle the space project, located about 32km from Port Lincoln. The 23-hectare site is protected under a longstanding heritage agreement, a type of covenant on private land designed to protect native wildlife and habitat in perpetuity. The chief executive of BirdLife Australia, Kate Millar, welcomed the council’s decision to protect “one of the most precious and important habitats in the state”, which was a stronghold for one of Australia’s tiniest birds, the endangered Eyre Peninsula southern emu-wren, and home to 80% of the endangered mallee whipbird population. Read more here: Wong pays tribute at UN to Australian aid worker killed in Gaza Foreign minister Penny Wong has paid tribute to Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom, who was killed in Gaza in a 2024 drone strike, at the UN summit in New York. Wong said: Australia remembers the death of Zomi Frankcom and her six World Central Kitchen colleagues, killed by an IDF strike in 2024. And we will not stop – I will not stop – pressing for transparency, accountability, and justice for the Frankcom family. Friends, no humanitarian worker should ever be a target. Nine’s managing director of streaming and broadcast, Amanda Laing, will depart the company after just two years following a “restructure”. Nine’s chief executive officer, Matt Stanton, who will be overseeing the department in the interim, said her role would “not exist in its current form” amid a company restructure. In a statement, Stanton said: [The] industry is changing at pace and we are operating in an increasingly competitive market. Amanda will sadly be departing the business. Laing, who also worked at Nine from 2006 to 2017 before a stint as a senior executive at Foxtel, said: I leave Nine with immense pride in the team I have had the privilege to lead and everything we have achieved together. I’ll forever be a champion of their work. It comes after the departure of the Australian Financial Review’s editor-in-chief, James Chessell, to join independent media website Rampart. What is an AI agent? An AI agent is software designed to perform digital tasks on behalf of humans with a high degree of independence. They’re built on different models, depending on their specific purpose or the task assigned by a human. They’re often used for tasks such as writing code, conducting online research, generating reports based on that research or even booking a restaurant reservation. They’re not the same as commonly used chatbots, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude, because they take actions and make decisions rather than just responding to prompts. Developers can include guardrails, such as strict access controls, in the instructions to reduce privacy and security risks. However, as we’ve seen this morning, some agents can bypass those safeguards by finding loopholes in their instructions or the systems they interact with. Aria nominations are out – Genesis Owusu and Tame Impala up for top album Nominations for this year’s Aria awards were released this morning, just under a month before the body’s 40th anniversary ceremony. Genesis Owusu and Tame Impala lead the nominations with eight each, followed by Ecco Vandal with seven. Music legends including Kylie Minogue, Paul Kelly, Keith Urban and Vika & Linda will also be celebrated, as will newcomers Way Dynamic, Wilsn and aleksiah. Take a look at the full rundown of nominees here. NSW Greens call for audit of government website cybersecurity in wake of breach The NSW Greens have called on the state government to immediately audit all government websites and datasets after an OpenAI agent was confirmed to have accessed state crime data agency. Greens NSW industry spokesperson Abigail Boyd said the state is in need of an “urgent, forensic, and wide-ranging digital audit”. Bocsar is not the only vulnerable source of potentially sensitive information, the NSW government hosts highly sensitive information through public-facing websites like the HealthStatsNSW website, as well as the Data.NSW website, which is an open data portal hosting 17,164 NSW public sector datasets. The NSW government is extremely vulnerable to these attacks from malicious artificial intelligence products. Boyd said the government could not rely on major technology companies to comply with Australian laws and safeguards. We clearly cannot rely on these multinational big tech companies to comply with even the most minimal of social obligations such as notifying when, or even taking enough care to notice if, their products are hacking government systems. We are told to believe that OpenAI only became aware of this egregious breach of Australian’s data in August, and then waited until well into September before sending a notification email to Services Australia in September. By all accounts, there has been no attempt by OpenAI to notify the NSW government of the potential breaches of our state systems and databases. The government department that overseas Questacon has been fined $140,000 for work health and safety failures after a child suffered serious burns from an exhibit at the science centre. The Department of Industry, Science and Resources (DISR) pleaded guilty in the ACT to a single charge, admitting it exposed visitors to a risk of death or serious injury. Comcare’s investigation into the matter found a nine-year-old child visiting the centre in 2022 had applied alcohol-based hand sanitiser provided by Questacon. The child then touched a plasma globe in a gallery before their hands caught fire, causing second degree burns to their wrists, hands and fingers. DISR admitted it had failed to comply with its safety duties under the Work Health and Safety Act and should have taken other measures to eliminate or minimise risk. Colin Radford, the CEO of Comcare, said in a statement: This was not an isolated event. The child’s injuries marked the sixth safety incident in five months involving the globes. … Questacon’s response to these incidents was inadequate. It’s a large, interactive facility with inherent workplace health and safety risks that require a proactive approach and constant vigilance. Interest rate rise next week only a little less likely after jobless rise Financial markets are pricing in a greater (but still small) chance the Reserve Bank might leave interest rates on hold after a surprise rise in unemployment. As we reported earlier, an unexpectedly large number of people started looking for work, pushing up the jobless rate. The Australian dollar has fallen from US70.36 cents to 70.22, as traders account for the lower chance of an interest rate rise here. Bond markets also dropped a little, predicting lower interest rates in future. Sharemarkets are up, with the benchmark ASX200 up from 8,656 points to 8,691.3 points, still down from yesterday. The RBA is still more likely to raise rates than not when its board meets next Tuesday, in part because the labour market is still very strong. Since the end of last year, Australia has added 110,000 full-time jobs and 66,700 more part-time jobs. The workforce now includes a record 14,836,000 people. The unemployment rate has unexpectedly risen to 4.6%, the highest since November 2021, August data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows. The jobless rate rose both in seasonally adjusted and trend terms, from 4.5% in July. The rise was mostly due to more people looking for jobs, with an extra 28,000 unemployed Australians in August. An extra 46,000 people took on part-time jobs but 6,000 full-time jobs disappeared. Markets were expecting a much smaller change in the number of people employed and looking for work, predicting a steady 4.5% unemployment rate. The higher jobless rate is unlikely to stop the Reserve Bank from raising interest rates next Tuesday. The RBA governor, Michele Bullock, said on Tuesday she thought the jobs market was still tight while unemployment was near 4.5%, adding: I think between 4.5 and 5 will probably take enough heat out of the labour market that it’ll ease pressure on inflation. Marles says no individual medical data accessed by Open AI agent Government services minister, Katy Gallagher, said the AI model accessed only publicly available, aggregated information from the Medicare Statistics Reporting Service Portal. On the website that it accessed, the Medicare Statistics Reporting Service Portal is a standalone website. It’s public–facing, and it is not in any way related to Medicare in terms of claims, payments, and processing individual information. It’s a completely different system, and the two shouldn’t be conflated. It’s a public website. It’s most often used by researchers and academics, who get that aggregated data about benefits statistics, prescribing statistics, to use in their own research. Deputy prime minister Richard Marles said the incident was “very serious”, but its impact was “relatively minor”. We are talking about aggregated medical statistics. No individual’s medical data was accessed here. The system itself has not been in any way compromised. The impact of this event is minor, but it is a very serious incident because, in an unintended way, an AI agent has entered into an Australian government website in a way which is unauthorised. NSW premier Chris Minns says OpenAI agents may have also accessed information held by the state’s Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (Bocsar). Minns said he was first alerted to the incident after a call from the PM. The prime minister called me late last night in Sydney, it was early morning in New York, and he told me about this breach and his real concerns as it relates to safety and security of information held by government agencies, particularly the circumstances relating to it. Minns described the incident as “a big concern for us in New South Wales”. We do believe there’s been access to a New South Wales government agency as well. Not private information, not personal information, but a similar example of what is generalised information but was not released to the public, being accessed by an open AI agent. Minns said an investigation into the incident and the government’s cyber-security vulnerabilities will be launched. We need to and will examine its impact, both the technology and the vulnerabilities in our confidential information. New South Wales will be working with commonwealth intelligence agencies to get to the bottom of it, firstly to identify how this happened and secondly to breach the gap so that it doesn’t happen again. Marles says many ministers have known of hack ‘less than a week’ Marles is getting pressed on the timeline surrounding the breach and when Australians were told, saying many government ministers have only known about the hack for a “less than a week”. Making this public has its own consequences. We needed to do it with a certain amount of information at hand. The incident itself is obviously very serious. It’s very serious that we’ve got an AI agent having gained unauthorised access into an Australian website. Now, the moment that we felt that we were in a position to have that information at hand and to responsibly inform the Australian public, we have. Marles ‘grateful’ to OpenAI for engaging after Medicare hack Richard Marles, the acting prime minister, is speaking in Sydney about the OpenAI hack. He said the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet will institute a taskforce to look at the incident and examine Australia’s posture with respect to cyber threats. “It will look at the security of government networks, it will look at the legal arrangements that we have in place in respect of an incident of this kind,” Marles said. I want to say and acknowledge that OpenAI have been working with us very cooperatively here. They have clearly notified us of this and engagement with them has been critical to understanding what has occurred. We are grateful for that. That said, what has occurred here is obviously completely unacceptable. All of this, I think, we can take as a warning in relation to the development of AI itself. It is so important that this technology, which represents such an enormous opportunity for humanity, is nevertheless being developed in a way where the guardrails, the safeguards, are well ahead of the capability itself. The government services minister, Katy Gallagher, said she has requested a fast-tracking of funds earmarked in the federal budget to safeguard Services Australia and other government websites. I’ve also asked whether the $160 million we had in the last budget to do a cyber uplift of Services Australia essential infrastructure, can or should be accelerated. And also that legacy public–facing websites, I’ve asked that the information there be moved to data.gov.au, or put on alternative existing secure platforms, or they get decommissioned. This is a legacy system. It dates back decades. ‘We want big tech to take accountability,’ Wells says after Medicare hack Anika Wells, the federal communications minister, just spoke in Brisbane. She was asked about OpenAI, and had this to say: We want big tech to take accountability. We want an unregulated industry to implement some basic safety standards here on Australian shores, and that’s what I’ll be trying to do when I introduce the digital duty of care in October. Wells said an investigation into the matter is ongoing, confirming the Australian Signals Directorate is still looking into whether there had been any criminal breaches here, and if so, if there should be repercussions. Greens call for US ambassador to be grilled over Medicare hack The Greens have called the OpenAI incident “a serious attack on Australia’s sovereign interests”. The acting Greens leader, Mehreen Faruqi, has called for the new US ambassador, David Brat, to be called in by the government over the incident revealed this morning. “This breach by a foreign AI company on an Australian government database is deeply alarming and brings home the risks that these out of control tech corporations pose. The fact that the government did not even know it happened is disturbing,” she said. These billion dollar corporations will not take taskforce investigations or statements seriously. They will respond to strength. Now is the time for the prime minister to fight for Australia’s interests and implement a moratorium on data centres in Australia until we have regulations protecting people and the country. If hacking Medicare and taking two months to alert the government doesn’t push Labor to treat AI with the seriousness it deserves, what will? Independent senator David Pocock put out a statement this morning, saying the breach highlights “how slow the Australian Government has been to implement appropriate safeguards for AI in high risk settings”. He went on: This begs the question about why the Albanese government shelved plans for a National AI Safety Act and why they are so slow to develop legislation to implement new standards. We have these companies warning of existential threat and hacking critical government infrastructure and the Labor government’s response is “We’ll get to that next year”. Pocock said there remained a “big question” as well about why “we aren’t holding these big tech companies liable for this kind of data breach”. If it was an Australian who hacked the system they’d likely be heading for jail, yet there’s no accountability for AI companies developing this technology. Groceries up 7% across Coles, Woolworths, IGA and Aldi, Choice says Groceries have become more expensive at all four of Australia’s major supermarket chains, with the average price of a basket of essentials increasing by 7% between March and June, new analysis has found. The consumer advocacy group Choice on Thursday released its 10th quarterly government-funded survey of supermarket prices, which it assessed by filling a basket with eight common grocery items at 104 different stores in June. The basket – containing milk, royal gala apples, strawberries, bananas, potatoes, avocado, basmati rice and beef mince – increased in price by 7% across Coles, Woolworths, Aldi, and IGA since Choice’s last survey in March. Read more here: Taylor says Labor needs to do more explaining after OpenAI breach The opposition leader, Angus Taylor, said the OpenAI breach amounted to a “serous warning” about online security in the age of artificial intelligence. Taylor spoke to 4BC this morning, criticising the Albanese government for not doing enough to protect system security in the age of AI. He said: A lot of our personal information is on those systems. So the government needs to explain when it first became aware of the breach, exactly what information was accessed, what vulnerability was exploited, and how they’re closing it … This is a government and a set of ministers who are more obsessed in talking about their own power, looking in the mirror as we see in the papers over the last couple of days talking about how powerful they are, rather than getting on with focusing on the issues that matter to Australians. Keeping Australians safe is right at the top of the list. Victorian premier says he spoke to PM overnight about OpenAI breach Ben Carroll says the prime minister informed him of the OpenAI hack of Medicare overnight. Asked whether any Victorian health records were compromised, he says: [We are] working through this matter, and information is coming to hand literally as we speak. I’ll have more to say on this later … What he [the prime minister] has been able to assure me, though, his initial advice is there has been no compromise of personal private information, but we are stressing this is early days in the investigation Letting dogs in pubs means ‘moving with the times’, Victorian premier says The Victorian premier, Ben Carroll, held a press conference at the London Tavern in Richmond this morning to announce his election commitment to allow dogs in pubs, and allow venues to stay open until 3am. He says: We’re going to move with the times. All over Europe, pubs have been pet friendly for years – decades, in fact. And as we’ve just seen, when you come to a pub that’s pet friendly, everyone benefits. So we are now going to allow our pubs to allow pets such as dogs. The final decision will be the pub, but we want our pubs to be family friendly, where everyone can come enjoy the company. And we also know what’s been shown in Europe is that pubs that are pet friendly and allow dogs benefit everyone. The economy grows; they become more family friendly, and everyone has a great time. Albanese had some more to say about the OpenAI breach this morning … The prime minister told reporters this morning a bit more about the OpenAI breach, saying the notification from the company was sent to a public mailbox when it ultimately came through: It was that it took until 10 September before there was any notification at all [from OpenAI]. And the notification was an email sent to just the public mailbox. As I’ve said, part of the investigation will be whether there are any issues that need to be referred to the Australian Federal Police. He said the government is aware of three other systems that may have been impacted, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research and the Victorian Department of Health. A timeline of the OpenAI breach of Medicare data An OpenAI models accessed private Medicare data in June, but the company said it did not become aware of the activity until August during an ongoing review of the model’s activity. Services Australia was notified weeks later, on 10 September, after OpenAI says it spent the intervening time investigating how and what was accessed. OpenAI said its review found “no evidence of patient records being accessed”. “The information accessed included aggregate health statistics and internal file names,” the company said. “Our overall review is ongoing, and we remain committed to transparency about these issues and to sharing what we learn as that work continues.” Dogs would be allowed inside pubs across Victoria if Labor wins the state election in November, the Carroll government has announced. Labor vowed to amend the Food Act 1984 to overturn the ban on dogs in venues and said consultation would following regarding front bars, dining rooms, and whether food could be served. Publicans decide the music, the menu and the crowd. They should get to decide whether dogs are allowed inside. Victorian Labor said it would also allow pubs to open until 3am under an additional election promise. Noting an “an onerous process to trade past 1am” the government said it would legislate the “automatic right” to stay open until 3am. Richard Marles, the acting prime minister, said the government is “working through” if the OpenAI breach would amount to an offence and result in a penalty. He told RN earlier: We will look at what is the legal situation in respect of this and what it means to have gained an unauthorised access, albeit in an unintended way. So that is one of the questions that we’re continuing to investigate through the taskforce. OpenAI Medicare breach ‘is a warning’, Marles says Marles said the information accessed was at the “lower end of sensitivity” and the website with the data had relatively low levels of security when compared with anything to do with national security. We keep our most important national security information behind a fortress. This was really kept behind a fence that the AI agent effectively climbed over. But he said the incident reflected the urgent need to learn “all the lessons we can” and secure the country’s information. I mean, this is a warning about the fact that artificial intelligence, which is a technology that has huge opportunity to benefit humanity, has to be developed with enormous care. There have to be guardrails and safety measures in place which are way ahead of the capability which is being developed. We do need to have guardrails in place. We do need to be developing this technology with extreme care. And I think that’s the point that we should take from this incident. Marles says government only learned of OpenAI breach when company told officials Richard Marles, the acting prime minister and minister for defence, said the government only learned of the breach when OpenAI raised it with officials. Marles said: The impact … is relatively minor, inasmuch as no personal information has been accessed here. The system itself hasn’t been compromised. That said, this is a really serious incident. Marles went on to say that an AI model was given a “benign task” of researching health and medical statistics and approached four Australian medical websites. Three were only used as a member of the public might, but the agent effectively hacked into the fourth related to Medicare to obtain the information it was seeking. The information is benign in a sense … the impact is relatively minor, but the incident is very serious. We’ve seen an artificial intelligence agent, in an unintended way, access an Australian government website in a way which is unauthorised, and that is obviously deeply unacceptable. More than 600 Qantas ground crew workers have begun a 24-hour strike this morning across the country over an escalating industrial dispute. Qantas said that it has contingency plans in place and any impacts would be felt primarily by the airline’s freight and regional QantasLink services. The Transport Workers’ Union says the airline’s use of subsidiaries, instituted under former Qantas management, had frustrated attempts to bring pay and job security in line with industry standards. The union wants to replace multiple enterprise agreements for ground staff and freight handlers with one agreement. In a statement Qantas said it did not expect any disruption to customers. We remain focused on reaching an agreement through the bargaining process and continue to engage constructively with the union. Australia signs new strategic partnership with the Netherlands Australia has signed a new strategic partnership with the Netherlands, seeking to boost defence ties and secure justice for the victims of the MH17 disaster, Australian Associated Press reports. Anthony Albanese met with his Dutch counterpart, Rob Jetten, on the sidelines of the United Nations. As part of the partnership, the two countries will work more closely on security issues, economics and trade, as well as further support to Ukraine against Russia’s invasion. The two countries also promised to uphold efforts to pursue justice for the victims of the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. The flight, which departed from Amsterdam, was downed by a Russian missile in 2014 and killed all 298 passengers and crew on board, including 38 Australians. The statement said: Australia and the Netherlands remain resolute in their commitment to pursuing truth, justice and accountability on behalf of the victims of the downing of MH17 and their next of kin. Good morning, Nick Visser here to grab the blog. Let’s get to it. Albanese pays tribute to Ukraine’s resistance Albanese said the bilateral agreement would be in place not only during the war in Ukraine, but during peacetime once the conflict concludes. The prime minister became emotional as he paid tribute to his “friend” Zelenskyy in his fight against Russian aggression. “[Zelenskyy’s] leadership has been, I think, quite extraordinary, leading people in circumstances which are extraordinarily difficult,” he said. “Russia thought it could just steamroll through in a matter of weeks, and what we have found is that the people of Ukraine were underestimated.” The two leaders hugged when they first met in-person at the summit, with Zelenskyy thanking Australia for its support to Ukraine throughout the conflict. “[The agreement is] the strongest document between our countries,” he told reporters. “We really will increase our co-production and trade and, of course, security, which is really important. “It’s all for our people, for the security.” As part of the agreement, Australia will also step up training to help Ukrainian forces deter and repel any future Russian attacks. It will also look to explore cooperation for training centres and jointly produce air-defence measures, missiles and drones. Australia will join forces with the United Kingdom and Norway-led coalition to help support the development of Ukraine’s navy. Work will be carried out to strengthen Ukraine’s maritime capability. Australia and Ukraine will also work together to rebuilding infrastructure such as military healthcare facilities and training centres. Extra sanctions have also been imposed on Russia, coinciding with the announcement of the agreement. It brings the total sanctions placed on Russia and its supporters by the federal government to more than 1900. In a busy day of dipolomacy, Anthony Albanese also announced Australia will provide $60m more in support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s invasion as part of a fresh security agreement, Australian Associated Press reports. The prime minister met Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr ⁠Zelenskyy, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The 10-year bilateral security agreement, signed by both leaders, will lead to an extra $45m in Australian Defence Force equipment for Ukraine. A further $10m will go to Ukraine’s energy support fund, while $5m will be spent on humanitarian assistance. The $60m fund will bring Australia’s total contribution to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in 2022 to $1.9bn. The prime minister said the agreement was a proud day for Australians in seeking to uphold international laws. Albanese told reporters in New York upon signing the agreement. This is an issue not just for Europe, this is an issue for the world. If a large, more powerful country in Russia is allowed to profit from breaking the international rules of law with its illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine, then that sets a bad precedent for the entire world. PM to say Indo-Pacific ‘not a chessboard’ for superpowers While Australia had ties with the US and China as its key security and trading partners respectively, Albanese will say the competition between the two powers should not be the only lens the Pacific should be dealt with. The Indo-Pacific is not a chessboard on which superpowers move the pieces Its countries are not spectators, they are shaping its future and writing their own script. The prime minister will make the speech after receiving the Atlantic Council’s Global Citizen award, where he is being recognised for his role in deepening alliances and promoting security and stability in the Indo-Pacific. He will be among four award recipients at the event, including Formula One boss Stefano Domenicali, the president of Finland, Alexander Stubb, and actor Cynthia Erivo. The international world order set up after the second world war is no longer fit for purpose, the prime minister will declare in a major foreign policy speech in New York, Australian Associated Press reports. In an address to the Atlantic Council, Anthony Albanese will argue partnerships with alliances remain crucial in a rapidly changing global environment. Since the end of the cold war, the prevailing assumptions of international affairs were clear: openness was security, efficiency mattered more than resilience and international rules would be observed. Those assumptions rested on the expectation that the influence of the major democratic powers would remain largely unchallenged. The post-1945 world order is no longer fit for purpose. Universal institutions that remain necessary are now not always sufficient for the challenges we face. The prime minister will say Australia needed to shape a world order that will replace the old one, while preserving diplomatic rules. Albanese will point to the strategic competition between the United States and China in the Indo-Pacific region as being the most consequential issue facing the region. OECD says Australia will struggle to get underlying inflation below 3% The OECD says Australia will struggle to bring underlying inflation back below 3% in 2027, despite sub-par economic growth in this year and the next. The OECD in its interim economic outlook flagged that the world economy had again proved more resilient than expected to the global energy shock triggered by the Iran war. The AI boom had papered over many of the cracks, the report said, adding that “global economic prospects remain heavily dependent on whether a durable resolution to the Middle East conflict is achieved”. With fuel costs here jumping and inflation proving more persistent than hoped, there is a strong consensus that the Reserve Bank will deliver another interest rate hike next Tuesday – the fourth this year. The OECD projected Australia’s headline inflation would drop from 4.1% this year, to 2.8% in 2027. But “core” inflation – which removes the effects of big price swings, like for fuel – would prove harder to shift back into the RBA’s 2-3% target range. The OECD expected the underlying price growth measure to ease from 3.5% in 2026 to 3.1% in 2027. “Faced with renewed energy price shocks and stronger than expected demand pressures, and at a time when inflation is already above target in many economies, central banks need to ensure that underlying inflation pressures are durably contained,” the OECD said. Anthony Albanese has revealed an artificial intelligence agent developed by OpenAI hacked Medicare in June. The prime minister made the comments at the UN summit in New York. This incident occurred in June this year and involved an Open AI agent gaining unauthorised access into the public-facing Medicare statistics reporting service portal, which is administered by Services Australia. The AI agent accessed both public and non-public files. A forensic investigation, aided by the Australian Signals Directorate, is now under way to ascertain more information, including what other government systems were affected. The Medicare statistics reporting portal is a public-facing statistics portal that contains non-sensitive Medicare information relating to data and statistics, such as spending. No personal information is believed to have been accessed at this stage but investigations are ongoing. Evidence currently available is there is no broader compromise to the Services Australia network. Nonetheless, this situation is obviously unacceptable. Today, I spoke with the CEO of Open AI, Sam Altman, to express Australia’s extreme concern about this incident. And I also expressed my disappointment that it took the company way too long to inform the government what had occurred. Welcome Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it will be Nick Visser with the main action.