Friday, 21 March - I'm not sick but I'm not well

March 21, 2025

Good morning, it’s Friday, 21 March. In your Squiz Today…

  • Our leaders say the PBS is off limits

  • The consumer watchdog has a plan to make groceries cheaper

  • And how to make a great hot cross bun at home

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Squiz the Weather

Squiz Sayings

“I’m cold and I am shamed, lying naked on the floor."

Sung popstar Dua Lipa, covering Natalie Imbruglia’s Torn during the second Melbourne show of her Radical Optimism tour, where she’s performing a surprise Aussie song every night. She’s also tackled AC/DC and Kylie Minogue - Daryl Braithwaite’s Horses can’t be too far away…

Protecting the PBS

The Squiz

Even the threat of US tariffs won’t affect Australia’s commitment to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) after both major parties said it’s not up for negotiation yesterday. The US pharmaceutical lobby has asked US President Donald Trump to use tariffs (aka taxes) as retaliation for the scheme, which it says breaches the free trade agreement between Australia and the US. Both PM Anthony Albanese and Coalition leader Peter Dutton said no deal to that idea - instead, they’ve both promised to invest more money into the PBS if elected.

Why doesn’t US pharma like the PBS?

Because it costs them money. The PBS makes hundreds of medicines cheaper for the Aussies who need them by subsidising the cost. We’ve dived into how this all works in our latest Squiz Shortcut, but the upshot is that because those subsidies help keep prices down, US pharma companies aren’t big fans. The argument goes that because prices are lower, that means less money to invest in medical research, but Australia still gets to reap the benefits of that research without contributing to the cost. That’s why US industry lobby group PhRMA has written to President Trump, asking him to put tariffs on our pharmaceutical imports as retaliation for the existence of the PBS.

Is that something he would do?

TBD, but as recent history tells us, Trump does like a tariff - and he flagged in his first term that pharma products were on his radar. When he brought in global tariffs on steel and aluminium, Australia argued that we should be exempt because of our trade surplus with the US - which is when they sell more to us than we sell to them. That hasn’t worked so far, but guess what… We also have a trade surplus on pharmaceuticals, so that point might come up again. And it’s not stopping at pharma… Reports say our News Bargaining Incentive - which would see big US tech companies who don’t do deals with Aussie news publishers for their content pay a levy instead - is also in the firing line. 

As well as our Shortcut to the PBS, we’ve also got a Shortcut to Donald Trump’s tariffs if you’d like to dive deeper into the topic…

Squiz the Rest

Paying tribute to Lilie

The family of Sydney sports coach Lilie James has shared a statement about the 21yo as hearings for the inquest into her death wrap up. Jamie and Peta James told the court their daughter had “a love for adventure and a smile that could light up a room”, and that they’d never recover from her death. James was murdered by her former boyfriend, Dutch national Paul Thijssen at Sydney’s St Andrew’s Cathedral School in October 2023. New video evidence of Thijssen in the lead-up to the murder was also shared yesterday, with domestic violence experts saying he tried to control and manipulate James after she broke up with him. Now the inquest is over, the coroner will make its report - there’s no date for that as yet.

Election drama hits Turkey

Protests have broken out in Istanbul after the man seen to be President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s main political rival was arrested. Ekrem Imamoglu has been accused of corruption and leading a terrorist organisation by prosecutors - claims he denies, calling them “lies” and “conspiracies”. For context, Imamoglu is the current mayor of Istanbul and was days away from being confirmed as Turkey’s opposition presidential nominee, representing the secular Republican People's Party. His supporters have described his arrest as a “coup” led by Erdogan, who’s been in power for more than 2 decades… Despite the next presidential election being scheduled for 2028, experts say it could be called early - before the end of this year.

A plan to tackle grocery prices

A report into our supermarkets by Australia’s consumer watchdog says that Aussies are paying more for groceries due to the dominance of Coles and Woolies and has some ideas on how to go about changing that. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has made 20 recommendations, including tackling shrinkflation by telling shoppers when a product is smaller than before, making pricing, loyalty programs and sales easier to understand and making it easier for competitors to enter the market. The report didn’t find that the big 2 had breached any competition laws, but did say that they were among the most profitable in the world - and that it currently wasn’t “in their interest” to compete on prices.

A speedy Kiwi

It’s not just Gout Gout setting the athletics world on fire at an early age… A 15yo New Zealander is the youngest person ever to break the 4-minute mile. Sam Ruthe is already New Zealand’s youngest national champion in the 3000m, but he said his favourite goal was the 3:58:35 he ran in Auckland this week. The 4-minute mile has been a major mark in world athletics for decades - it was once described as “sport’s greatest goal” before Brit Sir Roger Bannister cracked it in 1954. About a month later our very own John Landy was the second person to do it when he ran 3:57:9 in Finland. And we’ve got our own star in this area - experts say Aussie 18yo Cam Myers is one to keep an eye on…

The hottest of hot cross buns

The consumer advocacy group CHOICE has put in the hard yards by taste-testing the various hot cross buns on offer at Australian supermarkets to work out the best bun for your buck. CHOICE says hot cross buns have been available for sale since Boxing Day, so they’ve had plenty of time to do the research. Lucky them… Coles dominated the results, winning both best fruit bun for their “luxurious” range (better toasted than fresh, says CHOICE) and best choccy variant (better fresh than toasted). If you’re no fan of gluten, Aldi’s the place to go for fruit and Woolworths for chocolate. And this time of year usually brings some novelty variants with it, but we haven’t seen anything that beats the Pizza Shapes-inspired bun from last year…

Friday Lites - 3 things we liked this week

If you’re now in the mood for hot cross buns and want to give them a whirl at home, this classic Donna Hay recipe has you sorted. Make some original buns with dried fruit, or swap it out for your own creative flavour combos. The possibilities are endless…

We suspect one of the defining TV series of 2025 will be Adolescence, a 4-part Netflix drama about a 13yo boy accused of murdering a female classmate. Each episode is one unbroken shot, it’s beautifully scripted and acted, and a compelling, tough and relevant watch.

The Steven Soderbergh film Black Bag is a fun little spy thriller with a fantastic cast, including Michael Fassbender and our very own Cate Blanchett as a married pair of spies who may or not be betraying each other. It’s in cinemas now and it’s a very taut 94 minutes long…

Squiz the Day

Friday
World military leaders are meeting in the UK to discuss launching the ‘coalition of the willing’ which aims to maintain peace after a ceasefire in Ukraine

9.00am (AEST) - World Science Festival (until 30 March) - Brisbane

12.00pm (ACDT) - SA leaders’ debate between Premier Peter Malinauskas and Opposition leader Vincent Tarzia - Adelaide

12.45pm (AEDT) - Cricket: Women's T20I, Australia v New Zealand - Auckland, and watch on Kayo 

1.00pm (AEDT) - World Indoor Athletics Championships (on until 23 March) - Nanjing, China

CMC Rocks QLD

National Ride2School Day

Week of Solidarity with the Peoples Struggling against Racism and Racial Discrimination (on until 27 March)

World Poetry Day

Birthdays for actors Gary Oldman (1958), Matthew Broderick - aka Ferris Bueller - (1962), and Rosie O'Donnell (1962)

Anniversary of:

  • the death of Pocahontas (1617)

  • Persia officially being renamed Iran (1935)

  • the wedding of actors Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall (1945)

  • Ethiopia abolishing its monarchy after 3,000 years (1975)

  • Russia annexing the Crimean Peninsula (2014)

Saturday
8.30am (ACDT) - Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand Annual Scientific Meeting (until 25 March) - Adelaide

8.30pm (AEDT) - Earth Hour 

International Day of the Seal

Birthdays for actor William Shatner (1931), author James Patterson (1947), composer Andrew Lloyd Webber (1948), and actor Reese Witherspoon (1976)

Anniversary of:

  • the US confirming its troops used chemical warfare against the Vietcong (1965)

  • the Brussels terror attack which killed 35 (2016)

  • a terror attack on London's Westminster Bridge and Houses of Parliament, which killed 4 people (2017)

Sunday
6.00pm (AEDT) - Motorsport: F1 Chinese Grand Prix - Shanghai, and watch on ESPN

12.45pm (AEDT) - Cricket: Women's T20I Australia v New Zealand - Tauranga, NZ, and watch on Kayo

2.30pm (AEDT) - NBL Grand Final decider, Melbourne United v Illawarra Hawks - Wollongong, NSW, and watch on ESPN

Women's six nations rugby union season begins

Shaheed Day (Bangladesh)

Birthdays for celebrity blogger Perez Hilton (1978), and Eugenie, Princess of York (1990)

Anniversary of:

  • the 1st recorded use of "OK" [oll korrect] in the Boston Morning Post (1839)

  • the Battle of Okinawa, the largest battle of the Pacific War in World War II (1945)

  • the premiere of The Bold and the Beautiful (1987)