Monday, 21 September - I watch you shine

September 21, 2026

Good morning, it’s Monday, 21 September. In your Squiz Today…

  • Mapping out what Oz might look like in 40 years

  • The royal row between Buckingham Palace and Princess Diana’s brother

  • And stars honour Aussie music legend John Farnham…🎤

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🙋🏻‍♀️ This newsletter was written by Andrew Williams, Anna Pykett and Sophie Felice

Squiz the Weather

Squiz Sayings

“It’s wild.”

Said conservationist Rob Brewster about new research which shows that a third of us think quolls aren’t native to Oz (they are) and a fifth of us think cane toads are locals (they aren’t). We suspect that last number goes down a lot if you just ask Queenslanders…

Talking ‘bout your intergeneration

The Squiz

Today, Treasurer Jim Chalmers will release the latest Intergenerational Report - a document that basically tries to predict what current government policies mean Aussie life will be like 40 years from now. It’s sort of like a long-range economic weather forecast, and Chalmers sounded a bit like a meteorologist with bad news yesterday… He says the report is “confronting” and lays out serious economic challenges in the years ahead.

What’s so confronting?

The big front rolling in over the coming decades will be our ageing population. Come 2066, girls born in Oz are expected to live until about 90yo and boys to 86yo - roughly 4 years more on average. While Chalmers said that’s a tick for our approach to health, it’s putting pressure on the budget - more pensions, more stress on our health and aged care systems, etc. The report also reckons our population will grow more slowly than the last prediction back in 2023 - we’ll have 1.8 million fewer people than we thought. Which means fewer working-age people paying tax to keep the budget afloat, and more people drawing pensions from it. Which brings us to debt.

What’s the debt problem?

You might expect all that to put more pressure on our debt (which recently cracked $1 trillion), but not according to this report, which reckons it’ll be about $500 billion lower than the 2023 report predicted. That’s based on an assumption that our growth in productivity (how much we produce in each hour we work) will rise - to 1.2%. The catch is that to get to that number, this report’s switched to using the average for the last 30 years - but that doesn't reflect more recent stats that show it’s been 0.3% for the last 10, and 0.8% for the last 20. Use the 20-year average instead,  (like the last report did), and the whole $500 billion improvement evaporates. Coalition Treasury spokesman Tim Wilson says the government is “cooking the books” to make the numbers look better. The big variable here is AI, which the report says could push productivity up - but how far is an open question…

Squiz the Rest

A wave of violence in NSW

Three women have been killed in what police say are separate domestic violence incidents involving men they knew over the weekend. Officers say a 90yo from Bondi Beach, a 23yo from Wagga Wagga and a 70yo in Mole River in the Northern Tablelands were allegedly murdered within hours of each other on Saturday. All 3 suspects have been charged and are being held by police. NSW Premier Chris Minns said the crimes were “shocking”, and state Coalition leader Kellie Sloane said Australia was “failing women” across the country. It’s been a grim weekend in NSW - police are also investigating after a child was found dead in a car in the Blue Mountains, alongside 2 more children and a woman with serious stab wounds. They say it’s too early to say if that case is also related to domestic violence.
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Somewhere that’s Greenland

On Saturday, the US, Denmark and Greenland announced a new security agreement giving the US permanent military access to the island. Btw - Greenland is not an independent country - it’s technically part of Denmark. But its location makes it strategically handy for the US, so US President Donald Trump has long had it in his sights as a possible American territory instead. Trump says the agreement means the US has control over Greenland’s security and “all other needs” - aka America’s calling the shots there now, but Denmark and Greenland have been careful to clarify that sovereignty hasn’t changed hands - aka it’s still their island. The exact wording isn’t public yet, so we’ll see which take is backed by the fine print at the UN this week, where the parties are set to sign off on it.

A royal back and forth

As if the British Royal Family didn’t have enough going on, a new book is causing them even more havoc. On Wednesday, Charles Spencer - the younger brother of Princess Diana - will release Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, his memoir of the siblings’ childhoods and lives together. Ahead of its release, it’s been making a bunch of headlines, particularly around a claim that King Charles said “we’ll forget her soon enough” during a tense phone call with Spencer in the wake of Diana’s death in 1997. That was enough to earn a relatively rare rebuttal from the Palace - a spokesperson pushed back on the claim, arguing that “the pain of fraternal grief can… colour memory” - aka, Spencer was misremembering things. Expect more news when the book is released in full this week. 

The comeback kings

There’s plenty of sport going on at the moment (see our Apropos section for proof of that), but Saturday night’s Brisbane/Hawthorn AFL preliminary final is worth getting across… Analysts are calling it the greatest game in the league’s modern history, a high-scoring, see-sawing contest where both teams launched huge second-half comebacks. In the end, Brisbane got the chocolates, and on Saturday, they’ll play the Fremantle Dockers in the Grand Final. And spare a thought for Freo, who pulled off the club’s biggest final quarter comeback in its history to defeat the Sydney Swans on Friday, only to be slightly overshadowed by one of the best games ever played. They’ll just have to content themselves with a crack at their first-ever flag on Saturday afternoon.

It’s a song of the heart

A stack of stars turned out for a tribute concert to Aussie music legend John Farnham last night, to raise funds for Head and Neck Cancer Australia. Farnham himself wasn’t able to be there - the day before the show, Farnham’s family shared that his health (following an oral cancer diagnosis in 2022) has deteriorated to the point where he needs around-the-clock care. But plenty stepped up in his absence, including Keith Urban, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Hugh Jackman and Celine Dion - who received the honour of performing Farnham’s signature tune, You’re the Voice (remotely from Paris), after dealing with some health challenges of her own. John’s son Rob Farnham thanked the sold-out crowd during the show, saying that seeing everyone there would warm his dad’s heart.

Apropos of Nothing - Sportstravaganza edition

The NRL has its final 4 teams - the Dolphins, Sydney Roosters, Penrith Panthers and Newcastle Knights are still in with a shot of winning the premiership. But after losing to the Knights last night, the NZ Warriors’ chances of winning their first-ever flag will have to wait another year.

Congrats are in order for our national wheelchair basketball team, the Rollers, who have won their first world title since 2014. They thumped Italy 81-57 to win the title in Ottawa, Canada - don’t celebrate too hard, that’s a loooong trip home… 

And it was a less successful outing for Australia’s tram driving team (yes, it’s a thing), who finished second-last at the European TramDriver world championships in Warsaw on Saturday. We’ll hope to do better in next year’s event on home soil, which will be hosted in - you guessed it - Melbourne.

Squiz the Day

9.00am (AEST) - Treasurer Jim Chalmers to release the 2026 Intergenerational Report, a snapshot of expected changes in the economy over the next 40 years

10.00am (AEST) - Trial begins for former NSW Police officer Beau Lamarre-Condon for the alleged murder of TV presenter Jesse Baird and Luke Davies - Sydney 

10.00am (AEST) - Day one of the inquest into the 2021 Hillcrest Primary School jumping castle tragedy in Tasmania, in which 6 children died and another 3 were seriously injured (until 25 September, with further hearings in November) - Devonport 

7.30pm (AEST) - AFL: The 2026 Brownlow Medal, which recognises the Fairest and Best player in the AFL competition this year. Here’s a not-so-hot tip: Collingwood’s Nick Daicos is the most dominant favourite in recent history to win his first medal - Melbourne 

PM Anthony Albanese is in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, where he’s expected to officially launch Australia’s bid for the Security Council - for all the background to that, check out our Squiz Shortcut…

Northern Territory, Queensland and Victoria school holidays begin 

Start of Dementia Action Week (until 27 September) 

Zero Emissions Day

National days for Armenia, Belize and Malta

Birthdays for Stephen King (1947), Bill Murray (1950), Kevin Rudd (1957), Billy Porter (1969), Liam Gallagher (1972), and Nicole Richie (1981)

Anniversary of:

• the passing of a proclamation announcing the formal abolition of the French monarchy during the French Revolution (1792)

• the publication of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit (1937)

• the proclamation of the People's Republic of China by the Chinese Communist Party (1949)

• the publication of a genomic study finding Indigenous Australians are the oldest known civilisation on earth in Nature (2016)

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